Music Monday: Miliband special

So for one selfish reason at least I am glad that Ed Miliband won, because it gives my 'time I met him at a barbecue' anecdote so much more currency. Maybe I should save it until he's Prime Minister, but seeing as that's not exactly guaranteed, I will tell it now. It was around the time that Gordon Brown took over from Blair, but before we all hated Gordon; we were in Hay on Wye; he had a stinking cold.

Him: Hi, I'm Ed.
Me: Hi Ed. So what do you do?

(I paraphrase. We may have discussed the sausages and the quality of literary entertainment on offer first.)

Him: I'm an MP.
Me: Really? That must be very interesting. God, it's hard becoming an MP isn't it? How did you manage to get selected for your seat?
Him: I work very closely with Gordon Brown.

(Hear that sound? It's the sound of a penny not dropping.)

Me: Oh, now is a good time to be on Team Gordon. I like Gordon Brown. He reminds me of my dad.

(Gordon Brown does not remind me of my dad. They both have the same colour hair and that's about it.)

Him: So what do you do?
Me: I'm an author.
Him: I never read fiction.

(I like to think he said this so that he, too, would have contributed something idiotic to the conversation.)

Me: Oh well you should read my book anyway. In fact, what you should do is, when you have constituency surgeries in - where's your constituency?
Him: Doncaster.
Me: Is that in the north? Anyway, when you have constituency surgeries in Doncaster, you should always be reading Gods Behaving Badly when people come in, and be laughing loudly, and then put it cover side up on your desk and wipe your eyes and say "That's such a funny book. What can I do for you?"
Him: Please excuse me. I need to go to the loo now.

I have seen Ed Miliband in Hay on Wye on a number of occasions since, and every single time, I have hidden.

This is the song that I got stuck in my head when the leadership was announced. It is not by the Steve Miller Band but I'm glad to see that joke's still trucking along. No visuals, sadly all the ones where you can see the sequence from Cabaret have had their embedding disabled.