Saturday 29 April

11pm. Just back from Electric. "It's like the last days of bloody Pompeii..." Shazzer was drunken-political-bore-ing on. "After Thatcher and all those shagging Tory sleazebags we had such hope for Labour and now it's just the same: Cherie Blair's hair bills, cash for peerages, released foreign criminals shooting everyone left, right and centre, and the Deputy Prime Minister shagging anything in red leather trousers. Why does this always happen in the end? 'Ere, shall we get another bottle?"

"Oh, it's just because of celebrity," breathed Jude, airily. "Politicians take the high moral ground when they're not in power because nobody wants to sleep with them. Once they've been in a while, everyone wants to shag them because they're famous, so they oblige. 'Ere, where's the bloody waiter?"

"But John Prescott's been sleeping with other people for years," I pointed out. "And actually I've always found him quite attractive."

"Yurgh, yurgh yurgh," yelled Shaz, miming vomiting.

"Well... if one had to sleep with a politician..." I said, defensively, "I always thought he'd be quite a laugh."

"OK," said Jude, "shag, marry, or push off a cliff: John Prescott, Tony Blair or Charles Clarke?"

"That's ridiculous... too obvious," snapped Shazzer. "You have to pick three where there's an element of dilemma: like Tony Blair, David Cameron and Jeremy Paxman."

"I wouldn't like to push anyone off a cliff," I said, suddenly feeling tearful. "And I'm not sure any of them would want to sleep with me."

"Oh, for God's sakes, Bridget. Stop being so bloody... pregnant. Anyway, are you looking forward to Tracey Prescott-Shagger's diary tomorrow, with horny exposés of your pin-up?"

"Actually, I think the whole thing's very prurient," I said, hoity-toitily. "People's private lives should be their own business. In Paris, it's assumed that people have discreet extramarital liaisons in sheer black stockings, and everyone is too adult to discuss or read about it. The tabloids are turning into the British national trademark - like snails in France or bullfighters in Spain."

Sunday 30 April

7am. Goody! Wonder if papers have come yet. Cannot wait to see diaries. Bank-holiday treat! Will just nip downstairs and see.

7.05am. Not there.

7.30am. Still not there. Grrr. Still, not as bad as for Prescott, waiting for papers to slip on to mat, trying to grab them before Pauline wakes up!!

7.45am. Will just pop down again and... Gaah! Was Daniel: "Jones. For fuck's sakes. It's the middle of the bloody night. Lie down and go to sleep." Humph. Is all right for him. Is not pregnant and thus can sleep for hours while self is expected to lie motionless in manner of log.

8am. Hahaha. Have got papers now.

9am. "It's weird! Weird! Tracey Prescott-Shagger did not seem emotionally involved or vulnerable at all: instead, having sex matter-of-factly in manner of dog or sheer-stockinged Frenchwoman. Is no sense of 'Why hasn't the Deputy Prime Minister rung?/told me he loved me?/promised to leave his wife? Why? Why?' Also has lorry-driver boyfriend at home and seems just as interested as in whether various other drivers/policemen might want to see her, as 'DPM'. Was much easier to identify with old Sara Keays-type mistress: only having affair because politician had promised to leave wife and make a life with her, becoming bitter and devastated afterwards: not just breaking it off because she 'didn't feel like having sex anymore'. Maybe, just as people cannot be bothered to vote anymore, as feel too indifferent to politicians, politicians' extramarital lovers have started to feel the sa..."

"Jones, will you bloody well shut up about John Prescott and go to sleep," yelled Daniel. Rather rudely I thought. Anyway, he will have to get up soon, as is hospital maternity tour. Really excited actually.

9pm. Humph. Have always believed fervently in National Health, but as ran in late, past grimy fire escapes and heating ducts, could sense Daniel was not onside.

"Do you really want to give birth in a Victorian Gentleman's toilet?" he muttered as we rushed along green-tiled, pipe-festooned, odd-smelling corridors.

"These big NHS teaching hospitals give the best medical care!" I trilled, in eerie, mindless echo of my mother.

"Victorian Gentleman's toilet in colonial Africa, more like," he whispered as we slipped in at the back of the tour. "I've never seen so many pregnant Muslims in my life. You'll end up getting a clitoridectomy. Half the signs are in bloody Arabic."

"Shut up," I hissed.

"Look!" he read out, "'Drop-in Breast Clinic', 'the D-Cup Café'! - Ding dong!! - 'Discount breast pumps'! There's a very lucrative little black market in breast milk, you know, Jones. Don't look at me like that. I'll give you 30 per cent. When did you ever hear of a cow that got 30 per cent?"

At least he distracted me from heart-sinking depressingness. Realised had been fantasising re: giving birth and being fussed over in fresh, flower-filled room, or: not being chucked out of scruffy labour room within hours of birth, surrounded by grim pipes, signs saying: "Dirty utility sluices!", "Germs everywhere!" and scary notices in foreign alphabets.

Horrifyingly, as we were looking at the "birthing pool", Daniel raised his hand: "What happens if two mothers want to use the birthing pool at the same time?" Oh God.

"They cannot. It is first come, first served," said the midwife.

"Really? Terrible pity."

"Excuse me," - a stressed-looking girl - "can you put aromatherapy oil in the birthing pool?"

"I'm afraid not," said the midwife.

"Not even if it's totally natural?"

"Nothing that makes the pool slippery."

"What if it's organic?" Daniel joined in. "And additive-free?" I kicked him.

"I think some people are being silly and rude," snapped the tense girl.

"Tofu?" added Daniel, at which I dragged him outside.

"Quite right, Jones," he said, taking my waist as we ran. "Let's go. NHS, my arse. If you must give birth, let's do it somewhere attractive."

All my left-wing loyalties and principles are slowly being ruined and eroded.