An extraordinary budget broadcast from Gordon Brown last night. The first 30 seconds saw him attempt to deliver his “goodbye to the days of boom and bust” routine while wearing a rosy-cheeked grin. The director had obviously spent several minutes telling him “Gord, you gotta give us 'happy', ok? You've told 40,000 civil servants where to go, for pete's sake, gimme a smile, huh?” (I'm imagining the director is from Chicago, alright) before standing behind the camera doing impressions of jungle animals to try and keep him jolly. But by second number 31 his toothy smirk had completely faded, and he was back to the dour Mr Brown we all know and love. If all that was an attempt to appear more voter-friendly, it didn't work for me… I prefer him when he's a bit narked. However, if it was because he'd just been told a great joke, well, I want to know what it was. “Did you hear the one about the frozen inheritance tax rates..” (etc)

A thoroughly good-natured Free French rehearsal last night, with all 5 of us working hard towards our ultimate goal of playing, er, a gig, somewhere, at some point. It's an expensive business. I've spent around £350 on this band in the last week, and I'm still no nearer achieving my ambitions of meeting Todd Rundgren or appearing on Saturday morning kids TV. Although: drummer Ken told me – between versions of forthcoming smash-hit “Living Together” – that the company he works for is starting a TV channel, and thus looking for presenters. I'd make an excellent TV presenter, albeit a flustered, irritable, unfriendly and slightly overweight one. But I know that I'd find the relentless tabloid abuse about my burgeoning waistline a bit upsetting, so I won't be applying. They'd only try getting me to smile, in any case.