Did they? When? I recall Nick Clegg and David Cameron announcing the coalition without any consultation of the back-benchers. Did I miss a day's news?

The two parties work in rather different ways. Under Liberal Democrat rules, Clegg had to get authorisation from a meeting of the whole parliamentary party, then from the party's national executive, and finally from a special conference held in Birmingham over the second weekend after the election. Under Conservative rules, Cameron made his decision and that was all that was necessary.

In my last job, the IT team of two developers and a sysadmin reported to the IT Director. He was quite clearly a Director insofar as he owned 40% of the company and was legally liable for its actions, regardless of the number of people reporting to him. He was a Director from the day he and his two partners set up a limited liability company, even if at the time he was the sole developer.

Well that's Colossus buggered then.

It's Wash-up. Parliament is prorogued for the election at the end of today's proceedings. At this point the only things that can get through are those where the opposition agrees to let them through without spending time debating them. The Tories could have stopped this dead simply by insisting on debating any part of it, instead of just letting it through.

This way they get a bill they might have liked, with the side-benefit of being able to blame the other side when anybody objects to it.

I have 40-year-old knees which I hope to use for at least another 40 years. I may be prepared to spend $500 for that.

The "Belgium" wording for the Rory Award citation was added in the bowdlerised US version of the Life, The Universe And Everything book as a replacement for "fuck", but it originated, along with it's explanatory Guide-blurb, in series 2 of the radio version, as uttered by Zaphod as he hangs from the mile-long marble Nutrimatic Cup attached by the power of Art to the enormous statue of Arthur Dent on the planet Brontitall, as the final fling in his pleading to Ford that he just wants to be "swutting well rescued".