Inside the corridors of power - it's not all it's cracked up to be

The ultimate in tartiness today - a trip to No.10 Downing Street. Sadly not to see the PM, but rather one of his Special Advisors. Security actually seemed pretty stringent. Not sure whether that is because they've got the builders in or it's actually effective.

My second visit as had previously attended a reception for the Charity I was working for. This time however, we were ushered in through the front door and up the stairs to an unglamorous and poorly painted meeting room - Daffodil yellow in a listed building - yuk! Before ascending the stairs however, we were required to leave our mobiles in a rack at the front door. Each pigeon hole was numbered and just the right size for a mobile. I seleted a hole with the number 007 on and thought that that was a fitting space for my mobile - HM Government, licensed to thrill.

Meeting was good and afterwards we were ushered back to the front door - passing through a group coming in in the presence of Malcolm Rifkin and Lord Coe - shorter than I expected. On leaving the building, we posed for the iconic picture in front of the legendary front door - the PC on duty must be a dab hand at all manner of cameras and phones - he kindly oblidged so that we could all be in the shot and record our little bit of history.

As we left Downing Street we carried on our spotting and came face to face with Mayor Boris - also shorter in real life and now with a slightly shorter haircut,although still looking decidedly sheep dog like - all power to him however as he was actually walking along the road rather than arriving in a british limo.

And that was that. All over in a little over 30 mins - although great potential for spinning the story for the next couple of weeks. Picture to follow! Looks like that will be the highlight for the next few weeks. More soon...