“It’s a cock, silly,” is a line I haven’t heard since I was 14. So thank you to the reader who explained why I wasn’t getting any eggs from my balcony hen.

It has now been despatched by the man next door (who claimed he could do a kosher or halal strangling, whichever I preferred) and cooked with a jar of new Golden Wonder salt and vinegar flavour Chicken Tonight. I was trying to eat the foul fowl when up popped Mr P’s blazing convenience store on the TV news (round the corner from the P&F office and hitherto a lifeline for the all-too-frequent PR munchies).

As there hadn’t been a rioter within about two miles of our quiet corner of central London, this was a surprise. Mr P was grinning broadly when I caught up with him the next morning, still pumping a pair of aged bellows in the direction of the smouldering embers of his shop.

“All that useless Britvic NPD stock,” he exclaimed delightedly. “All gone!” Pepsi Raw turned out to be highly inflammable, so the whole lot went up in a trice. “Fortunately I renewed my insurance on Monday.” So Mr P turned out to be a truly independent businessman after all.

Rather like our great leader Karoline (with a K). She was due to launch a whole new range of firelighters this week, complete with top group Ash dressed as firemen singing their hit Burn Baby Burn atop a giant revolving barbecue in Trafalgar Square.

“We must press on regardless,” she said. “We will not be bowed. PR and democracy will triumph. Plus the client has already paid and I’m not giving the money back.”

You won’t be able to spot me in the Newsnight footage of this great event however, as - like many people in the square - my face is covered. But out of sheer embarrassment rather than criminal intent.