The Conservatives were out in force this morning, their blue blazers and rosettes far from matching their mood.

Labour, on the other hand, were nowhere to be seen. Which is a shame, as following the results their faces would no doubt have complemented their campaign banners perfectly.

No, this was not the mayoral election (sorry Boris fans). Or the GLA election (sorry Brian fans). Or even a county council election (sorry, erm... everyone else).

This was Potters Bar - but to those running, you would never have guessed it was anything less than a race for Number 10.

Scrapping the 10p income tax band was not one of Labour's most inspired ideas, it is safe to say. In fact, it was probably somewhere in the vicinity of JFK's "I think I'll take the open-top limo today" in November 1963, or Adam's decision to let Eve out of the kitchen to fetch something juicy for dessert.

Ok, so maybe it's not quite that bad. It's unlikely to be Brown's poll tax - Labour aren't going to depose a leader who's barely been in the job ten minutes, no matter how efficiently he's used that time to strangle the economy and drain all public trust out of central government. But unless he does some fairly acrobatic amends-making towards all those who have been hit over the head with a sledgehammer from this latest bit of creative economics, he'll have a fairly long queue of people more than eager to lick the envelope on his P45 and tell him all the wonderfully unprintable places he can stick that now-defunct 10p.

Because, you see, I am one of those people. And I am livid.

There are few things more amusing than seeing a very large person sitting on a very small chair, I realised last night.

This was one of the most important things I learnt during the course of the two-hour New Barnet Residents' Association meeting, in St James' Church in East Barnet Road, held to give locals the chance to get to the bottom of Tesco and Asda regeneration plans for the area.

The wonderful thing about writing for a local newspaper is that you get to cover such a variety of different topics.

One moment you're reporting on a turnip exposition in Potters Bar, the next you're donning your deerstalker and sideburns to solve the latest hit & run murder mystery in the Cricklewood heartlands.

Admittedly, it is the intriguing vegetable formations rather than the bloodthirsty criminals that tend to be the norm. But even the most mundane of events can seem somewhat exciting if you've never had the opportunity of covering anything like it before.

I like the idea of a national school lottery. Every year, on the first Saturday night of March, parents could huddle around their television set, nibbling their fingernails, tense with hope and anxiety.

The drums would roll, the lights would flash... and out the little ball would shoot into the waiting hands of Abi Titmuss, poised in pert expectation.

"And the next place at Greyfriars Comp goes to...." More drums, more flashes, more parental hands snatching at stress balls and tequila bottles... "Little Tommy Tucker of 14 Grudge Street! Well done, Tommy! And the best of luck!"

A new interpretation and translation policy has been introduced by Barnet Council, which stipulates that documents should no longer be automatically translated into the most commonly spoken languages in the borough.

Instead, every service will be required to judge each situation on its merits, and decide whether a translation or interpretation is necessary and/or desirable.