There's nothing like a singalong with tired and emotional Lib Dems | John Crace

Monday

For many – especially the hacks – the highlight of the Lib Dem party conference is its glee club, which takes place on the last night and involves everyone getting very pissed and singing Lib Dem songs to well-known tunes. There is even a glee club songbook, a collection of all the songs party members have come up with over the years. New this year was Guide Me, O Thou Great Theresa, sung to the tune of Cwm Rhondda, and Hit the Road Zac, which felt a touch hubristic as Zac regained his Richmond seat at the last election. Perhaps the most surprising new inclusion was the Beatles-themed When You’re Seventy-Four. Its last verse was pure tragedy. “Tim took the blame/ And out came the knives/ Pushed him out the door / One by one the MPs said they wouldn’t stand/ Vince held all the cards in his hand / But on free movement/ Vince isn’t too sure/ Looks like we’re all screwed/ Will you still heed us?/ Will you still lead us?/ When you’re seventy-four”. As Vince Cable is already 74, it looks like some of his party already think he’s on borrowed time.

Tuesday

A report from Action on Hearing says that many restaurant diners are voting with their feet and choosing to get takeaways as they can’t hear a word anyone is saying over the ambient noise of piped music and/or other people shouting. One branch of Wagamama was found to be louder than a petrol lawn mower. The findings come as little surprise to me, as going out to dinner has become something of a nightmare over the past five years or so as my hearing has begun to fail. Even when sitting in a restaurant with just my wife and two children, I often struggle to keep track of the conversation and frequently just zone out and let the others carry on instead. Parties are by far the worst, though, as I can generally only pick up about one word in three that anyone is saying and have to make a guess at filling in the blanks. Asking someone to repeat themselves is virtually pointless, as more often than not I still can’t make out what they are trying to say. My wife keeps nagging me to get a hearing aid, but I haven’t done so yet. It’s only a matter of time though. The isolation is getting to me.

Wednesday

If going a bit deaf isn’t a sign of me getting on a bit, then my name certainly is. Being called John near enough carbon dates me as a bloke born before 1965. Back then John was consistently in the top two of all names given to boys in the UK and my parents duly followed the national trend. According to figures published by the Office of National Statistics, John has plummeted down the league table since the mid-60s and is now an outlier. Only 512 babies were called John, making it the 120th most popular choice, well behind names such as Charlie, Thomas and Jaxon. The most popular boy’s name – for the third year running – in 2016 was Oliver, which seems every bit as ordinary as John to me. I actually quite like having a dull name as it gives me so much less to live up to: when people meet me, they have very low expectations of me being in any way fun or interesting. Expectations that are increasingly met as I am too deaf to hear what they are saying.

Thursday

George Osborne has just picked up a new job as visiting fellow at Stanford University to go with his six others as editor of the Evening Standard, adviser to the US fund managers Blackrock, chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, international after-dinner speaker, Kissinger fellow at the McCain Institute in Arizona and honorary professor at Manchester University. You can’t fault George’s work ethic, though he might get more done if he wasn’t spending so much time searching through the Situations Vacant adverts. But I would like some guidance on the etiquette of holding multiple jobs. When applying for an extra job are you obliged to contact your other employers to say that, much as you are enjoying your current positions, you aren’t being really stretched and there are long periods of the day when you don’t have that much to do? And is it polite to offer to take a reduction in salary on your existing jobs now that you’ve found you aren’t quite as busy as you imagined and will be otherwise engaged for part of the year? Perhaps George could let me know. If he can find the time.

Friday

I gave up using Uber about two years ago after I was unable to drive for a few months following a knee operation. Not, I am ashamed to say, in protest at the company’s treatment of its drivers but because I just couldn’t get the hang of the app. Several times I thought I had requested a car only to be left standing by the side of the road when none turned up, and on at least one occasion I inexplicably managed to summon two cars that both arrived within seconds of each other. I ended up having to pay one driver £5 just to go away. After that, I rather gave up on Uber out of shame at my technological feebleness. That said, I have been paying through the nose ever since on the times when I have had to take a cab. Recently, the tube service broke down on my way back from a work do and a four-mile ride home cost me £23. On going into the office the next day, I found that other colleagues had travelled twice the distance home via Uber for just £15.

Digested week: Boris means Boris

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