The Speaker speaks at a speech

To Portcullis House to hear the House of Commons Speaker, Big Johnny Bercow, give a speech on Parliament or something. Gratifyingly, the Attlee Suite was punishingly stuffy but, even more gratifyingly, free wine was on offer. I chose the red and took my seat. The lady in front of me turned round to reveal a strikingly pink face framed by ice-white hair, making her look like one of those little gibbons you see on the Richard Attenborough animal show.

A hush descends as Bercow, small in stature but stentorian of voice, takes to the dais (or is it a podium?). His speech is peppered with the tinkling sound of wine glasses being carelessly booted over by clumsy buggers. Carelessly late people continue to invade the room, including two violently ginger students who sit in a corner and bestow adolescent smirks on the congregation.

Sadly, the Q & A session is hijacked by a bearded monomaniac from UKIndependence Party who rumbles something tedious about the Lisbon Treaty, supported by a comrade-in-boredom. Bercow deflects them with faux olde-worlde courtesy: "Sir, prithee, mayhap thou wilt find that verily, sir, with the utmost and enduring respect.......". The crowd is getting restless; a 'reception' will follow and cognitive processes are turning to canapes and, dare to dream, vol-au-vents.

Finally, the speech is over and the crowd moves, nay surges, to the next room to be confronted by a paltry smattering of plates hosting unidentifiable splodges of food. Is that mackerel? Perhaps its a sausage? No, its aardvark croquettes smeared with vanilla pesto. There is much pushing, gouging, pinching and slapping; ligaments snap, cartilages tear as the crowd hoovers up the fare. Little cartons of fries with a desultory lump of fish are brought out and quickly consumed. One woman's plate of chicken (or it could have been walrus) is overturned by a wayward elbow. The UKIP contingent wield cocktails sticks with unerring precision. I scoff with voracious efficiency and demand my skip load of free wine before heading off, diffusing vinous essence, into the night.