Sitting somewhere in arena will be interesting. Coulter will glare with her right eye at massive structure and lament that its lugubrious bathos was built with lachrymose tax dollars by schadenfreude liberals; all words found on pages 128 and 129 of her book.

Not to worry. Excuse yourself during first fight and go to gift shop in lobby. You’ll want to buy a voice-activated electronic dictionary with a LCD screen. There is no gift shop, but there is hair-coming-out-his-nose hotdog stand guy and — just your luck — he’s still got a few electronic dictionaries for $14.95; $16.95 with mustard.

Back in stands, you can now understand Coulter. Contretemps, you learn, means, affliction; epiphanic means something akin to religious, and @#%&* (page 309) means Hillary’s serious about running for president.

Wise guy that you are, you’ll want to have a bit of humor ready when Pacers and Pistons square off in row 12. While Artest is punching an epiphanic (page 105) fan in nose, you will turn and look Coulter in eye and quip, “Geez, I didn’t know these guys could play hockey!!”

If she sniggles (not in her book), you’ve made a hit. If she rambles on about why white hockey players don’t get fined for fighting because they’re, uh, white, then you’ve got a ways to go.

With game over, it’s time to escort Coulter to a fine dining establishment. At your date’s behest, you mark Ben and Jerry’s off list. Chinese sounds good and if you can’t understand your waiter, does it matter? You can’t understand your date, either.

The conversation turns to politics. (Who woulda known.) Coulter’s right eye gleams as she rants about feminist cornpones (page 235), gun owners’ rights and need to squarsh IRS like a bug. So far so good. You decide you may have met your match.

But then you bring up civil liberties and Coulter tussles her hair and – gasp! – she has a left eye after all. Her right eye now covered, she goes apoplectic over smarminess of war on drugs (pages 246 and 44.) “It’s not about drugs,” you explain. “It’s about personal rights.”

Her left eye glares.

“You know,” you add, “like Patriot Act.”

Her left eye bugs out.

Enough is enough, you decide. Noting O tattooed on her forehead, you get pick up tab. And tip.

The evening ends when you walk Coulter to door of her crib and give her a friendly kiss her on her tattoo. “No wonder,” you surmise, “the Libertarians in Connecticut didn’t want her on their ticket.”

Your conclusion is ineluctable (page 30.)

Looking back over last few months it is difficult to see what Labour have managed to get right. The National Education Targets for raising standards in our schools have been all but abandoned as Labour realise that this is neither an election winner or remotely likely of ever being achieved. The Iraqi war continues to be as unpopular as ever and with little chance of any quick fix. Leading up to next election bitterness between Tory and Labour leaders is likely to get worse rather than better.

Labour promised a better NHS and an improved education system. After years of Labour, general perception is that nothing has changed. If anything it has got worse. These are serious issues for Labour government that will cost them dearly in terms of votes. This election could be a close run thing after all.

So what is wrong with Britain? What are big issues? Crime is still seen as a big problem in UK. The NHS is in a mess. In some hospitals number of nurses from overseas outnumber those from UK. Our public transport is amongst most dangerous and expensive in world, rich get richer, minimum wages stay pitifully low and number of immigrants show no real signs of decreasing in any great numbers. The immigration issue is already a political hot potato which will cost Blair even more votes.

So, who will you vote for when time comes? If you stay at home then you can’t complain about who wins – Voting at least gives you that right!