ou can tell there's a General Election on the way.

In the short time I've been editor of this august publication, my phone has never been as busy as it is at the moment with calls from people of all political persuasions.

Even Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are getting in on the act here in Halton! (Only joking, of course. I don't give my number out to just anyone, you know.)

There are three weeks of campaigning and electioneering to go until polling day. The sentence you have just read will have the same effect as Marmite: you'll either sit up with interest or run for the hills. For readers who DO like a meaty political battle, then the World will be bringing you plenty to get your teeth into over the next few weeks, kicking off this week on pages eight and nine.

M

y daughter, who's just turned two, has come up with a new language - Cockney un-rhyming slang. As she was climbing the stairs to bed the other night, she said: "Up the pears and apples."

And while I'm on the subject of language, I've come out with two Spoonerisms recently. For the uninitiated, a Spoonerism is a linguistic accident where the speaker switches the first sounds of a pair of words. It takes its name from the Rev Spooner who was particularly prone to it.

In different conversations, I said 'farrot passion' (parrot fashion) and 'foon sped' (spoon fed).

What a fuff boon I am!