Oh rats.

I was on the phone to Carolan yesterday evening - just pause there for a second - I nearly wrote @Carolan and just caught myself in the nick of time. How bizarre. #signsyou'vebeenontwittertoolong

Anyway - I shall start again - I was on the phone to Carolan yesterday evening, just having a nice catch up. I was sitting in Embankment gardens, which is a lovely little space by Embankment tube station and out the back of the Royal Horseguards Hotel. I find it is a nice spot to sit and have telephone conversations that I've started on my way out of parliament and over to the train station.

As I was sat on a bench talking a little rat came out of the undergrowth cheeky as you please and, clinging on to the bottom of the bin next to the bench, was trying to get stuff out of the bottom of the bin through whichever hole he had decided was going to work for him. His little ratty legs swinging around underneath the bin, his fat ratty tail prostrate on the ground - this rat was fairly confident, I would say. He climbed down from the bottom of the bin - I didn't see what he was carrying - threw a contemptuous look in my direction (I may have disturbed him) and scurried off back into the undergrowth.

I was relaying all of this to Carolan as we spoke, she was by this point squealing on my behalf - she's had bad experiences with rats in London - but I have to say that this was my first one. I may now have the plague.