L-NIBS is deserved of an ongoing tale to call his own.

But, for the foreseeable future, Sam-not-enough’s experiences of life before, during and after his six-month enrolment as one of the millions of jobless remain integral to the Alresford town hack’s Continuing Story of Cressroads casting a microcosm of all that troubles a nation headed into its upcoming General Erection.

With only weeks to go, not a glimmer of interest in things political is shown by the likes of Sam at the bar of the town’s Doom and Gloom, while silver-haired Bloggy for a 24-year-old’s seriously Old Man in league with Frenchie, Alresford’s importer of canned gourmet legs of duck, offer the developing script for the Continuing Story of Cressroads a brace of septuagenarians eligible to vote for the past 57 years, but having cast their double-X-worth just the once and sworn never to repeat their mistake.

A mistake prompted by what was seen by many as the necessity to rid the Constituency of Cressroads of its Scottish-born Gerry Malone, MP; and, on account of their non-voting record, the pair are made singularly book-worthy by Janet Street Porter as the two most responsible for the Tory-held parliamentary Winchester seat passing to LibDem Chelsea strip fan Mark Oaten by a majority of only two votes: “Who among candidate Mark Oaten’s closest supporters would have known or thought to share the secret life of their candidate, and save two old codgers from blemishing their non-voting record?” the pair continue to grumble their regret over French red wine at the bar of the Tichborne Arms, alias Blog Central, as it came to be dubbed by the BBC.

“And young Sam ... any news?” Frenchie has a line all of his own in non-sequiturs.

“Long, thirsty story,” warns the town hack. “But, Mike, suffice to know that, within the past 48 hours, Sam was enrolled for more than an initial £300-worth of part-time coursework in IT and digital photography at Winchester’s Peter Symonds College.

“Twenty-four hours later, he was alerted by his Job Centre advisor to apply immediately for a related job opportunity within Hampshire County Council – but, no, Mike – not for a single minute is our Sam-not-enough likely ever to be assigned to photograph and share the county’s multi-million-pound hoard of art kept out of sight of its taxpayers.

“Though get this. Likelihood is that Irv, Jnr will be given the key to a first set of wheels. Not to deliver pizza, but better to enable him to attend college; scoot between assignments for his newly-acquired Sony digital camera with Zeiss lens; and to return home to his gift of a laptop for him to begin to burn and freelance a selection of his photos to potentially interested media.”

“Too much, old boy,” splutters the retired, world-travelled civil engineer with an insatiable work ethic and appetite for putting his gourmet duck legs on pub menus throughout Hogshire. “Too firkin much,” as folk hereabouts are suddenly encouraged better to exclaim.” – www.blogsbody.com