Summits happening

Last week we had our quarterly recession summit where all of the big kahunas in umbrellaland get together and scare each other with Domesday scenarios. These summits used to be called meetings but serious times call for hyperbole and self importance. As it's on the recession I wear an appropriate tie (Duchamp, naturally). I do this to emphasise that if we're not careful we will piss everything away and the whole umbrella sector will go down the toilet.

Lester Twomore, head of the Umbrella Lottery Fund wears some expensive and brash silk tie but I think flaunting flashy material wealth at a discussion about how umbrella organisations are battling against the grim realities of a recession is wholly inappropriate.

I make my usual points about the Brolly Investment Bank and the brolly sector's VAT burden and the billions of pounds that our cash rich government should give us simply because we keep on asking for it remorselessly, like a kid on a long car journey ("Are we there yet? Are we there yet?").

I also forget about not blurring the lines between my position as CEO of BUBB with that of being chair of Umbrellabuilders or whatever we're now calling it by plugging loans from the latter. You can consolidate all of your umbrella debts into one easy payment and we're about to launch Cash for Brollies. Send us your unwanted gamps and we'll send you a couple of pence.

I took a call in the afternoon from Rick T'Hurd, the shadowy Tory umbrella spokesman and then had a teleconference call with Hubert, Twirley and some others about the upcoming Tory summit (there's that word again) BUBB is organising to ingratiate ourselves with the likely new government. But if Cameron puts out any more daft vote losing airbrushed posters we'll probably cancel and court Labour again. We have a great discussion and agree it is a fantastic opportunity for us to row together. We can really get stuck in and argue the toss and hurl personal insults and generally have a 24 carat ding-dong.

Then it was off to a roundtable at Feudal to discuss learning from local government. That took 5 minutes so we head off for dinner. I had dog biscuits so I could take the left overs home for Barkles, and I swiped my neighbours lambshank as well, before she'd eaten it. The wine was pleasant but no champagne. Times are hard! Apparently there's a recession on but even so, that shouldn't stop me brazenly chronicling a high-falutin lifestyle.

I do have to watch what I eat at the minute, however. My deputy, Hector Rule, has taken it upon himself to monitor my nutritional intake and I am paranoid he will try and poison me to get my job. He is a doctor after all so will have access to plenty of pills and potions.