Daily catch-up: Clegg’s schmutter, other trousers and goth colour schemes

Mostly a lot of silliness, with some analysis of opinion polls in an attempt to raise the tone

1. The great controversy at the Liberal Democrats conference in Glasgow was what a politician was wearing. For once not a female one. "Is Nick Clegg wearing a black shirt with brown shoes?" asked General Boles. "No wonder they're at 6 per cent in the polls." In the press room at the conference debate raged: chinos, jeans or ... something worse?

Actually, the Lib Dems were on 7, 8 and 8 per cent in the three polls published yesterday. We had an Ashcroft poll, which put them level with the Green Party, a Populus poll and YouGov.

The three polls, in that order, showed, with the average in bold:

LAB 30, 37, 33, 33%

CON 32, 31, 35, 33%

LD 7, 8, 8, 8%

UKIP 17, 15, 13, 15%

Green 7, 3, 4, 5%

It does look as if the Conservatives are enjoying a post-conference bounce. No wonder there are Labour MPs who want Alan Johnson to step in. Intriguingly, the Telegraph reports a source saying that Johnson "privately accepts that if he had successfully challenged Gordon Brown in the run-up to the 2010 election Labour would currently be in power". Time to get out the old AJ4PM badges again.

2. Thanks to Tom Freeman for this update:

My life:

1) Put something off for ages and ages.

2) Do it.

3) Oh. That was easy.

4) Find something else to put off for ages and ages.

3. And to Andrea Mann for this:

"What's the first sign of madness?

"The opening chords of 'Baggy Trousers'."

This prompted a remark about cords, and the revival (via Nick Clegg and Paul Waugh) of one of my colleague Nigel Morris's jokes: "Have you heard about these corduroy pillows? They're making head lines."

4. And to Academics Say for this:

Knock knock.

Who's there?

To.

To who?

To whom.

5. If you missed David Cain's open letter to the male youth of today on How To Be A Man in The Independent yesterday, it is rather wonderful. Simmy Richman spoke to Cain for The Independent on Sunday (and also has important news of the Greatest Haiku Ever Written).

6. Finally, thanks to Euan McColm for this:

"Booked tickets for a goth convention on Humberside. I'm going to Hull in black."