Are we having fun yet? 24 days to go: Tom Meltzer's election diary

Careers guidance: post-election job ideas Ukip leader Lord Pearson irritated and delighted the diary in equal measure yesterday with a tirade against the EU couched almost entirely in children's storytime metaphors. Not only did he describe Britain's spending on Europe as "squandered squillions", an alliterative touch worthy of Dr Seuss himself, but he went on to refer to Brussels as a "corrupt octopus", which cheerfully implies the existence of octopi who are scrupulously incorruptible. Surely he'd do more for this nation, enmeshed in the tentacles of a sea monster though it may be, as a children's novelist? Floreat Etona: the mysterious Moggs He is probably most famous for canvassing from the window of his Bentley, and perhaps that's why Tory candidate Jacob Rees-Mogg appears to have gone missing. The diary rang his office a week ago to be told he would ring us as soon as he came in. We're still waiting. It's almost as if the Conservatives are hiding him deliberately. Meanwhile Jacob's sister, Annunziata Rees-Mogg, has dispelled any notion that she and her brother are throwbacks with her own Facebook page. The only hitch being she has listed herself not as a politician, or even a person, but as a local business. Picture of the day (above) Nick Clegg stages an elaborate metaphor for the leaders' debates, in which Brown and Cameron are children charging at each other across a muddy rugby pitch, while Clegg is a fully-grown man standing awkwardly in the middle and being totally ignored. Gaffe watch: low notes Yvette Cooper was clearly unimpressed with the turnout at the Saturday morning press conference in which she and husband Ed Balls spoke out against Conservative plans for marriage incentives. She scribbled a note to the chief secretary to the Treasury, Liam Byrne, saying: "It's clearly second division today – presumably that's why we are allowed to do this?" He wrote back: "Sort of like being allowed to play in the sandpit." Unfortunately, one of the cameras zoomed in on the note as Copper left. It seems even the big girls can still have an accident in the sandpit. Snog, Marry, Elect: pulling data Neil Kinnock put it tactfully when he said yesterday, "Gordon has got a radio face," and it seems that the nation's young women agree with him. A "Snog, Marry, Avoid" survey of women on lower incomes aged 24-35 (a group known as the Lambrini Ladies) showed that just 3% would be happy to snog him and just 8% to marry him, with the other 89% choosing uniformly to avoid him. Just as predictably, 17% said they'd be happy to snog the Liberal Democrat leader, while 16% could see themselves happily married to nuclear family man David Cameron. Sleeve watch: white T-shirt man Cameron goes even further than last week's above-the-elbow roll-ups with a white T-shirt for his four-mile charity walk yesterday. Our in-house sleeve experts explain: "If current trends continue he'll turn up to the debates in a vest and, if elected, govern topless." Quote of the day "I am who I am. I'm very comfortable in my own skin. I'm not going to change or try to alter my personality. It's a bit too late for that now" Nick Clegg Number crunching 1,242 The number of laws that enable "state snoopers" and "clipboard inspectors" to enter people's homes without permission, according to the Conservatives yesterday. These include powers to enter when looking for unregulated hypnotists, rabbits, bovine semen, forged stamps, German property and dancing bears without permits.