It was quite fun to go to the recording of Question Time at Aldershot on Thursday evening. We had to arrive by 6:30. There was a security check and quite a lot of sitting around while they explained how everything works: everyone had sent in a question by email in advance - we were then asked to write another question on a card. Once we were seated the people whose questions were chosen were told, and were taken out to be given their instructions. Those people included Mr T, whose question on Afghanistan (about the British Ambassador's recent suggestion that British involvement there will go on for 30 years) was chosen. My question "Will Gordon Brown be Bush's poodle too?" wasn't chosen.

The recording went on for about an hour from 8:30 to 9:30 or so. I drove home and the programme was about to start when I arrived.

The progamme that was shown was identical to what we saw except that the first question was a practice one, and a few moments were edited out (when Tom McNulty's microphone fell off).

Christopher Hitchens was utterly obnoxious and extremely rude to Shirley Williams. Peter Hitchens was relatively sensible by comparison. Boris Johnson was his usual idiotic but amusing self. Tom McNulty was rather boring.

There were a couple of long shots of the audience in which we were visible, but barely: I was quite surprised that a particularly sharp-eyed friend spotted me with no advance warning.