I am sitting at a desk in a hall taking a three hour exam, with over an hour to go. I glance up at the clock and realise to my horror that I have misjudged the time and there are only 10 minutes left. Then I wake up in a cold sweat.

I always had intense anxiety dreams like that before exams, and I still have similar ones occasionally before important events in my life. Sometimes it involves being late, or saying the wrong thing, or wearing inappropriate (or no) clothes.

Last week I lived through a real-life version of one of those nightmares.

We flew out from Gatwick on Friday evening to stay with my son and his wife in Northern Ireland, to attend the funeral of her father. I was keen not to disrupt their time together nor to intrude on the arrangements that my son was making for the funeral, which was planned for 12noon on Saturday. We were due to arrive in Belfast International at 10.30pm - this is an hour's drive from their home.

The plane backed off the stand at Gatwick, then stopped. There was a technical fault, it seems. The onboard computer was showing that the plane was in the air while it was still on the ground. It needed to be reset. (It must have been running on Windows).

The plane was towed to a remote corner of the airport, the engineers arrived, kicked the system and tried to replicate the fault, but couldn't. Finally they just started up again and apparently everything was OK. (I had a computer like that once).

Eventually we took off two hours late and we arrived at 12.30am.

But our luggage didn't.

The phrase is 'dawning realisation' - that's what we experienced when we found we were the only people left in the baggage reclaim hall and the carousel had stopped.

As my husband wanted to take a suit we had decided to check in one case, and to put everything in it - clothes for the funeral and remaining days of our stay, shoes, toiletries and phone chargers. All was now missing.

It took nearly an hour for staff to arrive, then check that the case hadn't fallen off a trolley and to do the paperwork, so we finally got to bed at 2.30am. It would have been ironic if I had experienced another anxiety dream that night (no clothes at a funeral) but I didn't get much sleep at all.

So the next day we had a problem. We only had the clothes we had arrived in - trainers and combats - and we had just one hour to buy enough for at least two days, including shoes. No M&S, no Primark, so we headed for a major fashion outlet - Asda. I've not exactly got a standard figure so I wasn't holding out much hope of finding a suitable dress, but I did. Ian found a jacket, trousers, shirts and a tie. We both bought underwear and shoes, plus tops and trousers, and some basic toiletries.

Then back to change and on to a packed service of farewell to our friend Prof. Robert McBride, held in a beautiful location overlooking the sea. It did put our little problem into some sort of perspective.

I posted this earlier today on Lib Dem Voice:

The leaflet below appears to be normal Lib Dem election literature. It was one of three distributed widely over night on May2nd/3rd for the council by-election in North Richmond, in the London borough of Richmond upon Thames. You may wonder why it is titled Comments instead of Focus, but that is what Lib Dems have always called their leaflets in Richmond.

Indeed, the layout and photos are exact copies of earlier Lib Dem election leaflets. The bar chart, grumble sheet and contact details all look authentic. The writing style is credible.

But a closer inspection reveals something very worrying. The main story is completely false. (Click the image to view a larger version)

It states:

Jane Dodds will be campaigning with local Lib Dems to increase social housing in North Richmond by bringing forward plans to develop the Sainsbury’s Supermarket site at Manor Road.

The Sainsbury’s site offers an ideal opportunity for a high rise development to significantly expand social housing, building a further 550 one and two bedroom apartments on top of the Manor Road Sainsbury’s.

This is quite outrageous. The local Lib Dems were certainly notcampaigning for 550 flats to be built above their local Sainsbury’s. The leaflet is a fake.

Two more similar fake leaflets were circulated before polls opened.  In one the Lib Dem candidate apparently supported the use of the local Premier Inn for emergency homeless accommodation for migrants, and in the other proposed converting a pub into hostel accommodation for drug or alcohol dependent young people and for recently released prisoners, neither of which was true. We can all see where the narrative is going: references to social housing, EU migrants, homelessness,  addiction and ex-cons are coupled with ‘bleeding heart’ Lib Dem concern for the vulnerable.

The leaflets do not, of course, carry an imprint, but that is a minor legal issue compared with the damage done to the democratic process. A number of local voters have admitted that they were taken in by the leaflets, decided not to vote Lib Dem as a result and voted Conservative in protest. This was a seat that we were hoping to take back from the Conservatives, but Jane Dodds lost by 146 votes.

Jane’s agent was Roger Hayes (one of Mark Pack’s local liberal heroes) and he spent much of polling day talking with the police from Special Operations and Anti-Terrorism, which we all still refer to as Special Branch. The police are taking the matter very seriously and are treating the leaflets as fraudulent.  The Representation of the People Act 1983 created an offence of “undue influence” which may be relevant to this case.

Anti-terrorist officers are examining CCTV footage to try to identify who delivered the leaflets. It is most unlikely, though not impossible, that one of the main political parties would carry off a stunt like this, but it is a challenge to work out who would go to the trouble of designing, printing and distributing such convincing and subtle fakes.

There's actually some good stuff in the Queen's speech today - thanks, I have to say, to the Lib Dem involvement in the Coalition.

For several years Vince Cable has been saying that the retail and investment arms of banks should be separated from each other. The kind of banking services that individuals and small businesses use should be protected from the risks associated with high level gambling. It won't prevent people taking risks, if they wish, through the investment sector but the consequences will fall solely on the investors. At last we have promised legislation to bring that about.

Nick Clegg's proposals for flexible parental leave have made it in to the Queen's Speech. Parents will be able to choose for themselves how to split the total parental leave to which they are entitled.

Ed Davey is taking through some excellent environmental policies that had been developed by Chris Huhne, including the Green Investment Bank and the Energy Bill and we are promised legislation for both during the coming year.

Before he took on his new job, Ed was developing the idea of a Groceries Adjudicator to ensure that suppliers are treated fairly by the big supermarkets. That will now happen.

I also like the idea of giving shareholders a vote on directors' pay (though would personally like employees to have that right as well) - another of Vince's proposals.

Then we come to reform of the House of Lords, and the chance to finally implement the agreement made in Westminster over 100 years ago! Tories are claiming that it is a distraction from the measures needed to sort out the economy, but frankly that argument could be used to delay almost any piece of legislation. I really don't understand why they are opposed to a smaller House, having already imposed a smaller House of Commons on us, with all the complex bureaucracy of the Boundaries Review. And today it does seem bizarre to be advocating an upper house consisting largely of those who have found favour with the Government, instead of a body chosen democratically by the people.

The one proposal that I am very unhappy about is the Draft Communications Bill - that is the one that will extend snooping, requiring ISPs to keep full details of every email you send, every message you tweet and every phone call you make. This was going to be pushed through by the Tories a couple of months ago, but Lib Dem intervention has slowed down the process so it will be subjected to greater scrutiny. However, we still need to be vigilant.

The British Council has just released an archive of 120 short public information films from the 1940s which you can watch online. They recreate another age - although I have to keep reminding myself that this was what life was like for my parents when I was born.

This film explains local government, at a time when Councils controlled far more services than they do now.  That really was localism. 

See if you can spot the shots of Kingston's Ancient Market and the Guildhall, when the current building was only a few years old.

Local Government (1943) from British Council Film on Vimeo.

Thanks to Stephen Tall on Lib Dem Voice for unearthing this gem.

I have received lots of comments on my blog posts Lose weight by sitting down? and I have complained to the Advertising Standards Agency about Sit and Slim.  Muriji promote the use of their chairs - at considerable expense - in five locations, one of which is in New Malden, and a number of local people feel they have been misled and ripped off by this company.

Today I feel entirely vindicated - which is definitely a good feeling.  

Three other people (encouraged by my blog) also complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about the adverts by Miruji for Sit and Slim chairs, and the ASA added in some further issues. Altogether they submitted seven different issues to the ASA Council, and the Council upheld all of them.

You can read the judgement here, but in essence it states:

1. The so-called trial at Hellesdon Hospital "did not show that Sit and Slim could result in weight reduction, improve self-esteem, increase confidence, reduce or eliminate aches and pains, facilitate the healing and prevention of injuries or improve sleep" so the claims "had not been substantiated and were misleading".

2. Phrases like 'NHS Hospital trial' were misleading because it "was not NHS-approved or formal research". 

3. The claim that the chair was worth £10,000 was not substantiated.

4. The claim that the Sit and Slim chair could reduce blood pressure breached the rules about advertising health related products.

5. The ads also breached the rules about advertising treatments for obesity.

6. Miruji did not provide documentary evidence that one of the testimonials was genuine.

7. The ads "gave the impression that weight loss would be a direct and inevitable consequence of using the programme itself and that it was unlikely to be clear to readers that any weight reduction would have to come entirely from lifestyle changes that they would have to implement themselves."

The conclusion is very clear.

"The ads must not appear again in their current form."

Muruji are also advised to consult the ASA advice team before creating any more ads.

I was actually sent a copy of the judgment on Thursday 19th April, embargoed until today. The judgement became operative on the day before that and Miruji would have had sight of it earlier in the week.

So you can imagine my surprise at finding a four page advertorial for Sit and Slim wrapped around  the Kingston Guardian dated 19th April. The ad repeated all the claims that were trashed by the ASA. The company must have known that the judgement was imminent and decided to have one last go.

I phoned ASA about the wraparound, and they talked about the lead time for preparing and placing an ad in the local press, so could not criticise them. Of course, they will take action if any new ads appear in the future.

However, the company's website still makes many of the claims that have been criticised by the ASA. (I won't do them a favour by providing a link to the website from my blog, but you know how to Google)

I've also passed all my information on to the Surrey Comet/Kingston Guardian, so I hope they will cover the story soon.

According to Private Eye I'm not allowed to write this. They claim that LOCOG has "banned volunteers working at the Games from making Facebook posts", and since this is going to be reposted on Facebook maybe I am in danger of disciplinary action. (What form could that take, I wonder?)

On Friday I got a chance to check what the rules were at my latest training session, and the truth was both realistic and unsensational. Of course they can't stop us from chatting online about the Games and our roles in it, but we are asked not to reveal operational details. That sounds like normal business practice to me, especially in an area where security is important.

What LOCOG is getting heavy about is brand protection, and volunteers (aka Games Makers) have been asked to be sensitive to the branding issues. You have probably heard that the O₂ will be renamed the North Greenwich Arena for the Games. All traces of its owner's branding will be removed so as not to undermine BT which is an "Official Olympic Partner". I really can't get too bothered about this; after all, commercial sponsorship is essential. 

And that is why I found myself at McDonald's University in East Finchley last Friday.

It is easy to scoff at McDonald's (though that would definitely attract the brand police). However it does have an excellent reputation for its staff training programmes, which was why it was chosen as the training provider for Games volunteers.

But "University"?  Surely the definition of a University is a chartered institution that is empowered to offer its own degrees. It turns out that the training centre does offer foundation degrees accredited by Manchester Metropolitan University, and the courses are free to staff. That is to be applauded, but, as a former FE lecturer who taught on foundation degree courses, I just feel that McDonald's credibility in work-based training would be enhanced if it made slightly more modest claims.

Anyway, I was there for half a day of training with fellow Events Services Team Leaders. Now I had imagined that most of the Games volunteers would live in London, so I was pretty surprised at the number of fellow volunteers who had travelled, at their own expense, from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Cumbria, the West Country and other parts of the UK to attend the training.

I also learnt that many of the LOCOG paid employees are Games veterans, having worked at previous summer and winter Olympics and Paralympics. It was quite reassuring to know that not everything was being invented from scratch!

The training was well-designed, varied and useful - and this time I did get some chocolate, provided by the Official Snack Provider of the Games.

This is a copy of an article that I have posted on Lib Dem Voice.

It seems appropriate on Easter Day to report the findings of the report entitled Faithful Citizens by the think tank Demos.

I have been embarrassed and saddened by the portrayal of "the church" as bigoted and homophobic recently, and this research helps to counterbalance that impression. Demos' report implies that people of faith are more likely to share Liberal Democrat values than to hold the conservative fundamentalist views often described in the media.

13% of citizens claim to belong to a church or other religious organisation, so these findings refer to believers across all the faiths in the UK, although Christians are by far the largest group.

The summary of the report states:

"People of faith are likely to be a vital base of support for any future election-winning progressive coalition. Our research suggests that religious citizens in the UK are more likely to be civically engaged and politically active than their non-religious counterparts. They are also more likely to hold progressive political values on a number of important political and economic questions at the heart of twenty-first-century policy. Despite the trend of decreasing religiosity in the UK, religion remains important to a broad range of active and engaged citizens – and so it must to politicians."

Their research findings showed that:

• "Religious people in the UK are more likely than non-religious people to volunteer regularly in their local community, to feel a greater sense of belonging to their local community and Britain, and to have higher levels of trust in other people and social institutions. They are also more likely to feel they can influence decisions locally and nationally.
• Religious people are more likely than non-religious people to engage in volunteering in their local community, and to take decision-making roles in committees and through local leadership forums, such as being a councillor, school governor or magistrate.
• Religious people who said that their religion was very important to their sense of identity were more likely than those who said it was not important to their identity to be civically engaged and to give to charity via their place of worship."

On specific issues they found that 55% of the members of religious organisations placed  themselves on the political left or centre left. They were also more likely to value equality over liberty and were less likely to hold a negative attitude towards immigrants.

I am a case in point.  I was brought up in a Baptist family, where the theology was liberal and the work ethic was strong. I grew up with the values of liberty (the early Baptists were persecuted for their beliefs, so freedom of belief and freedom of speech are among their founding principles),  equality (because all people are equal in the sight of God) and service to the community (because Jesus told us to love our neighbour) . So I found a natural political home within a party which shared those fundamental values.

So we should not be afraid to acknowledge the fact that many members of the Liberal Democrats, like me, joined the party because of, not in spite of, their faith.

May I wish a blessed Easter to all readers who are celebrating this great Christian festival today, and a happy holiday weekend to everyone.