THERE are times when my worlds collide. Like when I was cooking egg and chips on Sunday night.

I always cook egg and chips on Sunday nights. It's my job. Having cooked the Sunday lunch, my wife sits in front of the telly with a glass of wine while I do us eggs and chips for supper.

It was going very well. The chips were in the oven with five minutes to go on the timer. The beans were in the microwave. And the frying pan was warming on the gas.

Jack, aged ten, came into the kitchen with the telephone. It was work telling me that news had broken about Tony Blair's heart scare.

"Radio Five Live want you to go on straight away," they said. "They're going to ring in a couple of minutes."

No sooner had I put the phone down than Katie from Five Live rang to say they would really, really, really appreciate my views on Mr Blair's heart condition as the editor of his local newspaper. (Clearly, they were having trouble getting hold of Cabinet members or heart specialists.)

Before I had chance to gather my thoughts, I was live on air, answering questions about Mr Blair's state of health and the pressures of running the country.

I know it's only egg, chips and beans but I find it a challenge at the best of times, trying to time it so all the components are ready simultaneously.

Suddenly, there was a commotion next door in the dining room. Mum was shouting in an 'end of her tether' kind of way.

"I've been on my feet all day and I shouldn't have to be doing this at half past nine at night," she shouted.

I did my best to answer the interviewer's question about the kind of pressures Mr Blair had been under lately - notably the fall-out from the war against Iraq and the Hutton Inquiry.

A tear-streaked Hannah, aged 11, popped her head round the kitchen door and sobbed: "Dad, have you seen my brace?"

Mum was still going mad around the house as she turned the place upside down looking for Hannah's brace.

All I could do was shake my head furiously and turn my back on my daughter as I endeavoured to answer the next question while buttering a couple of slices of bread: "With Tony Blair's heart scare coinciding with Gordon Brown being away after becoming a father, do you think there will be some political plotting going on behind their backs?"

I was in the middle of explaining why I didn't think that would be the case when my wife stormed in and started ransacking the kitchen in search of the missing brace.

"And finally, Mr Barron," said the Five Live interviewer, "do you think Mr Blair is suffering from the stress of trying to balance his working life as Prime Minister with the pressures of being a father?"

Just then, the timer sounded on the oven to say the chips were done. It was sharply followed by a more high-pitched bleeper going off on the microwave to tell me the beans were ready.

That meant the eggs had to go in and it's not easy to crack eggs while you're holding a telephone under your chin and you're wearing oven gloves.

It was bound to happen - I broke my wife's yoke, which wouldn't have gone down well even if she wasn't already in a bad mood.

"Yes, I'm sure Mr Blair is finding it very difficult indeed," I said.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

AT a meeting of Darlington Tangent, Jennifer Jones, an advisory teacher dealing with SATS exams in Durham, recalled the question about man's first steps on the moon.

"Why would Neil Armstrong's footprints remain on the moon for a long time?" the children were asked in the hope that they would recognise that there was no atmosphere.

"Because there are no cleaners on the moon," wrote one child.

OFF at another Tangent, Nora Lee told how her nine-year-old cousin Richard described his day at school: "We played football all afternoon. It was brilliant - I constipated on the ball right through the game.

OLIVE Johnson recalled the time she was teaching at Abbey Primary and Infants School in Darlington and she asked a little girl to take a note to Mrs Suggett.

The girl looked at her anxiously and asked: "Can Mrs Suggett read joined up writing?"

MEANWHILE, Aled Jones, of Bridlington, writes about a friend who took her six-year-old son with her to the local cemetery.

Alex scampered out of the car, shouting: "Yikes, Mummy, is this what a cement factory looks like?"

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