Today we came across other people in the chamber. Men in brown technicians overcoats pored over the time keeping devices, attentive and concerned. They barely acknowledged our presence. A friendly young man whose accent placed him as from the Balkans, polished the Table of the House with care, the scent of industrial polish lingered after he had left and as I began to photograph the table this made me sneeze violently, permeating my olfactory senses. What compelled me however was that the area had just been ‘worked’ on. Our agreement with the authorities was that no people could be photographed.

Also this morning we saw our first sign of members of the house. A common practice, to reserve your seat for the day’s debate, is to insert a prayer card [6] in the back of the bench area where you would like to seat. Special receptacles have been provided and this practice assumes that you are at Chapel, or wherever, praying to your God. Because of this, your seat cannot be taken. Mr Skinner the notorious ‘Beast of Bolsover’ makes use of this practice everyday so I assume that he is a particularly godly fellow.

Some of course are the sorts who disgrace our nation with their misdeeds and on first sight there is little to differentiate the assorted types. This is also true of political allegiances, though today we did find the Conservatives to be rather more brusque.

Today there were several members of the House passing through, some known to us, some less so. Some left prayer cards and others were merely ‘en route’. The response to our presence was mixed. It was becoming clear to me that as my intentions were ambiguous we seen as either mildly amusing or slightly irritating. A more accurate way of putting it would be to say that we were tolerated. We had a commercial arrangement with the Serjeant at Arms, so we were not exactly ‘persona non grata’, however I was acutely aware that my negotiations with him were always in the balance and had to be undertaken with the utmost care for fear of my project being curtailed.

Today I photographed obsessively as if a fever had hold of me. It seemed thankless and endless. I began to wonder, to what end? After all of this waiting, I knew that perseverance and single mindedness was the only way forward.

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