Waiting for the first TV debate to erupt – or should that be fizzle?

The volcanic ash could wipe out the signal from Manchester?

It’s been raised in engineers’ discussions up here and there are already signal problems in Scotland.

But Granada are reassuring everyone they’re confident it won’t really happen. You will not be denied (or allowed to avoid) this momentous debate.

Gordon Brown took a head-clearing walk in the park this afternoon. Nick Clegg’s been for a country walk. A wonderful spat has developed between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives over David Cameron’s dissing of the whole debate format saying it might be sluggish and the rules might be too tight.

The Liberal Democrats point out that the Conservatives didn’t want applause in these debates and are showing a “bloody nerve” in distancing themselves from something they negotiated line by line for months.

By the way, thanks to the debates negotiations thrusting the top teams into the same room for extended periods, these campaign teams have probably spent more time with their opposing numbers than any campaign team before.

No romances or friendships have been spawned but they have been able to smile and nod when they bump into each other, as they did earlier in the hotel that houses the spin room where each party maintains a separate office.