YOU'VE got to hand it to Joy Squires, Labour's Worcester parliamentary candidate, who is pulling out every stop to ensure plenty of shiny 'vote for me' literature is engulfing the city.

Posters, leaflets, surveys, some households have had three or four pieces through the door in the last month alone - but The Source wonders if all of Tony Blair's cash is being well spent.

Some of her material has been sent to homes in Powick, where voters don't have a say in the outcome at all as they live in the West Worcestershire constituency.

Ironically Cllr Squires' key rival, Tory Robin Walker actually lives in Powick and had something through the door himself the other week.

Can Teflon claim a refund?

* IT'S not easy on the campaign trail, where the nerves are increasingly becoming frayed as the sun comes out over our candidate's heads.

Robin Walker knocked on a door in Worcester the other day and was greeted by a voter with a water pistol in their hand, giving the city its very own 'Tory wet'.

Don't shoot, for goodness sake.

* OVER on the Malvern canvassing crusade it gets even worse for Lib Dem Councillor Tom Wells, who came across a cat which decided to sink its teeth into his flesh, drawing blood for the first time since the election was called.

Vicious moggy!

* ADRIAN Hardman, ruling the roost at County Hall, insists one of the "greatest failures" of any leader would be to allow a 'Greater Birmingham' region to swallow up parts of Worcestershire, suggesting he'd never, ever allow it.

But despite the gossip around what may or may not develop, he's also said "nobody from Birmingham ever talks to me about it".

It's always the things they keep schtum about, eh.

* AT this week's Cap 'N' Gown hustings train driver Peter McNally, from left-wing group the Trade Unionists and Socialist Coalition, told pub-goers Seattle (population 652,000) was about the same size as Worcester (100,000).

Don't get this bloke anywhere near the South Worcestershire Development Plan.