WE all knew Councillor Tom Wells was popular - let's face it, getting re-elected as a Liberal Democrat these days is akin to winning an Olympic gold medal.

But now even Councillor Wells' startling levels of Nelson Mandela-like fanfare have surged to celeb territory, with his Facebook video of the nutty new-look Ketch island being viewed a staggering 68,000 times in a little over one day and causing utter hysteria.

Britney Spears would be pleased with that kind of response.

* TALKING about the Lib Dems, during the election period Worcester Green Party decided to play a fun little game which shows just how bad things have got for the guys and gals in yellow.

The Greens, desperately keen to become the city's third biggest force, came across so few householders prepared to back Nick Clegg's lot, they played a game of 'spot the Lib Dem', keeping a tally, presumably using fingers, of each find.

Meanwhile, more than one Lib Dem activist told me confidently how they believed the Claines contest would be 'very close'. The Tories won by 1,059 votes.

There's nothing quite like having your finger on the pulse eh.

Maybe this lot could become pollsters?

* DULL, white and terribly 'olde' in outlook, Malvern's political scene suddenly has an exotic twist after Chinese takeaway owner Kwai Chan got elected to the district council.

Councillor Chan, who runs the popular Kwai's in Newtown Road, is sure to have a spring roll in his step.

Maybe we should rename this column the Soy Sauce.

* Spin doctors at Wyre Forest District Council pumped out a press release last week which said how sorry the authority was to have lost the services of so many former politicians at the elections.

The sob tale, entitled 'Tributes paid to fomer Councillors', should have carried the headline 'council uses taxpayers' cash to say how sorry it is that voters voted the way they did'.

Bonkers.

* THE Alan Amos correspondence continues to come in, with one reader sending me a snippet from a Guardian interview in February, 2000, when he was rising up the Labour ranks.

"The Conservative party always has to have a group to hate," he told them.

"Years ago there were the communists. Then there's gays, single mothers - now it's everybody in the European Union.

"I realised I no longer wanted to be part of a minority-bashing, foreigner-hating party."

How times change!