To Henley, then, where the by-election this week is not nearly as important as the regatta next week. It is good to keep a perspective on such things.

Still, there was a gentle excitement about the place yesterday. First, there were hustings, and then Boris was coming. Is Boris the only politician in Britain now who doesn't need a last name? How did that happen?

Henley is so English that it hurts. I try to imagine Gordon Brown here and I cannot. He is just too Scottish. Even the car park was the most English car park I have ever been in (lawn, café, playground, hanging baskets, etc). The Radio Berkshire hustings were set up by the riverside, four picnic chairs under two beer umbrellas in a boatyard.

The Labour candidate is almost heroically bad. I took an immediate shine to him for he had a straw hat. “What happened to the class war?” I wondered. Richard McKenzie said he started wearing straw hats when he lived in Kiev. “Kiev?” I asked. “Like the chicken?”

“No,” he answered. “Like Chernobyl.” Oh dear. His other great moment was when he was asked about post office closures and seemed at odds with the Government. Was this his first revolt? “I think if you talk to my friends they will say I am revolting most of the time!”

I tell you, Richard is wasted on Henley, where he may lose his deposit but doesn't deserve to.

I had been told that the Lib Dem candidate, Stephen Kearney, looks like Lovejoy and he does: curly black hair, burly, smoothychops manner. “I love Lovejoy!” he boomed. He also loves Boris. Indeed, to hear Stephen talk, they are best friends. “I'm a bit like Boris,” he noted. “The only difference is I've got quite curly hair and he's got blond hair.”

This riled John Howell, the Tory candidate. “I know Boris,” he said, in by far the poshest voice of the campaign. “Boris is my friend.”

“Well,” said the man from Radio Berkshire, “You're no Boris Johnson.” That looks unkind in hard, cold print but, in the dappled Henley sunshine, it just seemed fact. Mr Howell, who is earnest if deeply uncharismatic, noted that he had been campaigning ultra-hard: “I have blisters on my blisters!”

Mr Howell rushed off to meet the man he wasn't. He found Boris campaigning without him, assaulting al fresco diners at the Seafood Restaurant Bar and Grill with ridiculously large helpings of bonhomie. Boris was surrounded by ten young and beautiful Tories holding placards and balloons. Their mission was to crowd round in case anyone was filming and they were brutally efficient at this.

When John met Boris the Tory boys and girls celebrated with a brief ululation. Then the strange group, almost pulsating with mad energy, careened around the genteel streets of Henley.

They met only Tories, except for one die-hard socialist. Everyone came up to Boris with a smile or a hug. “Does he have your vote?” burbled Boris, as relentless as a water feature. “He'll be much, much better than me!”

Boris and John barged into a charity shop, causing a sensation in the bric-a-brac section. Next they met Richard May, who has been a Tory for 84 years (seriously), and was just off to play bridge. Then it was into the Hot Gossip coffee shop. Boris kept on announcing, “He will be brilliant!” as the candidate looked on adoringly.

I don't know about brilliant but, barring revolution, he will be on the back benches. For as Boris spun across the road, to his car to take him back to London, he shouted: “It's all going horribly right!” For once, there was no hyperbole.

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