But Mason by no means cut the dash that I always imagined Lambert did. Walking into the airless, moist, very close and dimly lit room in which he lived ¡ª in temporary accommodation while a specially appointed bungalow was being built for him at taxpayers¡¯ expense ¡ª I did not allow the horror that welled up in me to express itself as visitors to loose akoya pearl Lambert would have done, with their insensitive 18th-century ways.

And so I did not yell: ¡°Somebody call Greenpeace! We¡¯ll have to roll him back out to sea on the next tide!¡± when I came upon Mason, beached in the giant bed from which he had not stirred in nine years, laptop, television controls and tubs of fizzy pop in easy reach, toy Daleks conveniently placed on a nearby shelf, his small, grey, sad little head bobbing on the pearl jewelry wholesale sea of fat that was his body.

I just said: ¡°Hello, I¡¯m Giles¡±, and shook his great mitten of a hand, like squeezing a cold hot water bottle.

I was there to confront him with my (not altogether serious) plan to tackle the obesity crisis by taxing fat people directly so as to recoup some of the ¡ê4 billion that obesity costs the nation each year, and to offer fat people a financial incentive to change. Not including his special accommodation, Mason was costing Suffolk Health Authority ¡ê100,000 a year to pearl beads keep alive. And it had recently invested another ¡ê100,000 in a special ambulance to enable him to get to hospital (previously, two fire crews had been needed).

But it was very hard to do. All my fight and bluster, all my anger at the hopelessness of fat people, went out of me. The room was so depressing, the pearl beads reality so bleak, the man so pitiful. So I went all third person and said: ¡°There are probably people who would want to know why they should have to foot the bill for people like you.¡±

¡°It¡¯s one of the things that eats away inside of you,¡± he said, in his quiet Ipswich accent, his little mouth moving in the middle of his huge face, like something superimposed by clever animation. ¡°Why should they spend money on you, right? When you see other cases around which are more deserving. Something has to be done. But we can¡¯t do turquoise jewelry it. Can¡¯t physically do it. But why should the money be spent? The way I look at it is because I¡¯m a human being. I have human being rights. I never made myself like this. I didn¡¯t want to be like this.¡±

It was awful. Even as he moaned that he was a human being I was thinking how much less like a human being he looked than any human being I had ever seen. He wasn¡¯t protesting that he was a ¡°man¡± or even a ¡°human¡±. He was asking only that I recognise his membership of the species. His being a ¡°being¡±. Existing at all. That was the summit of freshwater pearl bracelet his pride.

His super-obesity was probably linked to depression, which was probably linked to unemployment, which was definitely linked to his having gone to freshwater pearl prison for stealing money from letters while working as a postman. But he had abrogated all responsibility for his condition now, and was most comfortable casting himself as a victim (or even, with his toys and his pyjamas and his sugary snacks, as a helpless child).

Paul Mason may well find his way into the next Guinness World Records alongside Daniel Lambert, and schoolboys will no doubt goggle at the details of opera or rope necklace his size. But he would fit just as easily on to the page for ¡°most hopeless man in the world¡±, if one were required ¡ª his giant size as lucid a reflection of his utterly defeated nature as any fat person¡¯s has ever been.

When I was finished with my questions and a researcher had handed him his envelope of cash (¡°don¡¯t spend it all on sweeties . . .¡±), Mason put the diagrams of his special bungalow (such a depressing phrase: ¡°special bungalow¡±) back into their plastic folder and sterling silver jewelry laid it on the table at his elbow.

On the back of it was a notice he had written in blue Biro that read: ¡°If you are a new carer: please don¡¯t give me any biscuits. No matter how much I ask.¡±

The most important thing to keep in mind is that Question Time is television. It is not the debating hall, a dinner party, down at the pub, or inside the mind.

Nick Griffin and many viewers, I¡¯m sure, would have wanted, even expected, me to come across as an abrasive, point-scoring, shouty, finger-pointing black woman. That would have played into Griffin¡¯s game plan, because that is the view of his party. The freshwater pearl jewelry BNP portrayed me as a ¡°black history fabricator¡± on its website. There was no way that I was going to live up to any negative mental pictures that it would have had about me, or of any other black woman. Even at the risk of looking ¡°ineffective¡±.

It was clear to me within five minutes that the man was dangerously narcissistic. In America he would have been on David Letterman¡¯s Late Show, an object of ridicule. He deserved to be taken apart forensically, based on the cartoon history on freshwater pearl earrings his website and which, most importantly, is its very foundation: some completely lunatic idea about ¡°Ice Age Britons¡± and indigenous people. But in bringing that up, I broke TV Rule No 1 for a primetime programme: don¡¯t go into long explanations.

On Question Time, you are only given an opportunity to speak when you¡¯re asked to speak. It isn¡¯t a free-for-all, a m¨ºl¨¦e, even though it may appear to cultured freshwater pearl be. And you have to be pithy. I wasn¡¯t.
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