Stephen McGinty: Stumped, flummoxed, puzzled, bemused, bamboozled and perplexed

FOR every columnist – even part-time, fortnightly characters such as myself – there exists a solitary opportunity to write about the difficulty of writing.

This is not so much a column, by that I mean a planned discussion on a single topic of grave national importance – such as the irresponsibility of Cadbury's cream-egg adverts (10 April, 2010) or why the cuff-link is a hurled insult against the common button (24 April, 2010) – as it is an opportunity to peer, mercifully briefly, into my head circa 11:40am on Friday 7 May.

I'm stumped, flummoxed, puzzled, bemused, bamboozled and perplexed – where, pray tell, do I point my nib? Or, to be more accurate, in which direction should my keystrokes flow or, the way I feel just now (tired, irritable, angry at the world, itching for a chocolate hobnob), flail?

For example: do you really want to read any more words about the election? If you've come this far, you'll have flicked past pages, great wodges of the stuff. You'll have munched through a nourishing, hearty meal of hung this and deal that, or who knows, by this time tomorrow (by that I mean Saturday, not Sunday, it's now 11:56 am on Friday, please do keep up) perhaps Gordon Brown will have already been dragged out of Number Ten, nails too badly bitten by the stress of deciding which old lady to brand as a bigot, to be able to find purchase on the black polished door.

If not, and, like a hungry toddler in a pelican bib you're sitting there banging your plastic bowl on the formica-topped high chair demanding: "mooooore insights into the monarchy's role in constitutional politics", I could do a mild riff about how, when I went to vote on Thursday, it was a golden sunny evening with the light dancing through the trees, and yet, 93 minutes later, just as the polls closed, the sky had turned jet black, rain was thundering down and there was the distinct sensation that the Antichrist had cued his mood music. Not, of course, that I consider David Cameron to be, in any way akin to Sam Neill in Omen III.

But, perhaps instead, you would prefer a mild literary sorbet to cleanse the palate before heading on towards the heavy-lifters of the op-ed pages, those titans of prose who can solve the world's ills in 1,100 words, and quote Latin without the need of provide a reader-friendly translation for those of us who didn't butter the prefect's crumpets at prep school.

If so, I had thought about preparing a paean in praise of the Panini football sticker which, I discovered when a free packet was thrust into my hand at Morrison's, is still going strong 32 years after I first prayed to the Gods – or the baby Jesus, actually – that my pocket money would be enough to secure that one packet which would contain the silver foil of the Scotland team badge, the equivalent in the schoolyard of Our Holy Redeemer's in Clydebank of a Willie Wonka golden ticket, worth at least 20 ordinary players in "swopsies". But, then again, on typing the above, I'm glad I didn't. A bit too Frank McCourt.

My final idea was a big fat cheat. Desperately scanning through the papers, I discovered that Steve Forbes, the American billionaire, is selling his collection of Churchill memorabilia including a cigar the great man failed to smoke in 1962.

Aha, I thought, I've already written a book on the PM's passion for rolled tobacco leaves (Churchill's Cigar, "a stunningly good read" – Alexander McCall Smith; "it doesn't make for very gripping reading' – The Daily Telegraph. B*****d.)

I could crib whole chunks of the book and wrap it up in a couple of Churchillian quotes, my favourite being the one written on the mug that sits by my side as I type: "success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." So, on that note, see you in a fortnight.

It's 12:21pm – can I be excused?