This is my second Labour Party Conference and aside from the awful stodgy food, sleep deprivation and chilly seaside wind, it's great to be here and i've met some fascinating people.

As the Evening Standard's news man here, I am able to take a sideways look at the whole circus and report on the news outside of the political agenda and endless party gossip.
So here's ten facts that may or may not help us understand the people running our country a little bit more. Make of them what you will...

1. There is no official Labour Party merchandise on sale this year featuring a picture of Gordon Brown. In previous years, mugs featuring the face of Tony Blair were a bestseller. At last year's Conservative Party conference, Boris Johnson mugs were also a big money spinner. But you won't find GB's mug on a mug.

2. There is no prayer room on site for Muslim delegates and party members. Some have privately complained to me at having to exit and then re-enter the secure zone after going back to their hotel rooms to pray. The Labour Press Office have been unable to tell me why this provision has not been set up.

3. There are between five and ten policeman here whose sole job is to stand on the seafront near the Highcliffe hotel (where Gordon et al are staying)  and stare at the sea - possibly looking out for 'terrorist frogmen'.

4. Former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett happily posed for a photo with a champagne flute in her hand. at the New Statesman bash.  However, probably wary of being dubbed a 'champagne socialist' Health Secretary Alan Johnson preferred to hide his flute behind his back as he smiled for our photographer. (see picture).

5. For the second year running, Keith Vaz held his traditional 'Diversity Nite', celebrating Cultural Diversity in the Labour Party, at a Chinese Restaurant. This despite there still being no MP's of Chinese origin in British politics.

6. Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has 965 friends on Facebook. Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain has 1,020. Culture Secretary James Purnell has 354.
Labour Party outcast and ex Celebrity Big Brother contestant George Galloway has 3,480 friends..and counting.

7. Ken Livingstone bemoans the fact that you cannot get a cappucino at 8am on the Bournemouth seafront. This, he says, would not be a problem in London. A cappucino in the conference area, by the way, costs a whopping £2.60 and even some MPs have complained to one amused coffee shop manager.

8. Amongst the various zones Labour has created in the vast Bournemouth International Centre, is an International Lounge.  When you go in through the door abruptly signposted with the words  'International Visitors Only', various people from all over the world are sat, on different tables. There are Americans, Kenyans, Indians and Australians to name a few. But nobody gets what the point of the lounge is. "At the very least they could have put a world clock on the wall,' one Iraqi visitor told me.

9. Gordon Brown may have basked in a four-minute standing ovation following his speech, but it pales in comparison to the seven minute applause Blair's farewell speech got last year and is only one minute longer than the ovation he got after his own speech in 2006. Brown's advisors were hoping it would last longer than the five minute mark.

10. On the agonisingly slow train I took from London Waterloo to Bournemouth, which was packed with journalists, politicians and delegates, the driver announced that the buffet car was no longer serving any food, coffee, tea or soft drinks - just booze. Everyone in my carriage cheered.