Chocolate Biscuits at the Tax Payers' Expense

It has been a while since I enjoyed the hospitality of the Cabinet Office. Yet this morning, as part of being back on the farm, I found myself drinking coffee and munching pan au chocolat down in The Cellar. However, I resisted the temptation to indulge in the chocolate biscuits at the tax payers' expense before 10am.

Being escorted down the staircases, security codes deftly inputted at each level reached, I felt as if I was being walked back in time and taste. The Victorian grandeur of the building at street level slipped away the deeper we went. The initial interior decoration of chrome, glass and standard corporate minimalism spluttered out, replaced by a garish sand yellow and jade colour scheme.

Three flights seemed to equal three decades. The modern matchbox-sized security cameras of the ground floor became steroid bulked seventies briefcases. Lethargic Dalek eyes housed in unapologetic black boxes. The reception desk existed in 2007; the corridor I found myself in was clearly located in 1977. Maybe this is the ultimate in government security; place the entrance to a building in one time zone, the interior in another.

It was weird being back amongst this stratum of government. Catching possible glimpses of intelligence shades, the type of men who specialise in being powerfully invisible . Looking through doors and seeing PowerPoint files projected onto scientists, making them seem like inadvertent members of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. The surreal and somewhat terrifying nature of this sight heightened by the fact those slides had titles such as 'Human Flu Panic'. Given this, as lunch rolled into afternoon tea, I felt had earned at least a few chocolate biscuits to calm my nerves.