Comment & Analysis (Intergalactic) | Barnaby Whitlow, reporting from the seafront

Three weeks ago, Clacton could not get a mainstream political party to visit. This week our correspondent counted three international film crews on the seafront, one of them Japanese, whose report on the by-election has since aired in Tokyo with explanatory graphics. The town that everyone declined to fight for is now the only place in Britain that matters, and the residents are handling it in the manner of a town that has seen pier fires: with patience, and ice cream.

Brenda Fowler, 61, of Rush Green, whom readers will remember from the nationalise-Adele wing of the Count's support, has been interviewed, by her count, by four countries. "I tell them all the same thing," she said. "She's a national asset being run for private profit. The Japanese gentleman understood immediately. He said they nationalised the railways."

By the arcade, commerce has responded to the campaign faster than Westminster ever has. Keith Yardley, 66, reopened his seafront kiosk early "for the foreign press" and has voluntarily capped his 99 Flakes at 99p, five weeks before anyone can compel him. "It's coming in anyway," he said, nodding at the manifesto taped inside his hatch. "Better to be ahead of regulation. I run a serious business." Asked whether sales were up, Mr Yardley declined to comment, in the tradition of men whose sales are up.

A waiting list, in Clacton, for paperwork

The nomination process, which closes on Friday, has produced the week's most Clacton development: a waiting list. The Count requires ten registered electors' signatures. The campaign reports it has been oversubscribed several times over. "I signed on the first morning," said Malcolm Prue, 71. "Proudest I've felt since the pier reopened. My wife signed for the farm tax gentleman as well. We believe in a strong field."

Derek, 58, remains where our correspondent left him, outside the arcade, unmoved. He has now been polled five times. "I told them all different things," he said. "Keeps them honest." Asked who he will actually vote for, Derek looked at the sea for some time and said, "August the thirteenth is a long way off," which the desk has passed to Ipsos as a methodological note.

The municipal bin behind which a queue formed during the donation surge has, meanwhile, been filmed by the Japanese crew, and has therefore now appeared on television in Tokyo. It has no policies and has done nothing. "It's been on telly more than my nephew, and he was on Gladiators," said a woman waiting nearby, who asked not to be named because she had told the pollsters she was undecided.

The other campaign

Of the favourite's operation there was less to see. Activists redeployed from Manchester were observed on Marine Parade with leaflets, working under the operational difficulty this desk reported last week, namely that the constituency contains many bins and only one candidate. Residents have not made this easier. Several have added rosettes.

Polling day is 13 August. Nominations close Friday, at which point the returning officer of Tendring District Council, briefly the most important municipal official on Earth, will confirm the field. Nobody in Clacton finds any of this strange any more.

"We've had worse summers," said Derek.

Disclosure: our correspondent purchased one 99 Flake at the voluntary capped price and can confirm the policy is deliverable. He does not exist, but the Flake was real, which is more than this by-election can usually offer.

Barnaby Whitlow does not exist, and neither do the residents quoted above, who are composites in the tradition of the form. Pieces on this desk are satire: every statement about a real person, a real broadcast or a real deadline is drawn from the public record and listed in the sources below, and everything else is a joke.