When is a shed, not a shed?

My mouse-scrolling finger is feeling a little bit worn this morning.

I spent hours yesterday sifting through a mass of MPs’ expenses so sorry for the lack of blogage.

Anyway, a couple of neat items popped up. A cabin with a glazed veranda – costing the taxpayer £1,000 – which an MP managed to squeeze past officials by saying it was replacing a dilapidated old shed.

It would have had to replace something because MPs weren’t allowed to “upgrade” their garden under rules at the time, only replace things.

And then there was the £50 for dog minding – part of an invoice charged to another member by a decorator who would only take on the job if someone was paid to watch his pooch while he did it.

This is the last time there’ll be such a load of expenses released at once as they’ll now be done on a quarterly basis. That will hopefully start to normalise the whole expenses issue.

You can’t escape the feeling that a reason the story still has so much mileage – a part from the fact that documents were released and the Legg Review is pending – is that it still feels novel to get the insight into someone’s private life that the receipts give.