There are a handful of vacancies on our local parish council at the moment.

A couple of people have asked me if I'm interested.

Whether that's because I'm always brimming over with rants and gripes about all-and-sundry and would get less chance to air them as a council member than I would in the public gallery, or whether it's because I'm genuinely interested in looking after our village, I'm not sure.

I'm ashamed to say that in the three years we have lived here, I've only been to one parish council meeting, which wouldn't be too good an endorsement were I touting around for people to vote for me.

Still, that's one more than a lot of folk. Many people, both in my village and across the country, don't go to parish council meetings at all.

One council, in County Durham, responded to this lack of interest recently by putting up fictitious planning notices. These contained proposals for densely-packed housing estates on flower meadows, and motorcycle scrambling tracks in the middle of residential areas. The parish councillors wanted people to sit up and take notice - and it worked.

Most people, like myself, only tend to go to district council meetings when an issue affects them directly.

I last went along to one when we lived beside a house owned by a woman who fancied turning the terrace house next door into a high-rise, for 75 students (it might have been more like seven, but sounded like 75).

We fended it off to some extent, but since we moved it has gone ahead and now looks like Trump Towers. My visit to the parish council was over something less traumatic - the ownership of a ditch at the bottom of our garden. Like the district council, there was definitely a feeling of them and us' hovering about the room, and I'm not sure whether I'd like to become one of them'.

I wouldn't mind joining if it was a Vicar of Dibley-type affair, with a couple of cackling women struggling to hold their crochet hooks while discussing whether Farmer Stephen's heifers could graze on the village green, and a clutch of retired colonels, fresh off the golf course, debating what colour to paint the cricket club sight screen.

Sadly, it's nothing like that. Our parish council, a mix of working and retired residents, seem to approach things in an organised, professional manner, more like they do in a company boardroom than a church hall. There is no dunking of biscuits, with dribbles of tea falling on planning applications, or slices of home-made cake being passed round.

There are plus points to standing for election, though. It might lead to a seat on the district council, and, you never know, parliament. I was never particularly interested in politics, but after tuning into the marvellous Party Animals on BBC2 for the past few weeks, I think I'm missing out on what seems like endless fun and frolics.

And I can see myself on Question Time, spouting forth on why council tax should be scrapped, and why nine extra public holidays would be great for the country.

Only one problem - how to get elected. I haven't any decent footwear for doorstepping, and I certainly can't afford a battlebus.