Boris Johnson tonight bizarrely claimed that Tories defecting to UKIP are the sort of people who injure themselves having sex with vacuum cleaners. The London Mayor was speaking at rally at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham when he launched the astonishing attack. In a jibe which risks outraging Ukip supporters, he told the rally: "The EU commission wants to ban vacuum cleaners on the grounds that they are too powerful. "If you do not handle your vacuum cleaner correctly, you may end up inhaling the hamster - the budgerigar through the bars of the cage. "And I have read that there are some people - probably the type who are thinking of defecting to Ukip - who present themselves at A&E with barely credible injuries sustained through vacuum cleaner abuse." During the speech, Mr Johnson suggested that Ukip should throw its weight behind the Conservatives in order to defeat Labour and secure an in/out referendum on Britain's EU membership in next year's general election.

In the wake of the defection of two Tory MPs to Ukip, Mr Johnson said he had turned down an approach from Nigel Farage 20 years ago and believed it would make more sense for the eurosceptic party's leader to defect to the Conservatives. Mr Johnson said it was time for "the great conservative family" to unite to defeat Labour and for Ukip supporters to recognise that the only party capable of delivering their priorities is the Conservatives. He won a warm reception from hundreds of activists at the ConservativeHome rally, but there was not the frenzy seen over the last few years, when his arrival overshadowed events elsewhere in the conference. In contrast to previous years, he failed to fill much more than half the seats in the cavernous hall booked for his appearance, which comes ahead of his keynote speech tomorrow. Mr Johnson joked that he felt offended not to have had "so much as a whisper or a sniff or the tinsiest soupcon of a suggestion that I should defect to another party", as Tory MPs Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless have done.

"I did meet Nigel Farage in a pub about 20 years ago, in the mid-1990s, and as is traditional in such cases, he pushed across the caviar and vodka that Moscow Central always use when they are trying to woo potential defectors," said Mr Johnson. "And you know what I said to him? I said 'No, Nigel, you join us'. I repeat my message today, because it is only the Conservatives who are able to deliver the kind of things he is talking about and it is only if the great conservative family unites and we stop Ed Miliband seizing back control of this country that we will be able to deliver the referendum that this country wants and deserves." He added: "I say to the quitters, the splitters and the 'Kippers, there is only one party that can sort out the European issue, there is only party that is going to sort out the constitutional anomaly that allows Scottish MPs to vote on matters that only affect England when English MPs have no corresponding say over those questions in Scotland."

Pascal de Roos (1970), web editor Marketing & Communications (MUO) “When my daughter got a dwarf hamster with a cage, I thought: that cage is way too small. I started building a hamster house out of shorea wood, a metre high, seventy centimetres wide and sixty centimetres deep. dyson vacuum cleaners forumThe house had three stories and included a TV-room a hammock and a jacuzzi. rainbow water vacuum cleaner reviewsI had even planned to put little paintings on the wall, but then my ex accidentally sucked the hamster up with a vacuum cleaner… miele vacuum cleaner whiteMy daughter didn’t want a new one, so I ended up taking it apart again. I didn’t mind very much, because the hamster house had gotten a little bit out of hand.”

“I’ve loved working with wood for a long time. When I was fifteen, I started to work on a metre long model of a hull of a sailing boat in shop class; it was made of lots of layers of multiplex, glued together. I only had shop class for an hour each week, so I obviously wasn’t able to finish it, but the teacher did give a nine for the project. I also started to windsurf around that age, and it’s still my absolute favourite sport. When you’re on a board, you’re united with the elements. You’re propelled by the force of the wind, and getting your board to plane or making a jump is the ultimate kick. I can’t express that feeling in words. The Greek isle of Karpathos is one of my favourite holiday destinations, because it is a great place for windsurfing. That’s also where I first saw someone make miniature surfboards. ‘There are better ways to do that’, I thought, and that’s how ‘Pasci-boards’ was born. Someone once gave me the nickname ‘Pasci’, so that’s where that came from.”

“Pasciboards are usually a three centimetres long and you wear them on a string around your neck. You can obviously cut a piece of wood in the shape of a surfboard, but that won’t allow you to get the same bend as you’d find on a board. I therefore glue three layers of hardwood and pine together and sand them manually till I drop. Eight hours of sanding, that’s obviously unaffordable, but I don’t do it to sell them… I give them to friends or to people that I’ve met during surfing holidays. I promised eight friends a mini-board last summer, so I still have some work ahead of me. It is kind of ridiculous to spent eight hours on sanding one of those things, but for me, it’s a way to relax. Right now, for example, it’s very busy at work. We’re building the new UM website, so those eight miniatures might be finished a lot faster than you’d expect. It allows me to indulge in my love for perfection. I also make wooden photo frames. And my latest project is the perfect basket for my bicycle.