Jeremy Corbyn arrived at the leadership result flanked by young supporters
Going through my sock draw and throwing out the ones with holes - ready for the conference season - I thought back to a moment when I felt I'd arrived in an alternate reality.
Jeremy Corbyn turned up for his coronation at the QE2 Conference Centre in London, entirely hidden from view, and borne along by a crowd of very young Corbynistas in red T-shirts, bearing the slogan "JezWeCan".
They sang The Red Flag. Next to me, a Labour MP of about Corbyn's own age smiled the least-amused smile I've ever seen.
Grizzled veterans
"Look at them," he said. "So young, so white, so middle class. They're all like that!"
Seemed harsh. True, they didn't look much like the crowd of workers, peasants and intellectuals in that famous picture, meeting Lenin off his sealed train in Petrograd.
And, anyway, Jeremy Corbyn has always knocked around with a corps of grizzled left-wing veterans - some of them may have been on the platform in Petrograd, for all I know.
Lenin addresses a crowd in Red Square in 1919
Corbynmania was swelled by those fed up with the same-old, same-old Labour politics - all politics - the evasive answers, the compromises, the failure above all to deliver change, however defined.
When those young, singing zealots put their hero down and headed into the hall, I caught a glimpse of Jeremy Corbyn's face. He looked bewildered. Perhaps he should have foreseen this moment. Perhaps we all should have.
Will David Cameron be trying not to laugh at Labour's choice of leader?
In Brighton, at the Labour conference, they'll greet Jeremy Corbyn rapturously, and a lot of them will actually mean it. Some, like me, remember the most chaotic days during the 1980s of Labour's close combat between its left and, well, not-quite-so-left-wing leadership
Just now, Labour's rival wings are circling each other, warily. A lot of Labourites will demand unity, which is impossible.
They may get a sort of armed truce, but who knows how long that'll last? It's fascinating to watch. As a lover of political spectacle, I have to admit at least part of me feels like a 10-year-old at a funfair.
Jeremy Corbyn (and Billy Bragg) sing The Red Flag
These conferences are shorter nowadays. The Conservatives, in Manchester, that's a four-sets-of-socks job. Will David Cameron try to occupy the centre-ground that's come up for grabs?
I can't help feeling one of his biggest tasks may be trying not to laugh out loud at his good luck - as he sees it - in Labour's choice of leader.
Slimmed down
The polls say many people see Cameron as most prime ministerial. He's also sometimes seen as a bit of a public school bully, and he'd do well to avoid encouraging that perception.
As for George Osborne - we'll watch him through the lens of future leadership contender. Cameron won't fight another election, and suddenly his chancellor rather looks the part.
Until recently, he seemed too cold, sounded even posher than he is - and as heir to a 17th-Century baronetcy he's pretty posh already.
He drops his "aitches" from time to time, his suits seem sharper, he's slimmed down and worked out. He somehow looks a lot more like Special Agent Bodie, from the old TV cop show The Professionals and less like Lord Fauntleroy's older brother.
Other contenders? Boris Johnson connects with people like no-one else can. He never says he's dreaming of the top job. But he is. And he's competitive.
Is Boris Johnson the Conservatives' prize fighter?
A few years back, a TV producer tried to arrange a celebrity boxing match: me in one corner, Boris in the other.
It never happened, thankfully: but close your eyes, and picture him: with his stocky build and mop of white hair, he might almost be a negative transparency of Smokin' Joe Frazier.
In Bournemouth, the Liberal Democrats will be daring to dream a Labour lurch to the left might help them reoccupy some ground in the centre.
Their leader, Tim Farron, is a nice guy and an old-style Liberal. A man after the activists' own hearts.
Some coalition veterans doubt his fitness for the harsh realities of government. But that problem - if it is one - is a long way off.
And like him, they seem to love a scrap against heavy odds - which is just as well. I suspect history will be kinder to the Lib Dems than the voters were in May. It could scarcely be harsher.
Woolly socks for the SNP in Aberdeen, I suppose. Not even the chilly winds gusting off the North Sea will cool the passion of a party riding high.
New socks are needed for UKIP's conference
At the general election, the single dot of Labour red left on the Scottish map looked like a fleck of blood on the carpet at a murder scene. Their leader, Nicola Sturgeon, owns Scottish politics just now.
Jeremy Corbyn's encouraged people to judge his impact on next May's Scottish elections. Not sure that's wise.
I need to go sock shopping. The UK Independence Party, in Doncaster, will be well worth a visit. It always is.
The backdrop to all of this has changed. The yearning for something different is strong, and it goes beyond the Labour Party.
Could Corbynmania last longer than a lot of pundits think - even catch on? If it does, it'll defy all conventional wisdom, given Corbyn's pure-left ideas, the headwind of a hostile media, and the ideological chasm that separates him from so many of those he'd call "comrade" if only they'd let him.
Will Labour, and with it the effective opposition good government and democracy needs - will all politics as we've known it - be torn to pieces while we find out?
I'll admit the thought makes me a little queasy. I've said I love funfairs. And I do. But I was always sick on the roller-coaster.
