Categories: uncategorized
Date: 06 April 2005 23:02:35
That is, none for ages, then three come along at once and overtake each other, as Tractorgirl mentioned a couple of days ago.
The death of Pope John Paul II meant that the Prime Minister put off announcing the date of the General Election for one more day. Oh, the torturous suspense - we had no idea it was going to be 5th May!!! And then of course the Pope's funeral on Friday means the Royal Wedding* has been put back to Saturday, because of diary clashes for Tony Blair and Archbish Rowan.
* Royal Service of Prayer and Dedication After a Civil Marriage is more accurate, but somehow it wouldn't make such good souvenir tea-towels, would it?
And so the Election campaign starts. Unlike most of the population, I enjoy it - it's like football. You listen to every new tactical announcement from the managers, you speculate on the form, you cheer on your side and make rude gestures at the Others when they appear on telly. We wonder - will it be the Cheshire Cat or the Vampire Bat? Eventually you sit up all night to watch the game. (My enduring memory of the morning after the 1997 election, when I worked in a social policy research office, was of me with straggly, unwashed hair, one colleague with a remarkably creased and clearly un-ironed shirt, and another with stubble and unfamiliar glasses (he usually wore lenses). Thus we demonstrated that we had all been awake until a ludicrous hour, and had consequently neglected our usual grooming habit that morning).
The trouble is, the Election is serious stuff. I was recently reading a Shipmate's web page, where he stated that the prospect of a Conservative government coming back into power actually frightened him. And I agree with him, while no doubt some people long for it to happen. What saddens me is when people say 'they're all the same, why bother voting?' (Here I break off from my 'the franchise is a privilege our ancestors fought for, and some people still don't have today', with a side order of 'and doubly so for women, haven't you heard of the suffragettes, it was less than a hundred years ago you know?', and a dessert of 'well, don't moan at the government you end up with then', but you get the picture).
Ah well, it will soon be poster-spotting season, and I will be able to observe the vagaries of London poster-placement. It always used to be fun going down the Huntingdon Road in Cambridge, a road of Very Large Detached Houses on the edge of the city, and spotting the occasional dayglo orange poster among all the blue ones. Red ones were unheard of.
Well, we have a poster to put up in our bay window. It's kind of - red, as you may have guessed (and oh, how I am tempted to add 'Yes, we know they've done some bloody awful things, we keep telling them so, but they've also done some damn fine social-justice type things which they insist on keeping quiet about so as not to scare Middle England' under the instruction on where to put your cross). But in fine local politics tradition, we haven't actually got round to putting the poster up yet - we can't find the blu-tac. Hang on a minute, BLUE-tack? Oops.