X could finally mark the spot

Barely 24 hours to go and we can all get busy voting and exercising our democratic rights and that kind of thing. Won’t it be grand? However, as I have droned on already, don’t expect some radical transformation. Instead of waiting for some motormouth gimp in a suit to restore the gaiety of nations why not get out there and sort things out for yourself? Take control now.

First of all stop watching television at least some of the time and preferably all of the time. Even better, destroy your television. Never mind the garbage it pumps out in to your home, a television will suck the life out of you. You have been warned. Secondly, stop buying stuff. You might argue that there are some things you need and cannot do without – food I’m thinking of here. I won’t dispute that. But at the very least, buy real food and then cook it, with love, lots of love. Most other things you can do without. You really can. In a way, I’m trying to bring down capitalism but I really don’t want to have to go around shooting people. In fact, can I just make clear that shooting people is not an option at all? It’s a bad thing to do.

Basically we all need to withdraw our support from the massive edifice that is global capitalism and then gradually watch it collapse under its own weight. While we all suffer huge anxiety over trying to acquire a new and shiny thingumajig we are ignoring the fact that life is literally passing us by and we should get on with loving our nearest and dearest, smiling at the trees and counting the stars. Broadly speaking none of those things need the backing, financial or otherwise, of a gonk in the City setting up leveraged buy-outs, whatever they are, or selling short, whatever that means. It’s times like this I wish my dog was in the office with me, she'd know what to do.

This floating voter is sinking fast

In recent months I might have given the impression that I didn't think it would be worth voting in the general election. I might have suggested that there was little point as all politicians are as bad as each other, only in it for what they can get, don't give a toss about the electorate etc etc. Well, I'd just like to clarify my position, but the trouble is I can't. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to determine why I should vote, for whom I will vote and what I hope this will achieve.

But, having said all that, I think we, the electorate, have two choices and one very important truth to absorb. So, the two voting choices are vote or don't vote. What? Did you think I was going to tell you who you should vote for or even who I would vote for? Do grow up. But what I mean by saying vote or don't vote is that it is something we should all do as one. Imagine if everyone entitled to vote just didn't. No slacker "I meant to vote, but forgot, got there too late, thought it was the next day". Just real intentional "I'm not giving any of you my support". But let's face it, that won't happen. So the only option is to get out there and vote. Cast your vote on whatever basis you like - political conviction or the candidate's nice smile or even sticking a pin in a bit of paper.

Having cast your vote, the important truth to take in is. . .it won't make a blind bit of difference. Sorry to disillusion you, but the grim reality is that we as a nation are in such a deep shithole that merely changing the political complexion of the government will have barely any effect. To be brutally frank much of the reason we are in such a dire situation is entirely down to us. Yes, politicians have played their part, particularly in allowing banks and big business to roam at will feeding off us as if they were monstrous parasites, but we have encouraged them because of our insatiable desire to have "things". As long as we've been able to go on buying and consuming we've not really cared too much about what's been going on and now we have no option but to pay attention. And what we are likely to see in the coming months and even years will not be pleasant.

I live in the Torridge and West Devon constituency, almost literally a stone's throw from the boundary with the North Devon constituency. They could be twins, deeply rural, low income, housing shortage, and virtually invisible to central government. That, I fear, does not depend on the party allegiance of the two seats' MPs. When we've had MPs of the ruling party it hasn't made the slightest difference. The sad fact is that we are peripheral (in sight of the end of the world, as it says at the top of this blog) and we have no clout, and politics is rarely about doing the best one can for everyone, but doing the best one can to keep yourself in power.

I am sorry, when I started writing it, this posting was intended to be quite whimsical, and that's how it would have turned out were it not for the fact that the more I think about this the more I think that as a nation we are in denial about our situation. We hanker after "change" but we are not ready to change ourselves. Sorry to sound so bleak. Roll on May the 6th.

But what do they think about volcanoes?

Week ten of the general election campaign (it must be at least that, surely?) and the excitement and anticipation in North Devon, by which I mean everywhere north of the A30, is palpable. That is, if palpable means as limp as a discarded condom. So far the Lib Dems and the Tories have pushed one leaflet each through my letter box and then buggered off. No candidates have girded their loins enough to knock on the door and seek my vote, which is a bit of a pity because I have issues I wish to raise with them.

At least that is how I feel now, but possibly by the time the doorbell goes I'd just as soon get hold of the dog's collar and take her, snarling, with me to the door and then the candidates can leave. It works with the Jehovah's Witnesses and the funny bloke who tried to get me to take out a Sky TV subscription. None of these people know that despite the lunging and growling that the dog is doing all she really wants to do is sniff their crotches and present them with a rubber ball.

Anyway the election is sort of passing me by, but I am fully engaged with spring. Primroses, celandines, violets, blossom of all kinds, they're all putting on a big show for us which is far more impressive than the ridiculous charging around of the candidates. Add to that the birds singing their hearts out and, as ever, nature is doing what it does best - just getting on with things. I suppose that even includes the volcanic eruption in Iceland which has brought chaos to the nation's air travellers. I met some people walking their dog the other day, one of whom said of the volcano: "You can't beat nature." Indeed you can't, but volcanoes seem much more elemental than birds tweeting in the hedgerows. Lava spewing out of the ground is a direct reminder of our links to the formation of the solar system and there's little enough that our politicians have to say about that. By the way, that wasn't one of the issues I was going to raise with any candidate that called at my home, but maybe I will now.

Three days is a long time in politics

It was Harold Wilson who said that a week was a long time in politics and even though, as I write this, we are not quite 72 hours in to the General Election campaign, I’ve had enough of it already. Every TV I walk past, every newspaper I pick up, every website I glance at is droning on about the election, which I understand is their thing, it’s what they do.

But the campaign itself is dull as. The Falklands War was described as two bald men fighting over a comb and I think the 2010 General Election is much the same. Make it two-and-a-half bald men if you count the Lib Dems. The sad fact is that politicians in the major parties have more in common with each other than they do to differentiate themselves. Hence their tedious, meaningless campaign slogans. They remind me of the crap adverts for Petroc, which those with any sense will know as North Devon College. The adverts pick three words and stack them up over each other.

It looks something like this:

CONCEIVE
INSPIRE
ACHIEVE

Or maybe like this:

ARTICULATE
PENETRATE
EJACULATE

Anyway, nobody really did it better than the Japanese motorcycle industry as it began to overtake the British version. They simply said:

ADOPT
ADAPT
IMPROVE

What has any of this to do with the General Election? Well, nothing really, but that’s how difficult I’m finding it to focus on something which is either so important we should all concentrate on it to the exclusion of all else, or means so little that we might as well study the entrails of roadkill to determine where we are headed. As they say in the Big Brother house: “You decide.”

I lack celerity get me out of her

I miss Katie Price/Jordan in I'm a (fill the rest in yourself). She's not my idea of the ideal woman, in fact, she looks slightly scary and she talks like David Beckham, but give her her due, when the Great British Public voted for her to eat minced bat testicles washed down with kangaroo love juice she lapped it up - well, sort of. And she did it with some humour and not a little bravery. All this just goes to show you the power of the vote. Of course, the wheels fell off that one slightly when, after six or seven successive meals of wombat snot and the like, KP/J said she was off. And who can blame her?

But what is really intriguing to my mind about all this, is how keen the public can be to exercise their vote. Given something they're interested in, they vote early, and, seeing as they're allowed to, I'm willing to bet they vote often. ITV don't release voting figures so KP/J's ordeals may have been settled by the whim of little more than the collective might of a village the size of Little Torrington. But even so, I still feel my main point stands, which is that give people something to vote on in which they are interested and they will vote. After all, the voting on I'm a etc etc takes place in a short space of time, day after day.

All of which brings me to the subject of elections. How often do you have an election? Are your elections strong and vigorous? Are they firm enough to give you pleasure? Sorry, I'm drifting off towards some sort of knob joke, which is not the idea, at all. The thing is that in a few months our wonderful country will have a general election and the turn out will - and I'd love to be proved wrong - be woefully small. For people living in a supposedly advanced democracy we really don't seem to give a toss on the outcome of the process to choose our leaders. And I fear that is because people just aren't interested enough. "They're all the same," goes the weary refrain. Such cynicism is understandable, especially as most of the parties seem to make policies up as they go along in order to garner favourable coverage.

In the constituency where I live I am saddened to say I am considering not voting. This is a shaming admission because I know of the sacrifices made in this country for the vote and the sacrifices that people in some countries would gladly make if only they could vote to choose their leaders. But my question is: will my vote make the slightest difference? The candidates where I live are likely to be a self-aggrandising twerp, a literally hopeless makeweight, a flip-flopping fool and assorted nutters and bed-wetters from the variety of parties that might well pop out of the woodwork for the election. Where will it all end? I've not sorted this problem out yet, but I intend to.