Inevitably your election time brings back memories of youth. When you are a kid prime ministers seem to go on forever and the very idea that the man in 10 Downing Street will change is a difficult concept to grasp.
I well remember sitting up all night watching all the results, first Labour were way ahead, but that didn’t mean anything as the country constituencies came in the next day. I the returning officer tra lla traa llee, cheers here cheers there. And Mr Machin is duly ellected. Oh how many times did I hear that. I wonder if it still goes on. Yes I liked elections.
But I did have an existential problem. There was all this forecasting of who would win how many seats and who would be prime minister. But thought I the deed is already done, the votes are in the box the decision is already taken, if only somebody could count the ballots. Stop forecasting start counting the blasted things. How long can it take to count 50,000 votes? A couple of hours?
Anyway life moves on and no Prime Minister could reatain me in theire land. iIwas off, off to France. And the fun of other elections.
My first election was after the death of Pompidou. There was I with my bottle of rouge sat in front of the tele with the expectation of an exciting night. Moi l’officier electoral de jenesaispasoù dit que etc etc.
I knew the voting booths closed at eight o’clock.Tther’d be nothing for a while but I wanted in at the beginning, I was going to see the whole process. 19:40 we were told what the abstentions were and then at 20:00 we were ahem ahem ahem ahem ahem told the result. WHAT, where are the swingometers where are the recounts this CAN’T be, my night is ruined, how can there be no suspense. How can they know at the minute that the polls shut the result?
Magic?
No just good organisation.
So it will be nice watching from afar your old fashioned way of doing things, I’ll be a kid again.
Boadicea's Chariot 
“But I did have an existential problem.” Explain please.
As the night dragged on the thought was, we are debating who ‘will’ be Prime Minister, yet in fact that decision is already taken, somebody IS Prime Minister. So in another world where information was collated faster somebody was prime minister, somebody in our world was not yet prime minister.
“There was I with my bottle of rouge …”
All I could think of when I read that was, why is he putting on make-up? Then I realised.
What we now call ‘blusher’ was always known as ‘rouge’ when I was growing up.)
Hi pseu, Make up for men? No not my kinda mankind.
I remember sitting up all night waiting for the results too.
My first election here was a huge disappointment, too. Voting always takes place on a Saturday, the Polls shut at 6.00 p.m, and even with preferential voting, which is more complicated than first past the post, the result is generally known within a few hours. I’m not sure whether that would be the case in an election which seems to be as closely run as that in the UK at the moment.
Well I didn’t stay up alnight. Rightly, not much happened, I went to bed with a prediction of a hung parliament and I wake with the prediction of a hung parliament.
I see there are still a lot of constituencies undeclared and surprisingly a lot in London. Not much excuse of outlying areas there, seems that you have lost the will to count.
Surely it is pricipally a failure for the Conservatives, 15 years and they still can’t get back into power.In fact they are incapable of offering the country a broad based alternative. They are rejected by both Scotland and Wales and a lot of the North. You don’t have to read MyT for long to understand why.
The sensible thing to happen here is for labour to form a coalition with the Lib Dems, Labour with a new leader. They would have over 50% of the popular vote and this is a one in a century opportunity for the Lib Dems to get a new voting system that would allow them to get power on a regular basis and seats in proportion to their vote.
Lucky for us that the disaffected, alienated and exiled gardner is still available to advise us on everything.
Well as I see the greedy Conservatives calling for power on the basis of a third of the vote and a rejection by subsatial parts of the country, you probably need advice.
I still hope to pick up Scotland, surely if they have Cameron rammed down their throats they will finally realise they are persona no grata.
Your naivete is only exceeded by your garrulity.
Are you sure I’m not a bitter socialist or liberal? Sorry if I don’t fit your simplistic preconceptions.
Ok so we agree on the ‘bitter’ bit.
I didn’t have the same trouble as Pseu over the “bottle of rouge” thing. I knew exactly what you meant and immediately thought of my first bottle of rouge, Chateauneuf du Pape. Pleasurable indeed.