I like elections – I think of them like birthday presents.

When I got home today there was an electoral roll letter on my doormat. Well, in fact it had missed the doormat and was just lying in the hall, but that’s not the point. I opened it, thought, “I suppose I just put this in the envelope and post it” when I looked closer to check. I discovered that if you don’t want to change anything you can text them (which I didn’t do because it didn’t say if it costed, plus texting takes me forever) or you can call them, free. You just dial, press some numbers and that’s it.

To be fair, it could have been like that for a while, but I’ve always had to change it. But I was quite excited about confirming I want to vote by phone. Of course now I have a form I don’t know what to do with. I suppose to be on the safe side I should take it into work and shred it (as I’m too cheap to buy my own shredder).

This whole election thingy has been exciting. I stayed up on election night to see who was going to be in charge. So they decided while I was out at Rotaract last night. Which was a very confusing evening because Gordon Brown had previously said he would resign (as PM) if the Conservatives and Lib Dems reached an agreement. So then he resigned before they’d reached an agreement. And interrupted the Queen’s viewing of Eastenders while they changed PMs. We had a brief period of anarchy while we were all too far away from Buckingham Palace to be PM. Damn.

I’m excited about the Con/Lib Dem coalition. I was born into a Tory Parliament, which eventually went Labour and it was clearly going to go back to Tory at some point. So I was resigned to it always swinging between the two and the only highlights being that you couldn’t say for certain which election it would change at. So this is something different and new and exciting, and involves Lib Dems in the government, which I thought would take a miracle to see.

It’s quite cool that when they’ve been talking about the Cabinet posts on the radio today they’ve not only said their name and position, as you’d expect, but added in which party they are. And Nick Clegg gets to be PM when David Cameron goes on holiday! I wanted him to be PM at the head of a Labour/Lib Dem coalition, which would have been cool, if highly unlikely.

I’m hoping that the Lib Dem’s will tamper down the Tory bad policies a bit and between them they’ll end up with something that’s better than either of them would have done separately. We’ll see. I’m ambivalent about the idea of five year fixed terms because although it’ll guarantee me a general election for my birthday every five years, it will mean that the next one that’s actually on my birthday won’t be until 2050.

Despite having twelve hours sleep last night I’m still tired. It’s really hard to type when you’re tired, but if I do need to do some things today.

Thursday night I was so tired I went to bed at 9pm and got up at 12.30am. It is a lot harder to get up when it’s dark than go to bed when it’s light. By the time I went to sleep at 8am the result was still uncertain, which was really exciting because the first election I stayed up for was 1997, so until now Labour’s been a pretty foregone conclusion.

I’m amazed that all those BBC people stayed up until 3.45pm! I don’t know how they did it. But I did like Jeremy Paxman trying to get straight answers out of politicians at 4am on the basis that it was 4am – it didn’t work. And when interviewing them at the count he had to tell them what was going on! In the morning when he spoke to Boris Johnson he basically told him to shut up and go back to running the city. Jeremy Vine’s virtual things got sillier and sillier and no more useful. Except I missed Peter Snow, not that his virtual House of Commons told us anything either. Chris Addisons twitters were funny as well.

So, despite only getting five hours of sleep Thursday night – more of which were Thursday night than Friday morning – I enjoyed it. It was exciting. My MP is sadly still Conservative and with 52% of the vote not even PR would have helped me there. But I’m hoping that now interesting things will happen with parties working together. You never know. But since hung parliaments tend to bring another election – my birthday’s on a Thursday next year.

So today is the day after my birthday aka election day. I made a slight detour on my way home and stopped off at the polling station. Which seems crazy to me because until now I’ve always lived less than five minutes walk away from the polling station. But this one is a bit over ten minutes walk away. It is sunny now, but I’m tired and that was a bit much of a walk for me after work.

It was quite exciting – it turns out there is a notice board inside that we could put a Rotaract poster on. It’s a pity we couldn’t have one up there for election day.

Oh, and I voted too. I didn’t think that everywhere would have a short, blunt pencil, but it turns out they do. I got thoroughly confused by the names on the ballot paper being in alphabetic order by surname, but since I wanted to vote for the one at the top, that was fine. He was also the only one who actually lives in this constituency. And the most likely to win against the Tories. And the party I wanted to vote for, so that was handy.

I did get quite confused when I went in, showed the people at my desk my polling card, then they asked my name. At which point I paused, worked out they needed my full name and then gave them that. They were happy, but puzzled. I regularly puzzle people by pausing when asked my name because I have to work out whether they need my full name or whether I can just give them the shortened version.

There are many, many good reasons to vote and that I believe everyone who has the right to vote should vote. I know that often the best option is merely the least worst one, but if you don’t vote you don’t get to have an opinion about how the country is governed. My biggest reason for voting is that the Tories decided to have a general election four days before my 18th birthday when they could have hung on a few more weeks. I’m still annoyed about and won’t vote for them on the basis that they screwed me over. Well, and a lot of other reasons, obviously.

Since this week I’m struggling to keep my eyes open after about 9.30pm, I’ll be going to bed for a bit. The polls don’t close until 10pm so there won’t be any news before midnight. Doubtless I will be around on the internet at stupid o’clock, trying to keep myself awake…

After a week I’m now sick of the election. Or rather, what I’m sick of is listening to politicians fail to answer questions. Although there was an amusing moment the other day when I was listening to the news on my way home, wasn’t quite concentrating and thought Nick Clegg was Tony Robinson… Chris Addison has an amusing blog about it all. After my post about not being able to decide who to vote for I discovered the BBC website has a page where you can look at the policies of three parties side by side. So I spent a whole two days as an undecided, and decided to vote for the same party I decided I would have voted for in 1997 had the election been a week later.

I got my remix assignment and the person I’m remixing has mostly written in fandoms I know. So I could write pretty much anything. I’ve been skim-reading and I think I’ve decided, but reserve the right to change my mind.

I’ve discovered I’m intolerant to all gluten, although I can eat quite a bit of it. At this rate I’ll be intolerant to all food in ten years time. If they could just invent a pill to take every day that means you don’t have to eat that would do me. Although I’d forget to take it half the time…

I keep meaning to blog more than I do but I never seem to be able to muster up the energy at the same time as thinking of something I want to say. Or more accurately, remembering what I thought about blogging when I didn’t have the time.

So I thought I’d talk about the general election Gordon Brown has very kindly given me for my birthday. Isn’t that good of him? It’s not going to make me vote Labour, though. More accurately, I don’t know who I’m going to vote for – I’ve never had that problem before.

In my old constituency there were four people on the ballot. Labour and the other one (it varied as to what the other one was) got so few votes they might not have got their deposit back (I can’t remember where the cut off is). So the choice was between Conservative and Liberal Democrat, which isn’t much of a choice at all. And it was important to vote to get rid of/keep the Tory out.

(There are many reasons not to vote Conservative – I’m not rich or posh for a start. But the most important reason is that they purposely denied me the vote in 1997 and that’s something they can never make up for. If, at some point during this campaign, they mention they were in power for eighteen years, they’re lying. If they’d been in power for eighteen years I’d have been able to vote.)

Here, things are a bit different. I haven’t got round to finding out who might be on the ballot in the constituency I now live in, but there are more than four people. The one at the top is Conservative because there are far too many rich people here. From everything I’ve heard it sounds like he’s actually a decent bloke and a good MP. If he was Independent I’d probably quite happily vote for him. However, he’s a Tory, so I can’t.

Below him, the vote is split equally between Labour and Lib Dem, so there’s no way they’re ever going to topple the Tory and I can’t vote for one or the other on that basis. I have to vote – partially because I missed out once due to my age, I’m not going to miss out again. And also because if you don’t vote you don’t get to have an opinion on how the country is run.

So if I’m going to throw my vote away, I might as well vote for the party whose policies I agree with most. It’s such a strange thing, all of a sudden, to not be sure. I need to do some research on the internet, but I don’t intend to watch the Leadership debate next Thursday. I don’t think that seeing three men not answering questions and behaving like children will endear me to any of them somehow…

I thought I’d look up what constituency I’ll be in when I move. Turns out it’s the same one – I’m not moving far enough away. It’s a pain because it’s rural and therefore Tory country, and the second place is so split between Labour and Lib Dem that it feels like your vote doesn’t count (not that it will ever stop me voting – you could offer me £1 million and I’d still rather vote, thanks to John Major who made it so I was 22 before I could vote in a general election).

On the subject of the US election, I forgot about it when I first got up this morning. Ordinarily my alarm goes off at 8am to the news and I’d have heard it then, but since I’m not going back to work until tomorrow, I didn’t wake up until much later. The Guardian has a collection of US election maps that are quite cool (the trick is to remember that the colours are the wrong way round).

I thought I should make a post about the new Prime Minister being the fourth since I was born. Five Live did a whole afternoon on it yesterday, so I listened to the tennis on Sports Extra instead. I mean, it’s interesting but it’s not that interesting. Mostly it’s just weird – you get used to one being there forever, or at least that’s what it seems like. And it seems like much more fuss than any of the others. Major was the first time I noticed politics (and worked out Paddy Ashdown was not in fact in the headmaster of the local secondary school, just because it was called Ashdown – it was logical at the time).

Then Blair was a general election four days before my 18th birthday, so that was a big event for everyone not born at the beginning of May. But this one, I came back from Romania wondering if Brown had been elected yet. I never quite got round to asking or looking it up. I don’t think I need to yet.

The date I was born makes naming PMs easy – Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown – anyone older than me has to know the one before: Callahan. No idea what his first name was, mind you. Mind you, I can tell you my MPs party, what school she went to and I think I can remember her first name. Her last name could be anything though. I also can’t tell you what my constituency is called since it has such a strange name.

Oh, and Henman’s out of Wimbledon – it’s a good thing because now we can focus on some more interesting players who don’t favour long drawn out matches. I want Nadal to win.

The OC has been cancelled! I’m obviously out of the loop because that article is dated 4th January, and I only vaguely read something along those lines today. In better news, as of this morning, we no longer have a hosepipe ban. Now I just need a hosepipe…

My leg’s definitely getting better, albeit slowly. I’m supposed to be driving to Wycombe on 27th for Burns Night, so we’ll have to see how that goes. If it’s bad, I might end up in a dress and walking boots because I don’t think 2 inch heels are going help somehow.

I watched The Invasion, courtesy of Lovefilm getting it right for once. I liked it but it was a bit slow. I quite liked the Second Doctor and Jamie. Zoe I’m not so sure about yet.

I kept reading today that Pluto is no longer a planet which confused me because I thought they’d alreay decided there would be 12 planets in the solar system (with the addition of Ceres, Charon and Xena). But I must have read something that just said that’s what could happen and I liked the idea. So, I reserve the right to have 12 planets in my solar system, rather than 8, so there. *sticks tongue out*

I’m quite tempted by the sg-rarepairings ficathon as it includes all pairings that aren’t Sam/Jack, Jack/Daniel, Shep/Weir, McKay/Shep. Which doesn’t rule out most Atlantis pairings I’ll quite happily read. I know the 11th December deadline looks a long way off but it won’t be by the time assignments are out and I’m distracted by something else.

I also had a drive tonight, with my landlady’s boyfriend, who was really good to drive with. The roads were quiet, which was good. I was thinking I might just about manage to go round the block but we actually went through town then round it on the bypass and it went okay. So I might well drive to bowling on Tuesday (with a new Rotaract member who is training to be a driving instructor).

I’ve also been playing with my sat nav. Not only do I have John Cleese’s voice on it, but the daleks too. Not that you can really understand their instructions but it works for entertainment value. And Sel, you’re right, it can’t find your house. It manages your postcode but gives me another road and then refuses to deal with house numbers. So I’ll be able to get in the vicinity of your house for Peg2, then there might be some ringing of your house to tell whoever answers John Cleese can’t find it

I’m all excited now! I’m off to Banbury this weekend – it’s a big Rotaract camping weekend, so I’m going up for the day today and tomorrow. Tomorrow is the Conference bid, so I have been told I have to be there Tonight they are having a big Christmas party – which is their theme. Don’t ask.

But it’s a bank holiday weekend, yay! Except last one till Christmas Monday I’m going to defrost the fridge, do my monthly backup of the whole computer and clean my room. Wow, don’t I live an exciting life.

Which is entirely true, but sadly, I can’t write it. I might put it in a friends-locked entry, though.

In brighter news, Blunkett has resigned; there’s a new spoof news program on BBC2 Monday nights that is quite funny, and has Claudia Christian in it, plus some other people I recognise but can’t remember the names of; I don’t have to go back to work till Wednesday; I have chocolate spread that doesn’t have vanilla in and is in date.

On the bad side, every Green & Blacks chocolate I looked at has vanilla in. It’s probably not enough to make me ill, as long as I don’t eat too much in one go. Hmm. I went ice-skating last night, which turned out to be ice-dancing night, so there were quite a few really good people about trying to trip us up. But apart from that the ice was quite empty, which makes it much easier to skate. I’m surprised how many people have been to Ice Trax at Tower Park.

I watched Rome tonight. Or more accurately I watched the first half hour while putting my Australia photos in my album, at which point I couldn’t take any more and ended up watching The West Wing instead, which was good. I’m starting to get quite bored of the election though, I wish they’d just get it over and done with already.

(Although I started writing this yesterday, so I’m technically a bit late with that, never mind)

You couldn’t make it up: Drunken prank led to armed siege

I had no intention of seeing Serenity. I’ve seen 20mins of Firefly and that was enough. But there was an article about it in the latest SFX that mentioned they go to a remote place called Maidenhead. I mentioned it to Rotaract and there was a general concesus we’d have to check out this ‘Maidenhead’ place. (A small note – Maidenhead is a town not far from here. One of our members is going out with an ex-member of Maidenhead Rotaract).

I discovered today this WordPress blog has the best thing ever – search. We were having a Myers-Briggs discussion and I knew I had what I was on my blog somewhere but couldn’t remember which month it was. But I searched for it and found it.

I’m really bad with names, it takes me a long time to learn them. For some reason I find it much easier if I see them written down – although if isn’t pronounced as it’s written that doesn’t help. I struggled with who Weiss in Alias was for two series. I was seeing it written when people talked about him and assumed it was pronounced Veiss, and I couldn’t remember anyone with that name.

I’ve seen someone called Halling mentioned paired with Beckett (Carson, not Sam, which doesn’t help). I assumed it was the woman from Duet whose name begins with a C or K, but no, turns out Halling is a man. Is he actually on the series? Admittedly, it’s taken me a series and a half to work out who Zelenka is.

I’m doing really badly on episode titles as well. I keep seeing episode tag fics, where they’ll say it’s set post ‘Hot Zone’ for example. Which is great. Except that doesn’t really narrow it down very much. Which is why I started putting an episode guide on my site – I need it for me.

The way Lost introduces you to a character each episode is really handy because I’m learning a name per episode. I think I’ve learnt the same number now as I would have in the entire series. I did confuse myself though, as I temporarily named Sawyer, ‘that guy’ but then got confused and thought Adam was ‘that guy’. I think the only ones I have temporary names for now are Adam, the pregnant girl who I think was Tess in Roswell High, that guy who’s been in everything, the kid, the kid’s dad, the dog, the one with silly hair. I’ve even managed to learn Shannon without her having an episode yet, which is pretty good going for me.

After the two-part starter for the latest Spooks series I realised there was a new character and I should make sure I remember his name. Needless to say I’d forgotten it a week later and I still can’t remember. It’s only one name and four episodes later it could be anything. Although the other week I couldn’t for the life of me work out who this Fiona Adam was referring to was.