Thursday 6 May 2010

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Leaving the flat I pick up a pastel blue envelope that is lying on the mat. It has been hand-delived and handwritten. My name is in shaky block capitals – it looks like an angry child’s doing. I pocket it to read on the bus to work.

I open the envelope. It is from Jon Ball, the Lib Dem candidate for Ealing. It is a last desperate plea (Your vote counts!). On closer inspection I see that the envelope was indeed handwritten, but the letter inside has been cunningly scanned from the original. I am still impressed, and slightly ashamed over how influenced I am by some nice blue writing paper and joined-up writing. It beats glossy leaflets with smirking faces and pie charts, anyway.

Another choice for MP is Labour man Bassam Mahfouz, who has not sold himself to me. On his website he bigs up the fact he starred in a short film in 2005 playing a gangster called Carlos who runs amok with a water pistol (www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaOoXsR8Asg). Is this the sort of person I want looking out for me? Fighting for my recycling rights? Ealing is no California.

It makes me think back to covering elections in Sussex with my friend, who now works for a paper in Newcastle. We had been fully prepared for a long night at the polling station, with a rucksack full of bloody Mary ingredients and cheese crisps. By 1am we were staggering along a beach with a UKIP candidate called Moose; my friend clutching onto the election results, which were written on a napkin.

With all this election pondering, I fail to realise I am on the wrong bus. It terminates at Victoria, where I do three laps of the station looking for bus stop 'Q'.

2 comments:

  1. Actually, it was 5am. And don't forget the Oranjeboom...

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  2. That's so funny, our Lib Dem candidate in Holborn/St Pancras also dropped a few of these 'hand-written' notes through our door. I also nearly fell for it...

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