Something very remarkable happened to me last Saturday. I was going about my business like any Saturday. Except it wasn’t Saturday and it wasn’t happening to me but the USA. It was 2008 and they’d just elected their first Hawaiian president. You may have heard of him. A man called… Barack was it? No. Because we are conducting an outrageous thought experiment where America had voted for John McClane. Yippee kay ay mother… no, just mother? You guessed it, it’s election time again, the jolly democratic carnival is back in town, and this time the outcome depends on the voters… again. It. Where Americans everywhere and especially in America go into a little box to place their plops and drips in a pool of water before heading out to vote, but sometimes they get it the wrong way round, something Tony Blair benefited from in 97. It is often said that up to 95% of Labour votes that year were actually accidental toilet-roll/voting-slip mishananigans, but the true figure may be much higher. And John McClane was from Hawaii.
I’ve been spending the last two weeks gauging emotions, and not to mention political temperatures, after mentioning it that one time, in the streets, and roads, and cul-de-sacs, and carparks of the people of this great place of Hemel Hempstead.
Figure 1. Militant? As in you take up arms?
I’ve spoken to the fishmonger who smells so bad that she can’t get a job since November. ‘Who will you be voting for?’ I ask with clothes peg nasality. ‘I don’t have a vote’ she says, as if entirely aware of the gross inequality facing gross fishmongers every second in every way just because of their Britality. I’ve spoken to the schoolteacher who smells so bad she can’t remember the one times table. I’ve spoken to my brother who smells so bad that I realised the smell was coming from me.
Figure 2. A display of my disdain for the actor Daniel Radcliffe. He is seriously pissed off about this.
“One man is a president. The other has a magic hat” – Ricky Gervais, on Letterman. Yeah, but Obama supposedly believes in the virgin birth.
But when it comes down to it, there’s only one poll that matters. There’s only one poll every four years that matters. There’s only one poll every four or two that matters the most, more than the polls which gauge opinion and are not true indicators given the small sample sizes, but there’s only one poll that matters because I know about politics and important things in the world.
But one way or another, we’ll have a new world leader come Wednesday. It is important. It will have a profound influence on you because you don’t understand it like I do. Perhaps that fishmonger will be able to sell her fish for a few extra dollars, but come Romney, or Obama, or a strange hybrid monster of the two, or a total surprise like it was all a dream, politics will be important. Have you ever eaten a meal? Politics. Have you ever seen a tree? Politics. Have you ever fought in a war? Politics affects every aspect of your life except your ear size. Accept your ear size! Listen to what democracy is telling you.
Your man in Hemel,
