MORE DEMOCRACY THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT

I have just been to exercise my democratic rights for the third time in a month. The excitement is starting to wear off. As a believer in democracy, I had to go and vote.  I also had to fight my way past three large, blonde, ponytailed teenagers who had decided to sit on the step outside the polling station and eat chips inbetween a cackle or two, and make nerds like me feel inadequate for exercising my democratic rights.  However, I had no idea what or who I might be voting for.

"The Parish Council," the woman who sits behind the desk and hands you your ballot paper announced. (As opposed to the other woman who receives your summons to vote and crosses your name off a list with a ruler).  

OK.

"There are twelve candidates, and there are eleven seats.  You can vote for not more than eleven people."

Rrrrright.

I gamely took the ballot paper to the pencil on a string and began to read.  It then dawned on me that I didn't know any of these people.  I didn't know what their politics were, or how petty and childish their personality might be when put under pressure.  Could they work with each other?  Would they be good for the parish? I had no idea.  

I also thought eleven crosses might be a bit over the top. My ballot paper would look like a teenager's love letter.   Wouldn't it be easier to put one cross next to the person you definitely didn't want to be on the council? 

In the end, I pencilled in two crosses: one for someone on my street, and one for someone with the only slogan - something about  not being prejudiced and being fair to everyone, which sounded ok to me. 

I have a sneaky feeling that most people knew who to vote for because they knew them as individuals.  Writing in hermitude does mean one can miss a lot of things.  Like the last decade...

1940s WEEKEND

This weekend the village of Haworth hosted its annual 1940s weekend. What can this be? I imagine you are asking yourselves. Just what is says on the tin. For Haworth is not content with giving the world the Bronte sisters (like the Beverley sisters except a bit more introspective and literary) and the novel Wuthering Heights. For two days every a year a barrier is slung across the main street declaring "Unexploded Bomb" and everyone harks back to the 1940s.

Personally, this nostalgia for the war years baffles me. There was rationing, powdered egg, spam, conscription, rickets, the Blitz, George Formby, genocide and death in all its various and surprising forms. But all that is forgotten in Haworth's 1940s weekend as everyone strolls around in this piece of "living history", enjoying the nostalgia for a time that never really existed.

I actually spotted four Nazis in full uniform strolling down the street. (I think they had to go about in a little gang in case people heckled them.) Now, I know the PC brigade must be pandered to, but what are we going to be presented with next year? Himmler? Goebbels? Some Jews writing postcards? Show me one person who sees a Nazi and feels nostalgic (Oswald Moseley's son and Nick Griffin don't count).

I don't understand. Is it just me? Did I miss a meeting?

FLASHING ROAD SIGNS

For the past year or two we have been subject to two new road signs. One is a dull and grey speed camera symbol. However, here's the cheeky twist: there is no speed camera. The council must not be able to afford one... That is because they have spent the traffic budget on another road sign. This one is special - all-singing, all-dancing - it's a veritable work of art. It's like the village's version of the Blackpool illuminations. People will come for miles around just to gasp at the erection (sorry, I watched a Carry On film today) and step back in amazement. Hopefully not too far, or the area will need a third road sign: "Do not step back into the road in amazement..." And drivers will crash trying to reading it.

The village has been blessed with a laser-equipped sign on a stick that can detect how fast a person is driving their car past the local primary school. If you're doing fine, the sign ignores you. If the car is going "too fast" (which is arbitrary, depending on who sets the machine), then the sign flashes a sad face at the driver until the vehicle either slows down or has passed by.

Are these people working on the same philosophy that is applied to babies? "Babies react to smiles and frowns, so adults must too." I would hope not, but here's a true story:

I heard my manager declaring that he zoomed down a long hill and set all the signs flashing, one after another. He is in his forties... Certain adults are obviously gratified by the flashing lights.

What next? Are the police going to attend accident scenes with sad smileys on sticks, holding them up like they do with the points for the ice skating? Nurses in hospital announcing to patients that they are paralysed from the waist down by flashing a sad face on a stick?

Talk about dumbing down. Anyone driving past a school in the morning/afternoon on a weekday who doesn't pay attention is a moron. What a total waste of money. They could at least have programmed the road sign to play a tune. I suggest the following:

"Lay Down Sally"

"Boom Bang-a-Bang"

"I Believe I Can Fly"

THE BNP - GETTING EVEN

Oh dear. I received a missive from the BNP this morning. I think they may have shoved the leaflet through the letterbox and run away. Nice to see they can read and write - unless they hired someone to do it for them. The party's slogan appears to be: "GET EVEN". Bit vengeful, don't you think?

It is the only leaflet I haven't ripped up and put straight in the bin without reading first. Why? Know thine enemy, people of Britain. Although the major parties are money-mad and whore themselves out to big business, this party is far more dangerous because it thrives on a lack of education, bigoted beliefs, bitterness and hatred.

They know their market, they proclaim they will raise the weekly pension to £150. Many old people are inherently racist and they don't even realise it - they hail from a time when signs at boarding houses proclaimed: "No blacks, no Irish, no dogs", and the Black and White Minstrel Show was prime time BBC entertainment - there was seen to be nothing wrong in that whatsoever.

They have a "voluntary resettlement policy" which is not mentioned on the leaflet. Why people who have come to this country to escape oppressive and dangerous regimes, or come to make decent wages and have a better standard of living would wish to be repatriated is frankly beyond me.

The BNP have put a lot of time and effort into their spin doctoring to make sure they are not associated in people's minds with the thugs of the 1970s and 80s, and the Nazi bigots of the 1990s. However, as you and I know, dear reader: "A turd by any other name..."

The leaflet's piece de resistance is a photo of their glorious leader, Nick Griffin (and his wandering eye) right next to Winston Churchill, as if their beliefs were somehow the same. Nazi sympathiser right next to someone who did their utmost to make sure Nazis didn't penetrate these shores.

I'm surprised the leaflet didn't spontaneously combust as soon as it was printed.