Blue Witch

The Friday Question

I'll get around to the rest of Chelsea and replying to those of you who've kindly emailed recently sometime soon, maybe... too many snapping crocodiles and unexpected tragedies...

One of the local garden centres has decided that they are not making enough money out of selling tacky gifts and from their ever-expanding tea shop/restaurant (whatever happened to the plants?) and have just opened a farm shop. Selling items that definitely haven't come direct from a farm, at near-Harrods prices.

Ah - aside - while I think about it, one of the 'encouragement to grow your own fruit and veg' displays at Chelsea stated that you could save £326 per year by growing your own. I always find such remiss use of statistics highly amusing and wondered whether this was per person, per household, or per plot. Per household equates to £6.27 per week. In any case, we save much more than that: every time I go out for a handful of herbs the large bunch I return with would cost more than £6.27 if bought in those little plastic packs beloved of supermarkets. The salad leaves I pick and munch as I walk up and down the garden several times a day to see the Feathered Familiars must be worth a pound a time at supermarket prices.

Anyway, back to the garden centre pretending to be a farm shop. As I passed through it on my way to the adjacent garden machinery shop to buy some spark plugs (Tip: when your petrol lawnmower/blower vac/hedge cutter/strimmer doesn't work as well as it used to, change the spark plug, it will be like a new machine) I saw some, what they termed, 'cup-cakes'. Now, to me they looked like some lop-sided fairy cakes that some pre-schoolers had iced with icing they'd been allowed to colour themselves, and then thrown some sugar strands and silver balls at. And they were £1.50 each. Enough, I thought, to make a batch of at least 18 at home.

I didn't think any more about this until I saw Lord Sugar-Cube (ah, the rewards of cosying up to Mandy and his mates *shudders violently at the thought*) amusing himself with some 16 and 17 year old brainless and talentless wannabees the other night.

The Aspiring Junior Apprentices' challenge was to research and make cup cakes and sell them to the gullible public. They all sold them for £2.20 a time, and one team had the nouse to charge more (£3) for personalised ones.

Three quid for a fairy cake with bright icing and a few sprinkles? You have to be joking!

Lord Sugar-Cube stated that the cup cake industry was worth £26.5 million a year in the UK! When did fairy cakes become cup cakes? And so valuable? I'm sure you can still buy 6 iced fairy cakes (complete without nasty E numbers) at the local Nice Ladies' market for about one fifty...

How long does it take to knock up a batch of little cakes and slap on a bit of decoration? In the olden days (pre-no-brain-no-effort electronic entertainment) kids used to clamour to be allowed to make such things. They were made (and valuable lessons about weighing, measuring, and cooking learned) at home, at school, and at clubs and parties. The Brownie Hostess Badge even required young girls to make a tray of butterfly cakes (or were they mushrooms?) and serve them to some visitors.

What is it with this cup cake phenomenon? Do you buy it? Can you explain it?

Chelsea 1

At the weekend Mr BW chainsawed off the remaining branches/top of the dead-for-the-past-three-or-four-years almond tree, in preparation for the erection of The Triffid. The blog-unveiling of which must wait a little longer as it's not quite at the correct height yet.

I was slightly exhausted at the time and was having a semi-comatose/paralysed lie down in a darkened room. So, the first I knew of it was when I went out and found a four foot tree stump and a pile of logs thrown on top of some self-seeded eryngiums. Mr BW does not like eryngiums.

Hmmm, I said, those might make an interesting feature.

And lo, my Witchy Powers were working overtime, for when we got to Chelsea, what did we spy, but piles of logs everywhere. In various orientations:




And lots of box. We have lots of box (of the buxus variety as well as the more plastic and cardboard kinds).


Not too much in the way of bright colours, other than maybe lime green:



Complete with rhubarb and custard (which, I thought, looked awful on TV, but great in the plant):

And otherwise, lots of green, lots of silver birch (dead and alive), and quite a lot of euphorbias. Also some emphasis on buzzy stripey familiars, or at least, the boxes they live in, and the flowers that can sustain them. And a garden based around the quotation Mr BW uses at the start of any talk he does on the subject:

There were some fake hens (real ones not being allowed on the premises), of which I have developed a *need*, so Mr BW will have to get playing with chicken wire at the weekend:

And so it is that we are once again unintentionally trendy.

More later, including our most interesting journey there (how we do love travelling on the tube, it makes us feel so normal), and unintentionally privately charabanc chauffeured journey home...

Showing off

I *adore* this weather. Fabulous. Frost to fried in 10 days.

We've been in the garden and looking at Open Gardens, and hardly near the computer.

But why, oh why, was almost everyone in Small Local Town bright red yesterday? Which bit of overexposure to sun causes skin cancer are they stilll not grasping?

Given yesterday's showing of flesh (which was most unpleasant) I've concluded that Mr BW and I must be the only people below 50 in this area not to be plastered in tattoos. Given that the first ink parlour opened in a tiny shack in a run-down part of town 7 years ago, and that there are now 6, yes, six, of them, in a town of 40,000, I think one can see why. Most of them have absolutely no artistic merit whatsoever - and why do lads in their late teens and early twenties need to have their names and dates of birth written permanently engraved on their necks?

Bit cooler today, which is good as we are off to Chelsea for our annual flower show visit this afternoon.

Chelsea 2010 Plant of the Year Award is Streptocarpus 'Harlequin Blue'. My spells are working!

All the Awards are here. The website coverage is really good this year (well, it will be when the RHS web team have sorted all the links they broke when they put up the medal results sometime after 8am...).

The Friday Question

I spent yesterday tidying The Studio. And it's still not finished. It's amazing how quickly things can mount up and get out of control, especially when you're working on lots of different creative projects and planning a couple of courses too.

A glorious day, probably the best of the year so far: over twenty degrees C all day, and still 17 degrees at 9.15pm. Just as well as I was washing off the polished stones that go around The Citrus Grove (the incumbents having moved out from their winter home in the summer house today), and paddling in cold water at anything less than 17 degrees would not have been good.

A sea of yellow out of the window: 140 acres the farmer told me when he rang to tell me they were about to spray the field, but not with anything that would harm The Stripey Familiars, who are currently being buzzier than I have ever heard them. It will soon be time to try out the new magic h0ney machine.

Given that, when I worked for the local authority, I used to happily deliver training courses for umpteen people from a wide variety of different audiences, that I'd dreamt up just a few hours before they were due to go on, it's amazing how much time it is taking to put together a course on the creative colouring of fabric for half a dozen people I know well.

Cleaner BW was good naturedly clearing up the fluff behind me, as I moved things around yesterday, and asked, "Was your bedroom tidy when you were a teenager?" Strangely, it was. Everything was meticulously catalogued and filed, and had its place. Nowadays, the downstairs of The Coven is usually pretty tidy, but The Inner Coven is the untidiest place I know. Although the basic organisation is there, the clutter that moved into there from The Coven Attic four years ago when we built on The Studio (four years ago - where did that time go?!) has never quite found new homes. And that is where the disordered chaos started. But, I do still know where everytihg is, and I can still quickly find anything I need; it's just that no-one else ever could. Happily, the Studio is nearly back as I want it. Not too tidy, but not too messy either, and everything locatable, and not just by me.

How does your bedroom tidiness as a teenager compare to your household tidiness now?

Oh Lordy

So Lisa's friends have finally arrived. In very ill-fitting suits, given what I saw on TV last night.

The 2012 Olympic mascots may be called Wenlock and Mandeville, with tales about the genesis of their names made up to match, but is it only me who finds the name 'Mandeville' just a bit too much of a coincidence?

And I'd better not post a picture of them (even if I wanted to) as no doubt I'd then be chased for royalties...

Thought for the day

As we grow older, our bodies get shorter and our anecdotes longer.

- Robert Quillen

Wound up and split up pics

It always amazes me how some people can teach something, and think they're good at teaching it, yet half the learners in a class don't understand. I spent the first day of the course completely confused and frustrated, and I wasn't the only one. It's good for me to have experiences like this occasionally, as it reminds me how hard learning is for some people.

There was one key phrase that confused many of us.

The tutor kept talking about the essential working move being, "A quarter turn." Rather than put the lot in the bin (which I was sorely tempted to do) on Saturday evening, and not go to the Sunday session, I played around with it, and worked out that if she'd only also said, "Insert the hook so that you pick up the last of the previously worked p1ies, and then pick up the next unworked p1y," those of us relegated to the bottom set could have made it to the top of the class.

Here's the finished collection of samples.
That represents ten hours work (and we didn't even have to make our own four-twist cords first, as they were supplied). As someone on the course said, "You never really appreciate the work in any craft until you try it yourself."

This is the tutor's bundle of samples. The technique can be expanded into all sorts of flat and 3D objects. Probably by someone with better eyesight than me.

Buses, privacy and bad jokes

So the new Routemaster is unveiled, complete with open backs. Boris is giving users back the civil liberty of being able to jump on and off as convenient, and the right to collide with cyclists. Not quite sure why it needs three doors, and one can only think that there won't be too many seats downstairs as a result.

How I wish I'd bought one of the old ones when they were going for £2,000 in good working order, five years ago when they were withdrawn. Probably my biggest regret of missed opportunities that one.

There is to be a Facebook Protest Day. People concerned about their privacy are being encouraged not to use the site on 6th June. But, given that Facebook's CEO has said that he doesn't "believe in privacy", I suspect they are slightly missing the point.

The campaign organisers are suggesting - wait for this - that people join their protest Facebook Group, use Twitter to publicise it, and contact them via a G-Mail address. That just *perfectly* sums up what I've been saying over recent days. And explains why the Darwin Awards need to exist.

"...the whole point about Facebook is that users aren't customers. Anyone who supposes that Facebook's users are its customer has got the business model precisely backwards. Users pay nothing, because we aren't customers, but product. The customers are the advertisers to whom Facebook sells the information users hand over, knowingly or not.

Most people haven't a clue about privacy and the future ramifications of giving away data. Years ago, everyone's telephone number was in the phone book, and everyone happily threw private papers into the rubbish, without giving it a second thought. Nowadays we need the telephone preference service, ex-directory and shredders to protect us from those who would otherwise help themselves to unfettered access to us and our personal data. Who'd have guessed, back in the 60s and 70s that this would happen? The electronic future is no different.

I've heard umpteen people say that Facebook accounts can only be disabled, not permanently deleted. I stumbled upon this which tells you exactly how to delete an account permanently. Although I'll bet the data isn't wiped from the Facebook database.

And finally (because I'm processing sheep's coats today, not doing computery things), can anyone explain to me why Liam Byrne, outgoing Chief Secretary to the Treasury, left a note for his incoming, differently coloured successor, saying, ""I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left"? I just do not understand how anyone can think that's funny.
.

Facebook fun

Some entertaining strips for those of you who, like me, find it all too entertaining to participate.

Of course

This weekend I am getting knotted*. Or maybe wound up and split up would be a better description. I'll let you know.

* Something that may please those of you with alternative political viewpoints - apparently, most of you then, according to one more rightly inclined reader ;)

Google are at it again

Summarised: "Our Street View cars accidentally collected data from open wi-fi, while photographing your houses."

Well done to the Germans for discovering this.

"John Simpson, from the Consumer Watchdog, told the BBC: "The problem is [Google] have a bunch of engineers who push the envelope and gather as much information as they can and don't think about the ramifications of that."

Remind me, why is it I don't trust Google, g-mail or anything else they provide?

The Second Friday Question

I think I'm in love.

"One of David Cameron's first decrees as PM has been to ban his cabinet ministers from using mobile phones and BlackBerrys in meetings.

What if your workplace introduced a similar rule?"

I always ask people I meet with to turn off their phones at any meeting I am chairing, or to which I am making a major contribution, whether it is work or not work. I may be old-fashioned, but I wholeheartedly agree with a phrase from the linked article:

"The way people use their phones has taken rudeness to new heights. Does anyone shake open a newspaper during business meetings and start to read? No they don't. So how come it is acceptable to check your e-mails several times? Or worse - to receive a call, and, with that carefully practised apologetic look, point to the door and move nimbly towards it bearing the buzzing gadget aloft. Surely, meetings would be so much more efficient without them?"

And I'm sure we all know someone who uses the 'conveniently timed' phone call or message to advantageously get out of things/situations.

The Friday Question

Why?

We may yet be free again

I am delighted to see that the invasive Nanny State legacies of Labout are going to be addressed by the new coalition:

"The parties agree to implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion.

This will include:

* A Freedom or Great Repeal Bill.

* The scrapping of ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the Contact Point Database.

* Outlawing the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.

* The extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.

* Adopting the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.

* The protection of historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury.

* The restoration of rights to non-violent protest.

* The review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech.

* Safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.

* Further regulation of CCTV.

* Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason.

* A new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences."

On similar lines, if you don't want your personal health information put onto the national NHS database, you need to opt out, urgently. There are, I understand, 1.25M records already on there. Once your data is registered, although it can be 'hidden' at your request, it can never be removed.

Act now if you don't want your personal health details available to be lost, hacked or sold to insurance companies, annuities providers etc etc in future. And don't tell me it won't happen, because I live in the real world where, before Labout's 13 years of incompetence, I was promised an earnings-linked state pension at 60, and Mr BW could choose to take his private personal pension (which has nothing at all to do with the governmint) at 50.

Although I generally view rebranding exercises as a complete waste of money, I am also delighted to see that the new coalition are calling a spade a spade and getting rid of the over-the-rainbow image of what the long-in-the-tooth in education have referred to as the Department for Curtains and Soft Furnishings since Goldfish created it in 2007. I've always thought that Mandy chose the logo, because I've never been able to see any other reason for it. Back to the good old Department for Education. Hurrah.

But, the rebranded derainbowfied website made me laugh: "The Department for Education was formed on 12 May 2010 and is responsible for education and children's services. All statutory guidance and legislation linked to from this site continues to reflect the current legal position unless indicated otherwise, but may not reflect Government policy."

The BBC reported that:

"The new Education Secretary Michael Gove has told his staff in an internal e-mail he wants to "refocus" the department "on its core purpose of supporting teaching and learning."

One can only wonder what he has found it was doing before he took office. I just hope he stops the deluge of information currently being emailed into schools every week. One headteacher that I know well told me that if she read even a quarter of it in detail, she'd never leave her desk.

Yellow

Apparently it's Miffy's fault that I like bright colours so much.

According to the second part of the BBC's truly excellent current four-part series on 20th century artists, Dick Bruna, Miffy's creator, was heavily influenced in the use of simple, bold colour, and strong line, by Matisse.

Miffy and I have had a long, long-term relationship.

With this view out of the windows at present: thousands of acres of bright yellow - fortunately apparently without the expected vile scent:

It's probably unsurprising that this was (the entirety, apart from some white fabric for dye1ing, of) what I subconsciously selected in High Value Store in Leicester last Thursday:

I don't even like yellow normally!

Thought for the day

Blessed is the person who sees the need, recognizes the responsibility, and actively becomes the answer.

- William A. Ward

On a lighter, yet scarily connected, note...

Working with one of my very bright Pupils BW earlier (currently being badly failed by her school, who, in their scrabble to remain top of the 'league tables' in this area, are targeting the majority of resources to the less able pupils, to the exclusion of adequately challenging and extending the most able), she pointed out to me that part of an (not written by me, I hasten to add) exercise she had completed for homework had required working out which two words from a list of seven given could be made from the word 'politician'.

"The two answers I've got are 'action' and 'panic'," she said. "Do you think that's right?"

She's 9. Going on 60.

Why it was never going to work

So, it looks like we will get choices 2 and 3.

That's why I was imploring people who wanted change not to vote LibDem last week. I could see it coming. And I don't think it was my Witchy Powers working overtime either. A Con/LibDem marriage was never going to work. The differences were too great.

Despite Cameron getting a majority of 2 million votes and 47 seats, the country looks set to be governed by the parties who lost.

Just why has this happened you ask? Not just because The Goldfish offered to resign at a crucial moment (sometime in the next few months; as I also predicted, being the stubborn git he is, he just couldn't bear the thought of leaving now, as is right and proper) late on Monday afternoon when those involved in talks were becoming tired and disillusioned.

With turnout in the election up from 61% in 2005 to 65%, the Tories ended up with 36% of the vote in the UK, followed by Labour on 29% and the Liberal Democrats on 23%. The Tory share of the entire electorate, 24%, was higher than the 22% who voted for Labour in 2005.

Had the positions of the parties been reversed, and had it been Labour who secured 36% of the vote, Goldfish Brown would have been returned with a majority of 64.

Why?

Because the size of Tory constituencies is on average 7,600 above that of the Labour ones.

Because the present system is hopelessly skewed so that the average constituency in England has 71,000 voters while the Welsh and Scottish average is around the mid/upper-50,000s. If you live in the Isle of Wight (a Tory stronghold), it is 110,000. So, we don't necessarily need electoral reform at all, what we need is for the existing system to be fair, so that a vote in one part of the UK is worth the same as a vote anywhere else.

Once again, Scotland and the Scottish (who have their own Parliament, responsible for a majority of their legislation) have fucked over the English, in their own self-interest.

While the results were coming in last Friday, I was clicking between the BBC's running score on the UK seats and the England seats. Looking at the colours on the map showed the growing gulf between England and the rest of the UK.

In England the Tories secured almost 40% of the vote and 297 seats (55% of seats) whilst Labour got just 28% and 191 seats. This sums up my feelings perfectly. I hope they're right when they say,

"England has voted convincingly for a Tory government. Scotland, Wales and N Ireland do not want one. And let's face it, why would they? Given that they are all big beneficiaries of England's taxes. This election gives a huge boost to the campaign for an English Parliament, with English taxes for English people."

The number of seats relates poorly to the number of votes. Votes needed to get a seat were: Conservative 34,989; Labout 33,350; LibDem 119,788; Green 285,616. If seats were allocated according to votes, I read somewhere else that the BNP would have 12 MPs. I'm not saying that is a good or a bad thing, just pointing out what will happen under PR of the variety the LibDems are seeking.

Some sources state that the Conservatives were only hung by 16,000 votes (although I think these numbers make too many unprovable assumptions). And given that over a third (35%) of the electorate couldn't be bothered to vote, despite anyone being allowed to request a postal vote these days... well, it's clearly the fault of all those "can't be bothered"s, isn't it? ;)

Get rid of the Scottish vote for Labour and all the discussion would be academic.

Another factoid, for posterity: a quarter of previous MPs retired at this election. With nice big golden handshakes. Just as well given that The Speakers' Circuit (traditionally where many of them end up) will be swamped for a while. Ann Widdecombe has retired to a country cottage on Dartmoor, I read somewhere. Half of MPs are new in the House of Commons.

Oh - on the subject of The Speakers Circuit, I can't see John Prescott being very popular. He'd need five dinners (at least), a whole side of a table to himself and two parking places outside. What do you think Goldfish's after dinner speech will be called? "How I fucked the UK"? "How I couldn't give it up even when everyone told me I should"? "All you need, to secure your place in history as the worst (unelected) Prime Minister ever, is no conscience"? Talk about addictive, controlling personalities. His biographer has some interesting insights into the flawed 'leader', who he compares to King Lear.

In addition to the lack of media focus on the Scottish contribution to this debacle, I've also seen very little mention of the real debt accumulated by Goldfish and his mob: for example, the legacy of PFIs, and public sector pension fund deficit. I mentioned "PFI" to someone I know the other day. She is a bright, usually well-informed older lady. She had no idea that so many of Labout's shiny new schools and new hospitals have been funded by private money, with attached high interest rates, and the loans repayable over decades. Once again, the banks getting richer to the detriment of the rest of us.

Still, the media have been saying for weeks that whoever is in power after the election will be out of power for a generation, so at least we have that to look forward to. Or not, depending on the sort of PR they introduce.

And I may still be wrong, of course.

And did you know, if you're a UK taxpayer, you've just spent £410 bailing out Greece. Despite us not being in the Euro. That's a demonstration of the legacy of the Lisbon Treaty (on which there should have been a referendum), another of Goldfish's bombs for the future.

Thought for the day

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

- Joseph Addison

Not progress

What have they done to Google's layout?

I HATE it.

Anyone who has to use a small screen size for any reason will hate it too.
Actually, I also hate it on a different, larger, screen size.

Do not put unnecessary clutter on the left hand side of a page. I thought everyone knew that by now?

Thought for the day

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.

- Lewis Carroll

Tabloid headline...

... says Goldfish is squatting in No. 10.

Given the cirucmstances, I don't think *anyone* should occupy the building.

Open it to the public.

Tenner a go for a quck look round (double for tourists) and the National Debt will be paid off in no time.

Add a tea-shop, a photo-booth and a souvenir shop, and it will be paid off in a quarter of no time.

The Friday Question

It ain't over til the Goldfish sings bubbles his resignation...

49 seats left still counting at the time of posting. Ours will be among the last constituencies to declare. We woke up at 5am and watched the BBC coverage for an hour. I am so impressed with the BBC website's coverage - it was matching (and in one case ahead) of the TV version. And it is so clean, clear, and easy to navigate.

While we wait for the gasping, flapping, Goldfish, removed from his tank, to hopefully breathe his last (although, knowing the stubborn git he is, I'm not banking on it, and we could still be stuck with him as PM, trying to make some sort of pact with the non-Cons work, as I feared earlier in the week) what was your local polling station?

On TV they were showing castles, caravans, portacabins...

Ours is always a small hamlet tiny free church. But, fewer than 400 voters (up from last time, showing how many old people have died and younger people moved in, and in-fill - or knock down small, rebuild large - houses have been built in the last 5 years). Pretty much the only time more than 5 people ever go in there in a day.

If the new governmint need to cut costs for the next election, they can start by thinking about the amounts paid to election officials. £33 each per hour for two people to sit in our tiny polling station for 15 hours plus an hour before and an hour after to set up and dismantle. And £100 each to the junior people counting votes centrally, irrespective of the time taken to do so. Madness.

The Friday Question then, what was your local polling station?

And a minor aside - at past elections, I recall ballot papers being torn out of a main book, and then validated with a penny-sized seal that embossed/raised areas of the paper. This time there was no seal, and the papers were just single bits of paper from a pile. Did anyone else notice this, or know why?

The Greek Question

Just saving this link for posterity because it's an interesting explanation/take on the Greek situation and the comments are quite sensible/enlightening (eg Comment 3, in which it is posited that, once again, taxpayers' money is being used to save the bankers', and Comments 14 and 52 made me laugh): http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/05/greece_default_is_no_soft_opti.html.

An unforgetable day

Today I am going to Leicester.

On a Value Mission.

On a coach.

With a bunch of female OAPs.

I hate coaches. I really, really, really, hate coaches. Especially when I get stuck next to an OAP who wants to talk non-stop all the way, which almost invariably happens. There and back, because if I know anyting about OAPs and coaches, it is that if they sit somewhere on the outward journey, they *have* to sit in exactly the same seat on the return journey.

I am finding it hard to decide whether that is worse than the potential prospect of another x years with Goldfish "in charge".

I will let you know...

No, actually, I know already: at least today will only last for one day.

I am probably going to be the first voter in our tiny local polling station. Just in case the coach breaks down and I don't get back before 10pm. Safe seat or not, if everyone but one Labout voter decides it isn't worth voting, then the red flag would fly here. And we can't have that.

I wonder what Queenie thinks?

There have been 14 elections, plus the current one, since Queenie ascended to the throne on 6th February 1952 (when the Conservatives were in power).

Thursday 26 May 1955 Conservative
Thursday 8 October 1959 Conservative
Thursday 15 October 1964 Labour
Thursday 31 March 1966 Labour
Thursday 18 June 1970 Conservative
Thursday 28 February 1974 Labour
Thursday 10 October 1974 Labour
Thursday 3 May 1979 Conservative
Thursday 9 June 1983 Conservative
Thursday 11 June 1987 Conservative
Thursday 9 April 1992 Conservative
Thursday 1 May 1997 Labour
Thursday 7 June 2001 Labour
Thursday 5 May 2005 Labour (info from here)

I wonder what she thinks of it all?

I wonder if she's ever tempted to say no to the lot of them and set up her own government, staffed by her own family members?

Now, let's see, we could have Prince Philip in charge of Foreign Policy and Diplomacy, Princess Anne in charge of Sport, Prince Harry in charge of War...

Thought for the day

Tactical voting (whatever the politicians of a certain hue may be saying, or you may be thinking) is a waste of time. No-one can second guess other people's attempts at second guessing.

If Cameron doesn't win an outright majority tomorrow, even if he wins most seats, then Goldfish Brown stays as Prime Minister.

So, the straight choice is, do you want another (up to) 5 years of Goldfish Brown mismanaging the country (which already has the equivalent of £65,0000 of debt per household as a result of current Labout 'policies' interacting badly with the global economic situation), or not?

If not, then don't vote for anyone other than the only Party who could win outright.

- BW

Notes from a Small Coven

I must remember that the summer of 2010 was from Wednesday 21st to Sunday 25th April. While we were in Lincolnshire.

Back to cold windy and grey with the odd sunflake of late. We saw Queen Victoria (slightly less mouldy than Mr BW was expecting) on Saturday, and I spent Monday boiling Alexanders. Most pretty is my wool now. Somewhere in between some gardening was done, in odd moments twixt the rain and hail, and the Studio and kitchen are both now rather less full of greenery. As I said to Mr BW, anyone who'd visited of late and seen the plantlet take-over would not believe that we have two greenhouses and a summer house.

One of those 'pick your party' from some badly précised nuggets of policy websites are causing those of us who've worked for a long time in education slight mirth: I've just spoken to the third person who's completed it and been told they back the BNP on education. Education, and only education, mind, but. It just shows how dangerous distilled politics is.

Want to check your cross is going in the correct box on Thursday?

If you're really shallow (ie vote on appearances) try: http://electornot.org.uk/.

If you're into policies not people, try: http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/.

If you want a site that proved reliable last time around, try: http://whoshouldyouvotefor.com/ I managed to get minus 14 for Labout on that one, which pleased me enormously. Even one of Goldfish's own small fry has admitted that his party leader is the worst Prime Minister ever.

I keep thinking that the National Debt equates to each household having the equivalent of £65,000 of debt, run up by Goldfish and Bliar, and wondering how some people still trust them. Why, oh why? 13 years and they've got us in this sort of mess, and they think they can still make it all better? Why wait until now before thinking about trying? Mr BW has just informed me what will happen if no Party gets a majority on Thursday (according to R4 this morning - even he has now defected from R4 thanks to the Nortonisation of the R2 morning drivetime airwaves). I haven't heard any mention of that before now... Basically, even if Cameron gets most seats, unless he has an outright majority, Goldfish remains as Prime Minister.

And I'm hearing that the international election monitors aren't at all happy with what's going on. I didn't realise that they were even observing here, until I caught something on C4 News on TV. They don't like the way our election is admnistered. They say it's not fair. After all, 17 illegal immigrants registered as voters, living in a 2-bed council flat in Bow can't be right, can it? Why on earth don't local councils simply require National Insurance numbers to be put on the electoral registration form? It would should then be very easy to check, by cross-referencing from the NI database. And polling stations should require photographic idenfication when one goes to vote (as I said at the time of the last election). Labout have spent obscene millions on IT, yet can't even control who is eligible to vote, let alone actually know who is in the country, legally or illegally. Databases should be able to talk to each other. I'll bet theirs (ours) can't.

We've had seven pieces of election literature. Two each from the Cons and LibDebs, and one apiece from UKIP, Labout and the BNP respectively. Nothing from the Greens. No visits from canvassers (shame as I have a long list of quesions all ready for them). You can tell this isn't a marginal. The only Labout poster displaying house that I've seen (on the outskirts of Small Local Town) has a boarded up front window. I doubt it's a coincidence. But, I didn't do it, I promise.

And for those of you who abhor Facebook and everything it stands for, and causes, as much as I do, have you seen this ? (via). Now I can read and agree to my heart's content rather than keep wittering on about it. But, I did tell you so :)

Thought for the day

There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.

- Bill Watterson