Friday, May 06, 2005
Well that was fun.I gave up at quarter past Prescott because I decided I really couldn't be bothered. I probably ought to have been drunk; at least then John Snow bounding about the greenscreen (because obviously bluescreen is a bit too partisan) would have been funnier. It's quite strange, but thinking about instances such as the Doom version of Downing Street, I suddenly realised all the election broadcast needs is to be dubbed badly into Japanese, and then stuck on late-night Channel 4 and it would be ideal student television.
And it's nice know just how influential I am. I vote Lib Dem and the local Conservative gains 5,000 votes and over 50% of the vote (although it may have been a case of ding dong the witch is dead). Not that I found that out from the local news coverage. Due to the powers that be, I can be in deepest Dorset and see a news item about Tweeton or Notacity. When in either place, all I can get is BBC London News, which very occasionally gets out to Notacity (I think they like the shopping), but considers that the very fringes of their realm. So we get to watch the banner on the local news scrolling across carrying news of all the results in the area. Except us. The constituency to the left of us, the constituency to the right of us. Ok, so it wasn't quite as bad as the as the Charge of the Light Brigade, but they had most of the neighbouring constituencies, and we were fairly far in on their map.
Most worrying moment of the night was the discovery that the Western Isles constituency has a population of 20,000. The Isle of Wight constituency has a population of 100,000. Both have one seat in the House of Commons, and so equal power. [See the votes on the BBC map. As it's Flash you'll have to make your own way to both. Isle of Wight is pretty easy, but I can't find the Western Isles or Eileanan Siar in the list so you'll have to click on Scotland. Edit: Found it now. It's filed under N for Na h-Eileanan Siar, even though it's written as Eileanan Siar in the index. There's nothing quite like filing something under "the"].
I can't verify this as I can't find the right information in the umpteen commission and committee websites.
Most amusing discovery of the night was finding out about the names of the constituencies in Southampton. There's named after the rivers Test and Itchen, so there's Southampton Test, and Southampton Itch. Have you meet John? He's got Southampton Itch.
Ah, it would appear it's the BBC's max char set up, and the constituency has the "en" on the end. Drat. I guess I'll just have to wait till they rejig the constituency boundaries to create South Exeter.
Oh, and can any think of sports events somewhere south of London, which might be quite cheap? My cunning plan to do my photography homework round some racecourse has hit a slight "how much?" hitch. £18 for the right to stand in a field? Plus £5 for the right to walk across a muddy field and then discover myriad extra dents, chips and cracks in my car? Er... do stupid drivers on the M25 count as sport? Well, they're going fast, and I'm sure some of them are racing.
Oh, I've just had Crawley pointed out to me (not for photographic potential). LAB 16,411; CON 16,374. So counting out on our fingers, and we only need eight-hands-worth to cover the difference. No wonder they were late to declare.
I'm sure there was other stuff, but I'm a bit too tired to remember.
Oh yes, vaguely amusing, or interesting, or something, if only for reminding me of a ten-to-the-six mistake I made in my GCSE French exam (they were discussing a Ridley Scott film. I didn't quite get that).
Anyhoo,
