I have not voted today

Well let us get one thing out of the way first, I have not voted today. Why am I the hypocrite who has been urging all my followers to vote and then does not vote himself? Well I do like to call myself the Russell Brand for the more mature years. May be I should call my You Tube Channel Grey Hairs.

No this dates back to when I used to be away from home a lot. I obtained a postal vote, and have used it ever since. Therefore my vote was cast about 10 days ago. I understand that about 15% of all votes are now cast this way. I must admit that it takes away the frision of excitement of actually voting, the last minute ability to change ones mind. I must admit that I did change my mind in 2010 and have regretted it for the last five years.

Now I have done a tour of our three local polling stations, not because I am some sort election nutter but, one because I drove Marion to vote and two because it was a pleasant evening and I wanted a walk before dinner. Now I observed that they were all quite busy, although I would anticipate that our ward always has quite a high turnout. I also observed a UKIP party member standing by the door of each station. Strangely one was a bizarre sort of orange colour, Marion had the wicked thought that he had emigrated to Spain and come back to vote. My daughter Laura says that this is a sign of desperation as unless you are seeing who has voted this has very little impact. As you know Laura is the family election expert and is running a ward office down in Torquay. Personally I think that she should make a career of it and go work for Hilary for the next 18 months.

What is great are the arcane rules that accompany British voting. It emerges that you can take your dog with you to vote, but only if it is well behaved. Cue a Twitter storm of dogs in polling stations, which I believe maybe illegal as you should not take photos in polling stations. The polling stations themselves are very varied, even in some cases using pubs, I am not sure what the rules are regarding drunk voters. There is a new feature this year to aid last minute voting, as long as you are in the queue to vote before the polling stations close then you have the right to vote.

Unfortunately tomorrow I am doing my trainee signalling work in the middle of the North Yorkshire Moors was neither mobile phone nor WIFI coverage. You cannot even receive DAB radio. So I will be in a politics blackout from 09:00 to 18:00. May be just as well!!!!!