Day 82 - Connections 2

Like many others in the nation I suspect, I rushed back from the pub on the Thursday evening to catch the 10 o'clock news and hear the exit polls being announced. Well that was it: I was staying up to find out what was going to happen!

Inevitably there was the usual flurry of early announcers, all from safe Labour North-East constituencies with names beginning with Sunderland: how is it that they can count their results in a couple of hours and others take so much longer? 

After that there were a couple of hours of punditry, with those whose party affiliations were not served by the accuracy of the exit polls writing them off and offering to eat various bits of clothing if they were correct (and shall we see Alistair Campbell consume his kilt?), whilst the others tried hard to conceal their glee with protestaions that we they need to wait for the real results etc.

Finally, some real votes came in and it was soon very evident that not only were the exit polls accurate but indeed that the movement towards the Conservatives (either a last-minute one or else one obscured by the many opinion polls) was much larger than anticipated. By 04:00, the sense of direction was clear and time for bed: the contractors were due back at 08:00 the following morning and there was only one person in the house who was going to be up for them.

Up again just after 7 o'clock to hear that indeed the tide was definitely moving in a blue, rather than red, direction and also to offer cups of tea to the engineers who were there to connect our new supplies.  This was done during the course of the morning which meant that for almost 3 hours I was in the house with no power: that means no broadband, no TV and no radio...thanks goodness for 4G phones!

Radio and TV back on and more post-election analysis mixed some vicarious pleasure at the sight of seeing Ed Balls lose his seat of Morley & Outwood (the expression on the winner's face was a hoot!).  To finish it off, I see that we now have the UK being characterised as being Marge Simpson - yellow top, blue body with bits of red too...

A lazy snoozy bath and then off to the Club for a Missing Links Dinner: this time there were 20 of us and we had splendid dinner in the fantastic setting of the large table in the downstairs lounge. And we didn't discuss politics at all... much....