"Always tell the voter what the voter wants to hear"

So, it's election time again! A moment I've been waiting for for almost three years. I'll get angry with the constant repitition (while still watching News 24 in the desperate hope of something new), I'll grt pissed off with the cameras asking people on the street what they think (what have elections got to do with them?) and I'll mock everything that the Tories say.

I've been in front of BBC News 24 for about ten of the last fourteen hours, and I can't wait for the next thirty days of it. I've got an awful lot of blogs subscribed to through Google Reader, a nice fancy reader program on my iPod Touch (plus access on my phone when I'm away from a wifi connection) plus an awful lot of books to read when I've run out of immediately topical stuff to read.

No doubt within days I'll be sick of it all, but I won't be able to drag myself away from it. I'll still be shouting at the telly for much of the day, and come 6am on May 7th I'll still be hooked, and in desperate need of sleep.

"Fascinated by good, destroyed by evil, what is there to believe in?"

CNN have a Chile desk, so all is well with the world. They even have some fancy graphics and dramatic music to play every so often, which makes it even better. They do actually have some rather fancy touch screen systems that the presenters use, which actually do seem useful. I remember Jeremy Vine had something in his "virtual studio" in the US elections eighteen months ago, but interaction seemed very pre scripted, and he'd be unable to do any manipulation of the visuals on the fly.

Anyway, it's odd to watch different news sources every so often. The BBC are sticking to their regular weekend programming on News 24 (presumably because they have no correspondents on the scene yet), and because they can't really show hour upon hour of live footage of traffic cameras pointed out to sea from Hawaii, like CNN is doing.

Anyway, sleepy time.

"Did you fall when we dragged her along? You will never know Thursday's gone."

I've just watched a Jimmy Carr DVD. You may disapprove, but I saw it as a compromise since the initial suggestion was watching one of Ricky Gervais's stand up efforts. I smiled at roughly a third of the Jimmy Carr material, but For the rest of the time I couldn't help thinking that was how the Nazi party must have started.

Anyway, I'm up North again. I'm unemployed, again. Similar to eighteen months ago, but I'd like to think this move was thought through slightly better than the last one. I don't regret moving down south. If I'd stayed up North back then I'm sure I'd have had no motivation to get a job, anything I might have got wouldn't have been anywhere near as good, and I wouldn't have anywhere near as many stories. Even if those stories mostly do involve seeing the political editor of Newsnight. Or Jenni Murray's horrible little dogs.

I do have some vague intention of updating this a bit, though I know I've said that in the past. I quite like the idea of keeping some vague record of what I do with my life, though open for all to read. Anyway, the battery is going on my iPod, and due to a lack of any vague punchline, I'll leave it at this.


(I wrote that two days ago, but I then discovered that the program I used to use now doesn't work.)