Car Boots

Car boots never fail to amaze me, we had our annual clear out this year and were at the Van Hage car park for 7am on Sunday morning, before I had even opened the boot I was getting asked for prices, and as each box came out people were diving in, it is always tricky pricing up as you don't want to go to low but then you don't want to be left at the end taking loads of stuff home with you.

Dvd's and Moshi Monsters proved very popular, and we saw a good flow of traffic, finally seeing off a telescope and a karaoke machine who were on offer at their third boot sale.

Having a look at some of the other stalls, you wonder if they make any money, and would be better off having a lie in and just heading straight for the tip, I had a quick walk round and couldn't see a single thing I would want to buy.

So £68 profit and home by 10am, an early shower bringing a premature end, but we only had a small amount left anyway.

TV & Books

Peter Kay

After a slow start Car Share with Peter Kay got better every week, Kay does have the great attribute of being able to make people laugh as soon as they look at him, this week's two episodes has two classic comedy moments, the first one when he made the dash for the post box whilst in traffic and whilst nonchantly coming back falling arse over tit and damaging his arm. In the last episode it started with Kay belting out a John Farnham in the privacy of his own car, and then stopping himself as he realised he was being watched.

I hope their will be a second series as John and Kayleigh have to get together and there is the opportunity to expand some more characters the butcher and his dad's friend showed there was plenty of mileage in this vehicle.

Safe House

Another long series which left the view dissatisfied as it failed to end properly leaving it open for the next series, this doesn't work just look at Broadchurch.

Clare Balding Show

Excellent line up this week with Curtly Ambrose stealing the show, however Harry Kane came over well and it was an all round great watch, I am however unsure whether Balding is the right interviewer for this, she seems much more at home on her walking show on Radio 4.

Managed to read one book this week, Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, showing you can tell a compelling story in just over 100 pages

My Polling Day

It has always been one of my things to do in life, to be involved in a General Election campaign, with this in mind I started volunteering to help Stewart Jackson's campaign in March.

After what delivering what seemed like thousands of leaflets the big day finally arrived.

On election day the emphasis changes from getting your message across to working to get your vote out and ensure those that have pledged make it to the polling system.

Dawn Raid

Up at 04:30 to make sure there was a reminder for the voters who had pledged their support as they woke up, it is good to get your pledgers to vote early as then that reduces your knocking up later. Luckily the day was dry and it was very peaceful making the deliveries, my main concern was making a racket when posting the reminders and changing their mind with the anger of being woken up bright and early.

Telling and the numbers

You may wonder what happens when a party worker asks you for your number as you go into vote, your number is put into the central computer system and then cross referenced against against people who have pledged their support, the key is to get 50%+ of your pledges out, it also gives you a good barometer on what the turnout is looking like.

The telling is not foolproof as I found out later as on my knocking up the door was answered by our own teller who hadn't put his own number down on the form.

Our team had a committee room within the ward and everyone was in and out all day, bringing back numbers, transporting people and voters and doing anything else that was needed.

Posters

The strangest request of the day was from a local fish and chips shop owner who wanted a Conservative poster for his shop, this may seem fair enough but on arrival I found he already had 5 Labour posters and 4 Conservative posters, he was either the ultimate undecided voter or wanted to keep all his customers happy!

Shenaigans

I thought that the loudspeaker on top of the car was left in the seventies, but we had a car for the local ward, which brought something different, and got people talking on the street, an interesting distraction tactic was employed by the Labour candidate who followed the car whilst leaning on his horn! You would have thought his time may have been better employed.

Starting the knock up

Around 3pm the identification of pledgers who have not voted starts, this is a good time as a lot of people go when they come back from work and I spoke to a number of people who were waiting for their partner to return, you do have to be careful with taking the data you are provided as the second house allocated for a reminder had 3 Labour posters on the property, I took the executive decision not to remind them it was polling day.

Remembering to vote

One of the challenges of the day particularly as I was up so early was registering my own vote, it would be easy to be concentrating on getting everyone else to vote you forget your own. I took both my daughters with me to vote to introduce them to the experience, they were a little underwhelmed by the experience!

Catching the stragglers

The last piece from 7 to 9 is to continue to knock people up who have pledged but have not voted, this is a bit more hit and miss as a number of people have already voted and we have missed there number and a lot of people just don't answer their door at night.

A late conversion

The last minute running round was made worthwhile, by a chance conversation with a man who had just got home from work, he wasn't going to vote, but immigration was his main concern so he would vote UKIP, after a 5 minute conversation I had convinced him to vote Conservative and watched him get back in his car and head to the polling station.

This shows that there is still plenty to do to engage with the voters, but it was rewarding that I could encourage one person to use their democratic right and vote.

People

I met lots of great committed people both whilst helping out prior to election day and there was a feeling of a real team effort on the day, with everyone working as one to get the vote out. I had the pleasure of working with people diverse as John Peach (who must be one of the nicest people in politics) who is a veteran of many campaigns to Ethan Brooks who has been working in CCHQ and gave some fascinating insights to how the party electoral machine runs.

It was great also to spend time with Stewart as the candidate, he was very calm and collected but I am sure a thousand things were going through his mind.


How we are getting on

The one thing you don't really get is any feeling on how things are going, for everyone who smiles and makes eye contact with you as they enter the polling station, another will avoid looking at you, but you have no idea which way they have voted.

Results

By a quarter to ten nothing more can be done, a quick chat with everyone and then headed home, when the exit poll came through I nearly came off the road, then it was a night of good news after good news, desperately trying to stay awake for the Peterborough result, when it did come through it was a mixture of joy and relief.

Only 5 years to wait for the next one.

Election Fever

GE2015

Stewart Jackson

All about the General election this week, I must have delivered nearly a thousand leaflets this week in support of Stewart Jackson, I was a little concerned when he got involved in a spat with a pro gay marriage supporter on social media this week, I appreciate it may get tiresome people berating you from behind a keyboard, but the chance of an MP coming out on top in any general debate on facebook or email is low to nil, better just to delete the hate and move on.

Leader Debate

A big week this week with the 7 way leader debate, to be honest there was to many in the debate whilst it is good to be as inclusive as possible, a welsh nationalist leader in a UK wide debate just does not add any value, Nicola Sturgeon performed well as she was in the best position knowing the SNP is going to whitewash Labour in Scotland and she is very likely to be in a position of king maker.

Miliband was obviously trying to show he could be Prime Minster and get into people's heads he could as he used the term "when I am Prime Minister a lot of times" no matter how much he tries he just doesn't look a leader.

I am still confident in my bet covering both a Labour and Conservative minority governments.

Twitter really comes into its own when an event such as leaders debate is live, watching both the sheer volumes and diversity of the tweets really adds to the event.

Cricket and random bits

Cricket

The New Zealand v South Africa semi final was truly one of the great ODI matches, I don't believe that the South Africans choked they just lost a great game of cricket, the biggest irony was the fact that it was a South African that effectively won the game for the kiwis.

On a personal level I am starting to play cricket again with 2 appearances so far in the nets, the bowling came back reasonably easy the batting was a different matter, I was struggling to get over the natural instinct to get out of the away of a hard object being thrown at me from 22 yards.

The other continuing cricket story is Kevin Pietersen, last week there was an excellent/excruciating interview by Pat Murphy with James Whittaker where it was obvious he would rather stick pins in his eyes than pick KP for England.

Now Pietersen has signed for Surrey hopefully the talking will now stop and he can get on with scoring some runs, he is going to have to score a lot of hundreds to get in the team, but fair play to him he has given up a huge IPL salary to play 2nd division cricket for Surrey.

Random acts of kindness

I have read many times that a random act of kindness makes you feel far better about yourself, and I do try it, it is surprising just letting some one out in busy traffic and getting a sign of gratitude does give you a boost.

List of achievements

On the theme of reading the same thing many times, I have also read that Harvard did a study and students who wrote down their aspirations were far more likely to become achievers in life than those who didn't, I am still not sure writing a list will guarantee success and if it does why don't Harvard mandate it for all their students. That said I am going to try and document a list for next week.

Box Sets and why cricket beats football

House of Cards

I was never sure why people rave about box sets, but after finally deciding to catch up with House of Cards on Netflix, I can now see the appeal, you can watch whenever you want and you don't have to wait for a week to find out what happens next. The way we are watching television is definitely changing apart from watching live sport no one will let the TV schedules dictate there evening.

Briefly back to House of Cards is there a better actor around than Kevin Spacey


Cricket v Football

Where cricket scores over football is that it can create many memorable moments that don't always impact the result but stay in your memory, football apart from a memorable goal doesn't have enough scope to provide this, with the average game only providing 2.4 goals. Even in a one day cricket match there is a 100 overs where something fantastic can happen.

In the Cricket World Cup there has been two great moments I have seen so far.

Kane Williamson hitting the 6 to beat Australia and Dilshan taking 24 off a single Mitchell Johnson over


Leader Debates

I really don't have an opinion on these, I do think it is harder to defend rather than attack, the best quote I have seen on the subject is that the last round made Nick Clegg look good, and that didn't exactly turn out great.

Game Theory

Election Campaign

Started my own personal involvement in the General Election this week, helping out with delivering some leaflets. I was paired up with a guy who is standing for the local council, his reasoning for doing it was very admirable, (he wanted to create a legacy) but I still feel local politics is a lot of hassle for very little reward.

I am still fascinated by the polling situation and how the various groups can get a feel for where they are in the polls, all the polls are telling us at the moment is that it is going to be very close.

Game Theory

This seems to be a bit of a buzz word at the moment, I have done some research and it basically works on the very reasonable assumption that everyone makes decisions based on their personal gain, the text I read gave an incredible example using Mother Teresa, questioning why she sought publicity and fame.

Cricket World Cup

The scheduling of this is just baffling, how England can go from having 3 games in a week and then having an 8 day break. The competition has had some good games but the format is still not right, the tournament has lost its way ever since associate members have been involved. In my mind top 8 teams should all play each other just like in 1992.

Darts

On a personal note I hit my first maximum last week, which shows the more you practice the luckier you get.