We’ve had a tough week up here. A baby was born, Zayn and Louis had a fight on Twitter and a Kingdom crumbled. We’re living without Direction in Westeros and any minute now dragons will fly overhead signalling the dawn of a new era…or a new season if X Factor…or I’m getting my Monday night viewing confused with real life. #bridgetlivesindreamland
Delighted as I was with the opportunity to vote, for the first time since I left Australia, I danced down the street eager to stamp my little voice on the future of the United Kingdom. I was enfranchised! I had a say! Despite what Russell Brand told us about the decline of democracy, I was determined to make my mark on this quasi-United Queendom I’m proud to call home.
So it was all a bit shit when I was in and out of the Polling Station tucked in behind Tower Bridge Primary School in under 8 minutes.
Accustomed as I am to the numerical selection of my preferred candidates (and consequent de-selection of those I’d rather fling dog poo at), in both the upper and the lower house, I was alarmed to discover I was only required to place one X, in one box, on one piece of paper; a morsel of beaten bark no bigger than a Kleenex tissue.
The system of preferential voting that we Commonwealth types have been subjected too, and obligatorily so, was an invention of those beyond the Queen’s immediate realm. Out in the antipodes, we have the option to order ALL the candidates, in BOTH houses, from favourite to least favourite, ensuring that ALL our preferences count towards the final outcome. How odd that everyone under the House of Windsor is doing it except those in the one place from whence we all came?
Anyway, after X-ing in just one box, and exiting without ceremony, finding no sausage sizzle, no mother’s day craft stall and no children collecting coins for the new music room, I wandered home to learn the results of the latest exit poll. The media blackout until the polling stations closed was another surprise. #ishouldhavedonemyresearch
Fortunately, the day ended on a high. The formidable Adam Hills was sharing the stage with an equally formidable Jeremy Paxman. Hearing the two voices interspersed over a number of nocturnal news hours, I imagined a new TV game show concept – University Spicks and Speck Challenge – a quiz where ultra-geeks can’t answer questions about pop music. It was very late, I was dreaming of sausage sizzles, the exit poll was disastrous.
The next morning, we awoke to the shockingly smug face of David Cameron, who I wouldn’t mind so much if he wasn’t so damn pleased with himself, and a bit sweaty on his upper lip, and he has immovable hair, all of which makes him a little too much like Elton John’s husband and a little less like the man I want to boss me and my money about.
Then, like skittles on a summer lawn, the heads started to fall; the Empire Struck Back, the Game of Thrones came to an abrupt conclusion, Fredo was shot in the back, Macduff took out Macbeth, Zayn quit. First it was Clegg, then Farage, then soporific Ed; one by one they took to a shaky stage, their voices robbed of sleep and one by one they announced the inevitable, they would not return to lead. The platitudes, the thankyous, the apologies, the whole lot was a tiny bit less annoying than Britain’s Got Talent*, albeit with more mewling.
The ultimate note, the final heave of breath from within our collapsing lung, was the smiling Scot. Nicola Sturgeon, the warrior who has rallied her troops in the wake of their referential defeat, took to the TV and threw her fists in the air. She was delighted, and no doubt should be too. To have achieved an almost complete landslide victory, for her Northern nation of haggis and hops, is an extraordinary coup. And like a coup, such behaviour should be reserved for times of civil war and bloody insurgence. #thescottishplay
I love Scotland. I have had the pleasure of her chilly company on several occasions and wish her nothing but prosperity and bare-kneed glory. I wish her all the longhaired cows she can rear, all the single-malt whisky and single-origin oil she can cleave from her fertile lands and if we can have a few more McAvoys, you will not hear any complaints from me. I love that the Scottish have maintained their national identity in the face of war and recession, and that despite the colder climes, the men up there continue to gallivant about the Highlands in kilts.
I just don’t see the point of secession.
In the face of so much global unrest, so many who want to attack, or terrorise, or harass and harangue, what is to be gained from removing oneself from the Union? Money? Power? Free Antibiotics? Of course, all that and more! But cast our minds back a matter of months and we know that when given the choice to set up shop on their own, our neighbours beyond the wall said no. They did not want to be banished to a life of battling the wildlings and the nightwalkers alone. They knew they needed their friends in Kings Landing to safeguard their arctic stronghold. Winter is coming and our Tartan Brethren need allies, even if they are smug, damp-faced Etonians.
I’m not sure how all of this will play out. Perhaps there are three witches somewhere double double toil and troubling; prophesising a future for Nicola that will end with short-term glory, long-term chaos and blood crazed wives. Maybe the whisky has affected their memory. Remember what happened to the last Queen of Scotland who taunted an English Elizabeth?
Game of Thrones indeed.
*I’d vote Walliams over Cameron any day. He’s marginally less camp.
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