Bits and Pieces

Another wet beginning to a bank holiday weekend - although hopefully that sun that was splitting the streets last weekend will reappear by Monday.

The election?  I found it fascinating, although also slightly demoralising as well.  I still cannot understand the lunacy of a system which penalises a party that has its percentage of vote go up have the number of seats go down.  I also found it difficult to believe that the Lib Dems that seemed to go into polling day with 29% of the vote ended up with only 23% - what on earth happened.  But I profess myself satisfied with the coalition that has ended up - although I do wonder whether it will last, especially with the ferocity of our press that seems to hate any kind of success and struggle with anything that cannot be neatly put into boxes.

Let me state an example.  The media has pounced on every distinction between the Lib Dems and the Tories - Europe, nuclear energy, cuts - you name the difference, there has been media coverage of it.  But each political party is, itself, made up of component people, all of which have different views.  You get Lib Dems who are pro-nuclear energy and anti-Europe, and Tories who are anti-nuclear energy and pro-Europe.  Yet, where is the media saying "actually there are substantive differences within the parties on all of these issues".  Paradoxically I suspect that it might be the Tories who start ripping themselves to shreds, as the right-wing element loses the stomach for the more liberal policies.

I also suspect we'll get a complete firestorm in the media against electoral reform.  People conflate all sorts of issues.  I got a post on Facebook saying that if voting reform meant that parliament required a 55% vote to dissolve it then...  The dissolution of Parliament has nothing whatsoever to do with electoral reform.  In my view the argument is simple.  Single Transferable Vote allows people to distinguish between candidates of the same parties while being able to express a difference, and each multi-member constituency (and we are talking about 3, 4 or 5 MPs per constituency here, not 80) will return MPs that broadly reflect the diversity of opinions expressed in the election.  How can that be a bad thing?  The arguments about leading to weak governments and repeated elections is actually an argument against our regimented party system that doesn't allow people within a party to actually vote according to their conscience on issues, not our electoral system.

The downside of the election is that work has taken a bit of a battering.  The last two months have been the quietest consecutive two months that the company has had since 2006, as people defer orders until the dust has settled.  There is a shedload of decisions stacking up, and the deadlines for all of these people loom closer and closer, to the point where there's a risk that we won't actually be able to deliver all of the installations.  I'm beginning to wonder whether declaring minimal profit for this financial year and starting July with a storm of income might be useful - except that it would be a dip in our growth graph which might not look too good.

Z did her first bit of proper drama filming earlier this week.  She was one of 6 child extras for a series of fair scenes in the main ITV costume drama due to be shown this autumn.  She loved it - and I suspect the seeds sown by sending her to Redroofs have taken good root now.

18 years ago today, my Mum died very suddenly.  I've found that I miss her far more after transition than I did before - although it is a pain I can live with.  She would have been in her late 70s by now.  MS did suck most of the life out of the vibrant woman I remember from when I was very young, leaving her by 1980 a shadow of herself, and struggling on for another 12 years.  It's actually that earlier version of Mum I miss - although it would have been good to know her understanding and acceptance - although I'm sure she would have been shocked and concerned as well.