Erlection Day

And so, at last, America finally goes to the polls today. I must admit to being quite glad that Labour have pulled their plans for a February election here – I think that it’s actually <gritted teeth>a smart decision in order to avoid a little bit of voter apathy</gritted teeth> as I know I can’t be the only one who’s already sick to death of hearing about bloody elections.

Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see what the final result is of the US election – I’d love to see Bush go out, but Kerry worries me just as much. Of course, if it all hinges on Florida again then the world will raise a cynical eyebrow at the entire process…

Daylight Hours

And yes, the clocks have gone back, although for now it’s nice to wake up in daylight again, but going home in darkness is going to be a sod.

The BBC has a rather good feature on SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and it’s always worth pointing out The NHS Direct page on SAD too.

Early Edition

For those who don’t know, Manchester has a local paper called the Evening News. It comes out late(ish) in the afternoon, hence the “Evening” part of the title.

Today, they’ve launched the “morning edition” – yet it’s still called the Evening News. So – is it last night’s news, or today’s evening news?

Festerous

While Terreus writes about Samhain and what used to be the traditional end of Summer, I can’t help but notice that 1st November now appears to be the retail market’s official Start Of The Festering Season™.

Upon entering the local shopping centre this morning, not only are all the twinkly lights and “festive” greenery decorations hung every-bloody-where, but there’s a fucking nativity scene in the main atrium. Yes, a nativity scene. In November.

Words fail. Although “For”, “Fuck’s” and “Sake” may have been promoted to the front of the queue.

Stunned

Regular readers should probably be sitting down for this one. On Friday, my train actually got me to Reading 90 minutes earlier than expected. Yes, it’s true. But perhaps I should explain.

Working on the principle that my normal train is invariably delayed, we’d decided to go with the assumption that the same would be true this time. So I’d said I would be there for about 9pm. However, the occurrence of half-term meant that I got into the city centre a whole lot quicker than expected, and belted up to Piccadilly hoping to get the earlier 15.55 train. Fuckety cunt, I got there at 15.55, and no idea which platform it was going from, so I look at the departures board. Bonus – Manchester to Reading train, platform five, should depart at 15.55 – running ten minutes late. Excellent. Nip in, get a couple of drinks for the journey, and plonk myself on the train. 30 seconds later, beepy beepy beepy go the doors, and then off we go. Stonking.

Even more amazinlgly, it actually ran smoothly. It took precisely the amount of time it should have done. The train was ten minutes late leaving Manchester, and got into Reading ten minutes after it was supposed to. So yes, exactly the right number of minutes, just not quite “on time”.

It wasn’t crowded (well, not ’til Birmingham, but even then it wasn’t rigidly busy)and the journey was smooth. It’s been a fair while since I’ve been able to say that. I think this definitely classes as “exception that proves the rule“.