ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ

Election fever

Comments

1. At 10:14 AM on 04 May 2007, Anne P. wrote:

   Morning Eddie, I can offer aspirin for your fever and the Froggers Song - guaranteed to stick in your head for days and replace Tony Bennett any time.

2. At 10:20 AM on 04 May 2007, Big Sister wrote:

   Eddie: You clearly had a wonderful time on Monday. Stop feeling guilty! Sometimes you have to follow your heart ...

   About the song, which, like all Tony's stuff, is lovely, just be grateful that you've got Reggie Perrin out of your head at last.

   Incidentally, you couldn't by any chance be obsessive/compulsive, could you? ;o)

3. At 10:23 AM on 04 May 2007, Vyle Hernia wrote:

   Election fever.

   Eddie Mair _____(4 May 07, 10:05 AM)_____
   is gripping us here.

   I always find Eddie Mair gripping. What has it to do with election fever or Tony Bennett?

   Creep (and abusive or malicious one, apparently).

   I keep getting this message. It reminds me of the first time I heard a message on the telephone saying, "Lines from Bristol are engaged; please try later." I immediately said, "How much later?" but all she said was, "Lines from Bristol are engaged; please try later."
   

4. At 10:55 AM on 04 May 2007, Big Sister wrote:

   Well, Vyle, I try to flatter the master and don't get through, so I'd keep creeping if I were you.

5. At 11:16 AM on 04 May 2007, wrote:

   Eddie, I once went for a week with Engelbert Humperdinck's

   "Tell me when will you be mine
   Tell me quando, quando, quando"

   That was bad. Bad for everyone around me too. Inspite of the latter, my advice to you is: sing it to others. It cleanses your mind, in time.

   Wolf

   PS Did you know Engelbert Humperdinck was born Arnold George Dorsey?

6. At 11:17 AM on 04 May 2007, Big Sister wrote:

   Thanks, Jonnie, for suggesting that Martha should join the gang on the right, and thanks, Eddie/Marc/whoever for making it happen.

   She's great. My favourite. Really.

7. At 11:23 AM on 04 May 2007, wrote:

   Could you perhaps add a touch of balance to this β€˜100,000 people denied their votes’ angle when you go on air this afternoon? Barring any fundamental problems with the machines, it looks like the spoilt papers were just completed wrongly.

   I know you won’t get any elected official to say as much for obvious reasons but can we clarify that no-one was β€˜denied’ a vote – they were just too incompetent to cast it properly.

   People had their polling card for a couple of weeks in most cases, there were instructions on the card as well as the ballot paper, TV adverts etc. If someone struggles to mark two β€˜X’s and count to 3 or 4 what confidence can we have in their political judgement?

   There may be some merit in discussing the wisdom of holding a FPTP and STV system on the same day but please, no more β€˜people denied votes’ nonsense. If you could bring that out at any stage it would help immensely…

   Cheers...

8. At 11:43 AM on 04 May 2007, mittfh wrote:

   Of course, if you were listening to Today earlier, you'd have had a choice of irritating lyrics to roll around your head, courtesy of a poll on 6music to find the worst pop lyrics ever.

   "I walked slowly down the hall / Faster than a cannonball" springs to mind.

   Then again, someone could set this poem (authorship unknown) to music and come up with something almost as nonsensical:

   One fine day in the middle of the night
   Two dead men got up to fight
   Stood back to back and faced each other
   Drew their swords and shot each other.

   -oOo-

   As for the Elections, it appears as though the blue party (yes, the one who employed a five year old to draw their new logo) seem to be doing rather well and the red party are doing rather badly (although not quite as bad as the last elections, apparently). Up North, the SNP appear to have done quite well, but not as well as they expected - added onto which, 7% of voters can't read instructions (apparently confused about running three different voting systems simultaneously), and to the West, Plaid have got a few more seats.

   So the general picture appears to be that of ambiguity - but then again, has there ever been anything approaching clarity with UK politics?

9. At 11:52 AM on 04 May 2007, Carl wrote:

   Not entirely sure I shouldn't be on the beach with this, but I once saw Tony Bennett in concert at the Ipswich Regent. When we turned up the open stage was set with what seemed a very small PA system for the large (to East Anglian standards) Regent Theatre (we had the Beatles and Genesis you know) Any road up, I was a little concerned, thinking this show wasn't going to a 'mucher', but how wrong I was. On walked the great man, with his small band, and he was wonderful.. blew us away. Oh and his voice could have filled the theatre without the PA. Brilliant. How about forgetting the letters spot tonight and playing some TB!? It's that kind of bold programming that wins awards you know. Take my word for it. I'm a Sony award winning interactive listener. By the way check out the latest Sony products at sonyeurope. Great new MP3 players, hard drive camcorders, and as for the excellent Bravia range of televisions! Great products and easy on your pocket . There moderate that!

10. At 12:20 PM on 04 May 2007, Big Sister wrote:

    For what it's worth (and probably not a great deal), I've got the lyrics/tune to Hurricane by Bob Dylan going through my head following an item on Radio 4 yesterday.

    Must get the album out.

11. At 12:23 PM on 04 May 2007, DI Wyman wrote:

    starve a fever and feed a cold my ol' gran always said, or was it the other way round?

    any ways up i recomend taking a pain killer in tablet form, but not anwhere near them parakeets 'cos the parrots eat 'em all..........oh my aching sides.

12. At 12:28 PM on 04 May 2007, wrote:

    Liam (7):

    I agree. There's no excuse for being confused about something that's relatively simple when there was so much help about.

    Quite apart from the volume of dead-trees posted through letterboxes on the subject, the process was explained on everyone's polling cards, and I was taken through it a final time by the very helpful lady who handed me the forms which also had the instructions on them.

    (I only half heard her though, due to being distracted by a very familiar upright piano which was still in the same spot it had been when I attended that primary school thirty years ago.)

13. At 12:30 PM on 04 May 2007, wrote:

    mittfh,

    Well weather-ized! Clear as mud, but the pundits will be digging furiously to interpret the entrails...
    ηŸ₯ θ€… 不 言。 言 θ€… 不 ηŸ₯。
    (Those who know don't talk;
    Those who talk don't know.)

    xx
    ed

14. At 12:50 PM on 04 May 2007, wrote:

    Yes, Isn't Martha lovely ! Thank you for posting her on 'our blog'.

    As some of you who've read the press releases for Martha will realise. She started her career at LBC in London. Humble beginnings answering the phones for Brian Hayes.

    In those days Brian was a very formidable person - chalk and cheese to our Eddie - if you didn't get to the point very quickly you were 'off the air in a jiffy'. The phone operators such as Martha also had a rough ride if they hadn't screened the calls correctly. Still - Martha made it through taking the rough with the smooth.

    Brian has mellowed now ;-)

15. At 01:23 PM on 04 May 2007, Big Sister wrote:

    Oh my word! Aren't we on form today, Eric? Newsletter already here (now, should I forward it to the British Library again?)

    Would tonight's programme be focussing on - gasp! - elections tonight by any chance?

16. At 01:52 PM on 04 May 2007, John H. wrote:

    The spoiled ballot papers. Liam's "If someone struggles to mark two β€˜X’s and count to 3 or 4 what confidence can we have in their political judgement?" is a tricky one, isn't it? I don't think our system really includes much of a "judgement" threshold - and not sure it should.

    And I always think it's just slightly dangerous to be too damning. I remember as a kid standing outside a supermarket which had an "In" door and an "Out" door. I was amazed at the stupidity of people who couldn't or wouldn't respect this convention and so went on to cause numerous blockages - particularly people trying to get in the "Out" door bumping into people bagged up with their shopping. I concluded that it would be good for humanity if those people were just zapped as they did it - thus cleaning up the gene pool no end (I was a kid). Anyway, it was time to go and help my folks and in I went, through the "Out" door.

    The woman I heard said she was told at the polling station what she should do. If what she was told was not what she was meant to do, then it's not very helpful to say that she should have taken the other guidance she'd been given, or the notes she'd made whilst watching the TV ads, because she wouldn't necessarily have known where the error was. But the main thing is the scale of the confusion - a few people being confused may well be down to the few people, but a lot of people being confused surely indicates a problem?

17. At 01:53 PM on 04 May 2007, Vyle Hernia wrote:

    I haven't heard Brian for Hayges.

18. At 01:53 PM on 04 May 2007, wrote:

    And especially for Eddie :-

19. At 01:56 PM on 04 May 2007, wrote:

    Shall we all sing along ?

    How do you keep the music playing
    How do you make it last
    How do keep the song from fading
    Too fast

    How do you lose yourself to someone
    And never lose your way
    How do you not run out of new things
    To say

    And since you know we're always changing
    How can it be the same
    And tell me how year after year
    You're sure your heart will fall apart
    Each time you hear her name

    I know the way I feel for you is now or never
    the more I love the more there I’m afraid
    That in yours eyes I may not see forever, forever

    If we can be the best of lovers
    yet be the best of friends
    If we can try with every day
    To make it better as it goes
    With any luck than I suppose
    The music never ends

20. At 02:11 PM on 04 May 2007, Big Sister wrote:

    Jonnie: I'm in tears.

21. At 02:28 PM on 04 May 2007, wrote:

    John H (16),
    "I don't think our system really includes much of a "judgement" threshold - and not sure it should.".

    I'm pretty sure it shouldn't, or not a high one.

    It must never be thought that democracy is only for the 'clever'. This is especially important with a multi-cultural electorate, where cleverness is manifested in diverse forms.

    If the system is confusing (and it clearly was, and also apparently confused itself), it isn't the fault of 'the public'. It is the faultm of those who failed to follow the advice of the returning officers and the Electoral commission.

    There is some discussion in the 'brow.
    xx
    ed

22. At 03:32 PM on 04 May 2007, wrote:

    Yes I think after such a hectic week we should finish with a bit of Tony taking us up to Big Ben. There are *plenty* of reasons why: Sony - Eddie's presence - and the mere fact that Tony's tour is currently on, however ---
    in radio - a little like the gap we have all grown used to - there doesn't always have to be a reason.
    

23. At 04:10 PM on 04 May 2007, DI Wyman wrote:

    ye gods, i've got it now...election fever that is. i'm off to the beach for the weekend...sun, sand, sea and not a spoilt ballot paper in site, unless you are near a sewarage outlet in scotland i 'spose
    

24. At 04:49 PM on 04 May 2007, Frances O wrote:

    Argh! I get that 'song buzzing round my head for ages' thing. At the moment it's 'Miss Dynamitee' and I DON'T KNOW WHY! Must have heard it subliminally this afternoon while out shopping.

    GO AWAY!

    (sings) Always listen between 5 and 6...

25. At 07:03 PM on 04 May 2007, wrote:

    To all who have tunes dancing around in their heads, there are two things I can suggest:

    1. Whistle/sing/hum the Pink Panther teme. It's guaranteed to remove annoying songs from your mind.

    2. Replace the annoying song with a song you love no matter what your mood. For me, that involves thinking of something like One by U2, or Life Is Sweet. :-)

    This has been a public service post on behalf of the "Music is good" party :-))

26. At 07:17 PM on 04 May 2007, Frances O wrote:

    Thank you, FF.

    Now I can't stop thinking of that beautiful cathedral and university town.

    Durham, durham.. durham durham durham