Tomorrow there is to be an Election and I have to make the long trip into the village to place an 'X' next to an idiot's name. That idiot then gets to be the representative for the whole village - and the swamp - for five years. Then we have to do it all again.
It all seems rather pointless when you consider that we send the idiot away to sit in a big, purpose-built asylum and talk nonsense which everyone here ignores. Still, it does get one nonsense-spouting idiot out of town so I suppose there is a benefit.
Senga will be coming too. Apparently, women are allowed to vote these days. The pace of change is hard to keep up with sometimes. Little Caligula won't be voting because he's too young, even though he is more likely to be able to spell 'X' than many of the villagers. We will have to take him along because I really don't have time to scrape another babysitter off the walls. He will be muzzled, naturally, since there might be a lot of people around and crowds always make him hungry. Perhaps a little sedation is in order. Some for Caligula too, perhaps.
We have an intelligent bunch standing this time. Comparatively, at least. Not one of them has visited Dume Towers which is a shame. Last time, their visits served to thin the field remarkably and left us all with only one candidate to vote for - the current incumbent, Acne McGibberish, who has decided he doesn't want to be town idiot any more so isn't on the list this time. His spot is taken by his sister Scrofula, representing, as Acne did, the Pestilence party. A very popular party here, since most people have some form of disease.
There is some non-local lunatic this time standing for a party that call themselves 'Labour'. I doubt he'll get very far. He represents the 'working man' and we don't have many of those around here. Those that do work don't like it and they certainly won't vote for more of it. 'Labour' is a sentence in these parts. Not a good choice of party name, I'd have thought. Might as well have called it the 'Flagellation' party. I think he might have done better if he had.
The Sackcloth and Ashes party have put forward Compost McPenury as their candidate on the promise of bringing all energy costs to zero by the simple expedient of cutting off all sources of energy. An interesting premise but there are few, even in this village, stupid enough to fall for it.
The Conservative candidate, Chinless McMonocle, promises to restore foxhunting even though there hasn't been a fox in these parts since the Slimy Swamp thing arrived. Not much of anything since then, in fact. I think these Conservatives are misnamed too. Their name implies 'conservation' but they seem to want to change everything. They are obviously not related to the conservationists. The swamp is full of conservationists, or at least their remains.
This time we have a few new ones. The Church of Climatology have a candidate, Chilly McWarming, who insists the last four months of permafrost prove the planet is heating up. I might vote for him out of sympathy because he's still picking tar and feathers off himself after his last attempts to convince the villagers. Then again, it might be two-faced to vote for him since I sold the tar to the villagers in the first place.
The Goosestep party candidate has cunningly disguised his name as Adolf McHitler but he won't fool anyone. His ideas are a bit too Continental for local tastes and besides, we don't have any immigrants. Nobody in their right minds moves here voluntarily. If it wasn't for the swamp and the deadly night-time wanderings of the Ferals and the Swamp Thing, plus the carnivorous vegetation and the conviction among the villagers that blue sky causes cancer, there'd be nobody in the village at all.
Personally I lean towards Blades McJoker of the 'Why so serious' party. He looks like he has enjoyed rather a lot of good times, few of which he is likely to recall, and he is by far the most deranged of the bunch.
I think it's time we had a properly deranged representative here. We've been sending second-rate idiots to that parliamentary Bedlam for years. Now, we should send a properly crazed one so we don't get laughed at.
Well, I'd better get some sleep. It takes but a moment to vote but there are always queues while we wait for the one in front to remember what an 'X' looks like.
It has been five years since they last wrote anything, after all.
