Keeping it moderate because I’ll have to drive 25 miles to get home, but I sure hope there’s a reason to pop the champagne. If not, I’ll resort to Duff Beer.
Drinking and having friends over on election days is great. Favourite memories:
–at the last UK election, when the first result came in with a landslide victory for the Labour guy, he was so triumphant about it that my friend said disgustedly, ‘For fuck’s sake. You haven’t defeated Sauron.’**
–when Tony Blair got elected in 97, after years of Tory rule, I was living in Tokyo and in an Irish bar. My Canadian friend and I kept clinking our Guinness together and shouting ‘Death to the Tories!’. Then we’d remember it was Tony Blair and Nu Labour, clink again and shout ‘God help us all!’
–David Trimble of the Ulster Unionist Party losing his seat (the man who helped spark off all the Drumcree rioting in 96 which led to a classmate of mine being shot dead as he worked in his taxi).
–Tony Blair standing on the platform having to listen while an independent candidate who ran against him and who lost his son in Iraq delivered a speech about how immoral Blair and the whole Iraq campaign was.
