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Jun. 23rd, 2016 11:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenNotes on voting in a referendum, my first:
-The British summer. You could wring out the air like a dishcloth. We were waiting in for the plumber. At the polling station I explained to the tellers that in an outsized efficiency Islington had registered me to vote twice, in two different names. They seemed mildly concerned, thanked me for letting them know, and asked me what my legal name was, and then apologised for asking. I voted, once, with a stub pencil. The lady next to in the queue said to the tellers, “I don’t read well. Can you go through it with me?”
“Of course,” they said. On the way out, someone in a car with all the doors open was playing “Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover”.
-On Seven Sisters Road, two girls holding REMAIN banners, picket signs and stickers waved cheerfully at passing traffic. A woman with a table further down was explaining very earnestly to an old white man that to remain leaves our options open; if you have the slightest doubt, you know what you need to do, and also, do you trust Boris Johnson? Her companion said to me, have you voted. Yes. Would you like a sticker? I’d love one, I said, but I’m a civil servant. Oh well, she said, best be safe, hope your day is lovely.
-Outside Holloway Road Tube station, the same two campaigners I’ve been seeing most days this week were both standing out in the rain. One was explaining EU parliamentary democracy to a passer-by; the other asked if I’d voted. Inside the ticket hall, in the midmorning lull, a woman had forgotten about the lift she was waiting for and was shouting across the barriers to the station staff. “It’s about our children’s future!” she was saying, as I rummaged for my Oyster card. “Not for us, but for them!”
“Absolutely,” said the ticket barrier guy, sounding fervent. I said earlier this week that of course TFL have no political views, but they’re running an experimental trial at Holborn that’s trying to get people to stand on both sides of the escalators. The signage has started to say things like “UNITED WE STAND”.
I am afraid that in the years to come I may look back upon today as the last breath of the leftist consensus of my childhood; that things were bad and growing worse all the time, but some days mark a steeper descent. But if the terrible thing happens, it isn’t because a lot of people weren’t doing the job that was in front of them.
-The British summer. You could wring out the air like a dishcloth. We were waiting in for the plumber. At the polling station I explained to the tellers that in an outsized efficiency Islington had registered me to vote twice, in two different names. They seemed mildly concerned, thanked me for letting them know, and asked me what my legal name was, and then apologised for asking. I voted, once, with a stub pencil. The lady next to in the queue said to the tellers, “I don’t read well. Can you go through it with me?”
“Of course,” they said. On the way out, someone in a car with all the doors open was playing “Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover”.
-On Seven Sisters Road, two girls holding REMAIN banners, picket signs and stickers waved cheerfully at passing traffic. A woman with a table further down was explaining very earnestly to an old white man that to remain leaves our options open; if you have the slightest doubt, you know what you need to do, and also, do you trust Boris Johnson? Her companion said to me, have you voted. Yes. Would you like a sticker? I’d love one, I said, but I’m a civil servant. Oh well, she said, best be safe, hope your day is lovely.
-Outside Holloway Road Tube station, the same two campaigners I’ve been seeing most days this week were both standing out in the rain. One was explaining EU parliamentary democracy to a passer-by; the other asked if I’d voted. Inside the ticket hall, in the midmorning lull, a woman had forgotten about the lift she was waiting for and was shouting across the barriers to the station staff. “It’s about our children’s future!” she was saying, as I rummaged for my Oyster card. “Not for us, but for them!”
“Absolutely,” said the ticket barrier guy, sounding fervent. I said earlier this week that of course TFL have no political views, but they’re running an experimental trial at Holborn that’s trying to get people to stand on both sides of the escalators. The signage has started to say things like “UNITED WE STAND”.
I am afraid that in the years to come I may look back upon today as the last breath of the leftist consensus of my childhood; that things were bad and growing worse all the time, but some days mark a steeper descent. But if the terrible thing happens, it isn’t because a lot of people weren’t doing the job that was in front of them.
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no subject
on 2016-06-23 10:57 am (UTC)no subject
on 2016-06-23 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2016-06-23 10:19 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2016-06-23 11:20 am (UTC)That is great.
no subject
on 2016-06-23 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2016-06-23 01:24 pm (UTC)Ha that's great! Except for that fact that no! Stand on the right, walk on the left is how it should be!
no subject
on 2016-06-23 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2016-06-23 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2016-06-23 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2016-06-23 02:07 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2016-06-23 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2016-06-24 06:32 am (UTC)no subject
on 2016-06-23 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2016-06-23 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2016-06-23 11:11 am (UTC)A colleague told me yesterday that some acquaintances are having building work done at the moment and living elsewhere. One got her polling card sent to her current address; her partner got nothing. The council apologised and sent another. It didn't turn up. It turned out that they had sent it to the unoccupied house, even though their partner's had somehow made it to the occupied one. I would like to feel a bit more confident that the electoral process is all behaving as it should.
I change trains at Holborn every day and the recorded messages about standing on both sides of the escalator are slowly chipping away at my self-control. It's the cheery reworkings of song lyrics that are the worst.
I voted Remain by post a few weeks ago; there is a Remain poster in our bedroom window. I don't think I know a single person who's voting Leave, and yet the polls and the audience reactions to Tuesday's debate suggest that there are loads. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
no subject
on 2016-06-23 02:35 pm (UTC)Oh, England, please don't follow the US down our dark and narrow path.
no subject
on 2016-06-23 07:19 pm (UTC)Fittingly, the Manchester summer is crappy as ever, not really making it over 17 degrees. At least there is a bit of sunshine - small mercies?
Gotta love that the majority of the arguments were about what's best for the UK or for individuals, not what's THE RIGHT THING TO DO.
no subject
on 2016-06-24 02:17 am (UTC)