The Editor notes: A huge welcome back to jLo who is briefly returning from a long, self-imposed GrodsExile.
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I love to vote. Apparently, however, I need to stop doing it: my vote is a jinx that sees the forces of evil triumph. My 18th birthday party was significant not because I finally got to get legally drunk, but because it was the night John Howard came to power. 11 long years it took for him to be unseated, and I mourn the fact that I was not in the country to celebrate with my long-suffering friends the night it happened.
Now, I am dealt a further blow. Not only did I miss the greatest electoral night in Australia of my adult life to date, but my FIRST LONDON ELECTION has turned out to be a bitter disappointment. Commonweatlh residents of London are entitled to have their say in local council/Mayoral elections, and so I dutifully turned up at Shoreditch Town Hall yesterday morning to cast my vote (three jurisdictions in six months, in case anyone else but me has noticed). Tonight the counting is over and apparently Boris Johnson is my new Mayor.
What the fuck.
It’s my 18th birthday all over again.
You all know how I feel about this city. I love it to pieces, and can never explain exactly why. Well, my job just got harder, because of the measly 45% of my fellow Londoners who could be bothered turning up to vote, a staggering number of them thought that it would be a good idea for Boris Johnson to be the mayor. That racist, homophobic muppet with stupid hair is now in charge of one of the greatest cities in the world. You have got to be kidding.
It’s nights like this that make me lost my faith in democracy. What the fuck are you all thinking? Are you NUTS? I am very privileged in many ways, and I try to never lose sight of that. But when I see other adults make such FUCKED UP choices, my political minority status is very difficult to resolve.
End drunken rant. Goodnight.
PS. Perhaps I should refrain from voting in the US general election? God help us if my jinx continues.
