Today is finally the First of May. Fellow London dwellers will be relieved that the Mayoral Election is finally upon us.
As if you possibly needed reminding, don't forget to go out and vote. I'm sure everyone has read the instructions on how to vote. Yes, honestly, instructions. Because it is that complicated. Wait a minute, no it isn't. Get papers (OK, yes more than one paper) put cross in box (or a box in each column on the Mayoral paper). Yes, interestingly the Mayoral race is eschewing the traditional first past the post system for something called the supplementary vote. Horrible shades of Politics A-level come back to me, and the studying of the complexities of various voting systems. If you are really interested you can read about various voting systems here. The system being used for the Mayor works like this. You vote for your first choice candidate. You can also vote for a second choice candidate. If any candidate gets 50% of the vote they are declared the winner. If not then the top two candidates are kept and the rest eliminated. Any second choice votes for the top two candidates from these papers are then counted and whoever has the most votes wins. Confused? Well at least nobody has to count them, it is all being done by computer; although disappointingly not until tomorrow morning. We were all ready for a big election night!
The First of May also has a whole spring thing going on. Many other Bloggers have mentioned it, including the possibility of Morris Dancing (I'd love to see that, I haven't seen Morris Dancers in about twenty years!). For more about May Day check out The Greenwich Phantom: The Perils and Pitfalls of Handkerchiefs. Personally I have a nostalgia for Maypole Dancing. I spent a lot of time at Primary School making pretty patterns with coloured ribbons, always so much fun! Maybe that is why years later I found change ringing so fascinating; but that is a story for another day.
As if you possibly needed reminding, don't forget to go out and vote. I'm sure everyone has read the instructions on how to vote. Yes, honestly, instructions. Because it is that complicated. Wait a minute, no it isn't. Get papers (OK, yes more than one paper) put cross in box (or a box in each column on the Mayoral paper). Yes, interestingly the Mayoral race is eschewing the traditional first past the post system for something called the supplementary vote. Horrible shades of Politics A-level come back to me, and the studying of the complexities of various voting systems. If you are really interested you can read about various voting systems here. The system being used for the Mayor works like this. You vote for your first choice candidate. You can also vote for a second choice candidate. If any candidate gets 50% of the vote they are declared the winner. If not then the top two candidates are kept and the rest eliminated. Any second choice votes for the top two candidates from these papers are then counted and whoever has the most votes wins. Confused? Well at least nobody has to count them, it is all being done by computer; although disappointingly not until tomorrow morning. We were all ready for a big election night!
The First of May also has a whole spring thing going on. Many other Bloggers have mentioned it, including the possibility of Morris Dancing (I'd love to see that, I haven't seen Morris Dancers in about twenty years!). For more about May Day check out The Greenwich Phantom: The Perils and Pitfalls of Handkerchiefs. Personally I have a nostalgia for Maypole Dancing. I spent a lot of time at Primary School making pretty patterns with coloured ribbons, always so much fun! Maybe that is why years later I found change ringing so fascinating; but that is a story for another day.