2019 Door Twelve: The Exit Poll Chimes

The Exit Poll Chimes

Remember, as a kid, those audiobook tapes
Where a little bell would ring when it was time to turn the page?
Back then it was the Aristocats, Dahl and Mr. Majieka,
But now two decades older, and the picture’s somewhat bleaker.
Ear against the radio, it’s nothing but bad news:
I’ve got those fifth largest world economy homeless food bank blues.
But there’s millions of folk out there who have the chance to choose
Prosperity, not austerity, for the many, not the few.
It’s ten pm. The exit poll. The chimes of Big Ben ring.
It’s time to turn the page. Another chapter can begin.

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17:45. Well, it’s Polling Day – so let’s face it, I was never going to write about anything else, was I? And all the day, the exit poll has been on my mind – that stomach-turning, heart-wrenching moment as Big Ben chimes and there’s a split-second before the result (or accurate prediction of) flashes up on screen. that tiny pause that lasts as long as Huw Edwards’ inhalation. Watching through your fingers. Scream already rising in your throat, one way or another. Or maybe that’s just me. It always feels like that bit at the end of Blackadder Goes Forth: All lined up along the duckboards, waiting for the whistle to blow, knowing there’s nothing else you can do, not knowing what’s the other side of the barbed wire.

I hope that’s not a tasteless comparison. But it does feel quite like that, when you’ve been slogging away on the doorsteps of England for the last few weeks, or months. Anyway, that’s where we’ve been today (on a place called Poet’s Estate, Dursley, ironically enough – see above), and that’s where I’m off to as I write this. I’m going to try and chip in more thoughts later though, as we go along. A sort of live blog, if you like. Time to try something new, after all.

Until tonight, comrades. Twelve days to go/four hours to go…

Owen x

UPDATE – 21:45: Just returned from Gloucester – one last push for the great Fran Boait. Ten minutes to the exit poll. The anxiety has become excitement, and the excitement has become nerves, and there is no more that can be done and the nerves have become terror.

And for some reason the bloody coverage still hasn’t started so in amidst this hurricane of emotions, all I’m seeing is that one of Kate Winslet’s relatives was a prison warder.

This is nearly it. Good luck everybody. Ten minutes to go…

Owen x

UPDATE – 22:20: That’s it. The worst of our society has triumphed over the best. We’re fucked.

Owen x

UPDATE – 23:00: Another chapter has begun, I guess. And it’s probably going to be the darkest in Britain’s postwar history. I really do feel this is the end of the United Kingdom, one way or another. Worse – far, far worse – is the number of communities, the number of careers, the number of dreams… The number of actual lives that this will be the end of.

I’m sorry everyone. Goodnight.

Owen x