Desperate Dan vs Dennis the Menace

In the mid to late 80s Desperate Dan and Dennis the Menace vied for my attention from the comic book rack at Cherry's Newsagents. A five minute scamper down Boundary Road brought me through the door of the fruity seller of necessaries with my one pound worth of pocket money. Dennis almost always won out and Dan only ever got a look in when I felt rich enough to purchase both The Beano and The Dandy or if The Dandy offered the sweetener of a free lolly.

  I never understood what Dan was desperate about and never felt like I connected with a chubby, unshaven bloke that was older than my dad. His legs were so thin and surely would have struggled to carry his bulky torso. Apparently the 'Desperate' adjective was because of his shady past. When Dan first made his appearance in The Dandy in 1937, he was not the nice cheerful chap we now know him to be, but a desperado on the wrong side of the law. Dennis has never switched sides and joined the softies although modern times have seem him become less of a bully to Walter and his mates and more of a cheeky chap. His bullying did sit a little uncomfortably with me, but I'm not sure depriving him of his pea-shooter can have improved the comic strip.

  Desperate Dan has reached lower levels of desperateness since I left the comics for football magazines. As his 60th birthday approached Dan achieved millionaire status and announced that he was leaving The Dandy to swan around with The Spice Girls. The Spice Girls?! I rarely take the drastic action of combining a question mark with an exclamation mark, but surely Dan and Ginger Spice setting off on a cruise together demands such punctuation extremes. However, I have not reached his desperateness yet. His desperateness lies in the fact that the entire thing was a sham to draw attention to his 60th birthday. I turned thirty last month and it's always nice if people wish you a happy birthday, but I didn't announce that I was jetting off to the Bahamas with Girls Aloud in a desperate grasp for my friends' attention. Few would have believed me I'm sure, but surely no one believed that The Spice Girls had invited a cartoon character on their holidays even if he had recently acquired a large amount of cash. 

  Dennis's iconic red and black hooped jumper, the fact that he's got a pet pig and his slipper-prevention tricks make him infinitely cooler than Desperate Dan. Recent accusations of political correctness are nice soundbites for the media, but Dennis is still doing his stuff while Dan has still [yawn] got his face stuffed in a cow pie. I would still choose The Beano over The Dandy any day.

Domesday Book

The Domesday Book was commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1085. The Conq's power was under threat from King Canute IV of Denmark and King Olaf III of Norway. A specific tax, the Danegeld, was created to fund any potential battle against the Scandinavian forces. The Domesday Book seems to have been motivated by a desire to make sure maximum tax could be gained from the land-owners of England. It also meant that violent quarrels over land between Anglo-Saxons and their Norman conquerors could more easily be resolved now that information was centralised. William was a political powerhouse who brought about many changes to England and this huge book is an example of his ability to get things done. In 1986 the BBC embarked on a project to create a modern Domesday Book, but just fifteen years later the computer disks that it was stored on were unreadable and all the information was lost. Meanwhile, the big old dusty book remains in perfectly readable condition.

  I thought it would be interesting to see what the Domesday Book had to say about my home town Brighton 925 years ago: 

Ralph holds of William Bristelmestune. Brictric held it by grant (de demo) of Earl Godwin. In the time of King Edward as (et) now, it was assessed for 5 1/2 hides. There is land for 3 ploughs. On the demense is half a plough, and (there are) 18 villeins and 9 bordars with 3 ploughs and 1 serf. From gafol-rents 4,000 herrings. In the time of King Edward it was worth 8 pounds and 12 shillings; and afterwards 100 shillings; now 12 pounds. 

  'Brist' means divided in ancient English and apparently the dividing line was an old river called the Wellesbourne that ran from Patcham down to the sea. The building of Patcham Waterworks in 1889 which siphoned water from the rivers meant that the river ceased to flow. 'Tun' is a saxon term for house or farm, but I don't know if that is relevant.

  Ralph seems to be a bit of a mystery. The name Ralph means wolf counsel, so perhaps the land-owner of Brighton was a Mowgli-ish character who was raised by wolves. William is the famous de Warenne, a Norman who fought in the Battle of Hastings and was rewarded richly by the King with vast quantities of land. Brictric, a sadly lost name amongst 21st-century babies, was the previous owner having been given it by the generous and powerful Anglo-Saxon Earl Godwin. 

  The 5 1/2 hides is a measurement made to assess for taxes and the three ploughs is a measurement of land. One plough is an amount of land that a team of eight oxen and a farmer could plough in one day. It seems Brighton covered between 10-15 miles, but the language and mathematical complexities are proving tricky.

  The 4,000 herring was the rent that was charged for the land by the King. I assume that this is some sort of currency description rather a quantity of fish desired. 

  I've learnt snippets and snatches about the history of my home through delving into the Domesday Book. It feels like I've had a little swim around in the past and now the washing-up is calling me through the voicebox of my wife and I shall emerge into the present.

Dragons

I was thinking about dragons and my thoughts (and internet research) swung between where the idea of dragons originally came from and my own exciting imaginative journeyings into the world of the fire-breathing scaly chaps. Theorists have it that the fact that ancient literature from all over the world refers to dragons is proof that humans and dinosaurs must have roamed the world together; otherwise, how would this common image have existed amongst so many different nationalities? 

  In ancient times (a slightly vague term) people didn't doubt the existence of dragons. When big bones were found, they pondered whether they came from elephants, giants or from our friend the dragon. It wasn't until 1841 that English scientist Richard Owens suggested that perhaps the bones were from dinosaurs. 

  However, whilst this history mildly interested me, the other direction my brain was tugging me in felt much more rich in content. Smaug, the hoarding and meticulous dragon of The Hobbit who got a bit hot and bothered when Bilbo nicked a cup from him, was the first dragon that fuelled my imagination. There was something both terrifying and fascinating about Smaug and I was disappointed that Lord of the Rings failed to deliver any further dragon action. 

  Whilst reading C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader I wondered what it would be like to embody a dragon as Eustace does when he falls asleep on a dragon's hoard with dragonish desires. And then Christopher Paolini's Eragon got me dreaming of riding a dragon through the skies battling the evil forces of the world. 

  However, it is those tiny dragons in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that feel to me to be a more attainable goal. I weirdly put realistic limitations on my fantasies. I'm not going to steal from a dragon, become a dragon or ride a dragon tomorrow, but perhaps I can have a miniature dragon curled up asleep, nestling in the top pocket of my shirt tomorrow morning while I teach Year 11; while I point out a metaphor he can snooze away enjoying the steady thumping of my heart. At lunchtime he will take a lazy stroll across my desk blowing out one yawning jet of fire. I'll keep a careful eye on him, extinguishing any paperwork that he happens to ignite. He'd make the perfect lighter if I ever had anything to light. After lunch I'd let him go for a fly around and in the evening he could wander around my house and join me staring vacant-eyed at the television as bedtime approaches. My dragon would be called Arthur and he would surely be the coolest pet ever.

Dictionary-loving Badgers

Sometimes teaching is fun and sometimes it is painful, but when a student gives you a cake with a dictionary-loving badger on it all the unheard utterances, torturous 'short' stories to read and defiance fade from your memory in a haze of garish blue icing sugar. This is probably my favourite moment of teaching so far.

Dick Dastardly

Dick Dastardly, antagonist of the fantastic 60s series Wacky Races, was the only driver never to be awarded a victory in any of the 34 thrilling races. Regularly he cheated or made foolish errors like stopping to sign autographs just yards from the finishing line. However, there was a race that has been stolen from our alliterative anti-hero and it is time to uncover this injustice.

  Dick and his sniggering co-driver Muttley finished the race in first, but they were subsequently disqualified because their win had been achieved by extending the nose of the car. Penelope Pitstop was awarded victory and perhaps the disqualification was just, but if it was then surely when Rufus Ruffcut extended his neck to claim victory for the Buzz Wagon 10, then this too should have resulted in disqualification. But no, it is one rule for a lumberjack and a beaver and another for serial cheater Dastardly and his dog. Surely Dastradly's chequered history swayed the authority's decision into denying him the chequered flag. Now, cheating should not be tolerated, but neither should this kind of inconsistency in officiating. Fifty years on, surely the record books can be amended. 

Defenestration

Top Ten Defenestrations

1. The Defenestration of Prague

This actually refers to two separate incidents and has to be the top example of defenestration because it is the where the word originated from. Defenestration, if you're still wondering, is the act of throwing someone of something out of a window. Anyway the first Defenestration of Prague was when, in 1419, seven town officials were thrown from the Town Hall window sparking the Hussite War (a war against and amongst followers of Jan Hus, a controversial religious figure accused of heresy). The second Defenestration of Prague, 199 years later, was when two imperial governors and their secretary were thrown from the window of Prague Castle and this once again sparked a war: The Thirty Years War - this war was again religious in nature, between Catholics and Protestants, and was fought primarily in Germany.

2. The Comedian in Watchmen

The opening of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's graphic novel starts with not-so-super superhero The Comedian being defenestrated from his high-rise flat. It's a cracking example of chucking someone out of a window and the slow-motion created by the artwork makes it all the more dramatic.

3. The Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves

Friar Tuck's defenestration of the Sheriff of Nottingham, after weighing him down with a bag of coins, is particularly satisfying.

4. Troy Phelan in The Testament

John Grisham's novel also opens with a bit of defenestration (self-defenestration) this time. The mega-rich Phelan changes his will to freeze out his family and then leaps out the window.

5. Television by Keith Moon

Throwing a television out of hotel window has become a bit of a rock 'n' roll cliche now with Busted and Lily Allen's band recently achieving this moment of mindless waste. The Who's Keith Moon was, perhaps, the first rock star to do this. Led Zeppelin apparently did it too.

6. Baby in Ludwigshafen, Germany

In 2008 a baby was thrown out of a third-floor window from a burning building and caught by a policeman. The baby lived: a rare moment of positive defenestration.

7. Admiral Gaspard de Coligny in Paris

With violence raging around Paris the unpopular Coligny was recovering from an assassination attempt when someone chucked him out the window. To make sure they stuck a sword through him and chopped off his head.

8. Chopin's Piano in Warsaw

In 1863, fourteen years after Chopin's death, Russian soldiers dumped his piano out of a second story window.

9. Jezebel in Israel

Here's an example of biblical defenestration. The Bible doesn't withhold the gruesome details telling us that after Jezebel was defenestrated by her guards, her body was eaten by dogs.

10. Apple Core by Kate Badger (allegedly)

Kate Badger was accused of defenestrating an apple core out of her car window. She denied the accusation and refused to pay the £60 fine. The matter looked set to go to court, but was dropped when the prosecution realised that they had no evidence. However, proceedings cost the tax-payer an estimated £2,800 and yes, I did type "Badger thrown out of window" into Google. 

Dubai

Dubai is a place I have seen twice through the barrier of thick glass. On a visit to and from South Africa for my sister's wedding I stopped off, with my mother and my brother, in Dubai Airport. I know very little about the place other that it has examples of huge wealth and is a place where over-indulgent displays of affection are not tolerated - if only this were the same in school corridors. When I think of Dubai however, my first thought flies to Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse Five. On the return flight we stopped for a number of hours at an undefinable time in Dubai Airport. It was the middle of the night for me, but outside were bright blue skies and a high penetrating sun. I attempted sleep, but uncomfortable loungers that I kept sliding down, a mother who kept starting conversation and busy feet storming purposefully in all directions made this an impossibility, so I buried myself in a book. 

  I like the fact that certain books seem to have locations or memories attached to them. My book-venue memories include: The Testament by John Grisham: my sick-bed at Lorna Road, Hove; Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis: the front seat of my dad's car travelling from Brighton to Devon; Brighton Rock by Graham Greene: the top deck of a Brighton bus; The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes: the toilet at Bellerby's College, Hove; How To Be Good by Nick Hornby: the side of a pool in Zante, Greece.

  Anyway, back to the subject in hand: Dubai or rather the novel that defined my moments there. The book is about a bloke called Billy Pilgrim who fought in the Second World War and uncontrollably time travels to various points in his own life. One passage stood out to me as being utterly beautiful and one of the greatest statements on war I've ever read:

  American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.

  The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

  When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.

  The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn’t in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed.

  The beauty of war in reverse is striking and highlights the brutal reality of war when it's seen when the play button is pressed. The image a baby Hitler struck me as well. What would we do if we held the baby Hitler in our arms? There seems to be no satisfying answer. The final image of everyone reversing back through history and Adam and Eve standing there made me think of humanity as a Russian doll with me hidden within generations and generations of lives. War considered in this context is shown up for the insanity it is: a brother killing a brother. 

  With these thoughts and red wine-tinged tiredness I collected my free breakfast and got a plane bound for Gatwick.  

Dickens, Charles

I'm currently reading The Pickwick Papers, Dickens' first novel. He was only 22 at the time and the memory of visiting his father in a debtors' prison would have still been, and probably always was, fresh. Dickens was far from perfect. He obsessed over his wife's sister to the detriment of his marriage. At times his early novels painted unsympathetic stereotypes - the Jew Fagin in Oliver Twist is a clear example of this, but Dickens seems to recognise his error and sought to challenge this stereotype with the character of Riah in his last complete, and my favourite, novel Our Mutual Friend. Riah was seen as something of an apology for Fagin. This idea is fabulously explored in Will Eisner's graphic novel Fagin the Jew. 

  Despite his flaws, Dickens was someone passionate about social justice for people forgotten and trodden down by the rest of society. We live in a different world today, but we still struggle with creating a society that is equal. This is the bit I read in the bath this morning that got me thinking about this sort of thing:

We still leave unblotted in the leaves of our statute book, for the reverence and admiration of succeeding ages, the just and wholesome law which declares that the sturdy felon shall be fed and clothed, and that the penniless debtor shall be left to die of starvation and nakedness. This is no fiction. Not a week passes over our heads, but, in every one of our prisons for debt, some of these men must inevitably expire in the slow agonies of want, if they were not relieved by their fellow prisoners.

His dad managed to walk free of the debtors' prison, but the sights Dickens saw when he visited frequently made its way into his fiction. A year before Dickens died, 1869, people were no longer imprisoned for being in debt and it is reasonable to think that Dickens' voice played a small part in bringing about this change in the law. Writing stories is powerful stuff.

David Davis & Dave Davies

Whilst watching tonight's The First Election Debate tonight on ITV I got thinking, and talking with Adam Jarvis, about what could have been had David Davis not launched one of the most ill-advised campaigns ever. The alliterative MP who shares the name of The Kinks' guitarist (sort of) decided to invite large-breasted women to wander around the Conservative Party conference with "It's DD for me" t-shirts. This controversial promotional decision was probably not the reason that he failed to beat David Cameron, but it surely failed to garner more votes from Tory members. Since his defeat he has been banging the drum about the erosion of civil liberties. 

  The other Dave Davies is infinitely cooler, partially because of the extra 'e' in his surname and his shortening of David to Dave. He was voted 88th in Rolling Stone's greatest guitarist of all time. They described his guitar work as "the dynamo that drove The Kinks". I enjoy a good sing-along to Lola on the way to school once in a while. I started reading his autobiography once, but some of the stories of his rock 'n' roll excess made me feel a little queasy and I gave up on it. 

Damien Duff

The Duffalo

A Fulham fan took a stroll into the Europa League.

He met Shakhtar Donetsk and felt slight fatigue.

"I'm afraid your dream is soon to be over,

You'll never beat me, I'm the Euro League holder."

"That's terribly vain of you SD, but no - 

Have you heard of Damien Duffalo?"

"Damien Duffalo? What's a Duffalo?"

"Damien Duffalo! Why didn't you know?

He's got a mercurial dribble, a rasping shot,

And his current form is steaming hot."

"Oh dear, Srna will have to stick to him like glue."

"I think you'll find he failed. We beat you three goals to two."

On went the Fulham fan laughing to himself wittily.

He stumbled into Juventus, the old lady of Italy.

"Oh dear little Fulham. This is your last day.

You're going to get munched by David Trezeguet."

"That's terribly vain of you Juve, but no - 

Have you heard of Damien Duffalo?"

"Damien Duffalo? What's a Duffalo?"

"Damien Duffalo! Why didn't you know?

He's got pace to burn, a bewitching left peg,

He makes mugs of defenders with an embarrassing nutmeg."

"Oh dear, we'll have to get Cannavaro to shut the metaphorical door."

"I think you'll find the Duffalo opened it: five goals to four!"

The Fulham fan proceeded with an Easter bunny,

When he bumped into Wolfie, the champion of Germunny.

"Hello Full of ham, your adventure has been great,

But the victory is mine, it is my certain fate."

"That's terribly vain of you Wolfie, but no - 

Have you heard of Damien Duffalo?"

"Damien Duffalo? What's a Duffalo?"

"Damien Duffalo! Why didn't you know?

He's got an eye for goal, he's athletic and lean,

He's our utterly fantastic number sixteen."

"Oh dear, Simunek will have have to halt his fun."

"I think you'll find the Duffalo is laughing: it's three goals to one."

The Fulham fan marched on, with a warm fuzzy glow,

Knowing that victory was certain with Damien Duffalo.

He's got a mercurial dribble, a rasping shot,

And his current form is steaming hot.

He's got pace to burn, a bewitching left peg,

He makes mugs of defenders with an embarrassing nutmeg.

He's got an eye for goal, he's athletic and lean,

He's our utterly fantastic number sixteen.

And with Hamburg in the way, it's surely worth a bet

That the Duffalo holds the keys to our trophy cabinet. 

Devon

Four Things I Have Done In This County

1. Visited the Donkey Sanctuary

One of the top tourist attractions in Devon is the Donkey Sanctuary. My grandparents lived (now just my grandmother) in Sidford, a place ignored by the national media, but nonetheless a lovely little spot in East Devon. The River Sid runs through the village with a ford that you can drive through supplying the reason for the name: driving fast through a ford is pretty cool stuff. Next door to Sidford is the mouth of the river and the appropriately named Sidmouth and this is where the Donkey Sanctuary resides. It's free to get in and it smells pretty bad, but when I'm in town I am a compulsive visitor. I have visited it ever since I was a young child and it fills me with a warm nostalgic glow. There's not much to do other than look at the donkeys, but I am not the only one to love the place. Many locals leave huge bequests to the Sanctuary in their wills and a whole wall is covered with plaques in honour of these gifts. Such is the willingness of the Sid-residents to part with their cash that they recently received attention because the charitable giving coming their way was outnumbering the figures coming into huge charities such as Cancer Research UK. Donkeys surely don't need this kind of money, but I guess it demonstrates the warmth that many feel towards these braying beasts.

2. Run around Blackbury Camp pretending to be Friar Tuck

Blackbury Camp was another favourite location for my family. The place felt magical and like it belonged in a different era, and it did although the information board erected by English Heritage telling me these details was something that my eyes never paused upon. If I had I would have found out that the D-shaped earthy wall that I bounded around were the ramparts of an Iron Age fort. I imagined that I was Friar Tuck while my sister assumed the role of Maid Marian. The choice of Friar Tuck over Robin Hood may seem odd, but I never took chose the main character in role play games: I guess I didn't want my story to be already told for me. I felt that Tuck had stories that hadn't been told yet; it didn't matter that I had no idea what a friar was. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed when he turned out to be a fat drunk bloke in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. 

3. Had a D-I-S-C-O in The Cowshed

The loyal local fan in me supports Brighton and Hove Albion; the glory-hunting child in me supported Liverpool and then there is a tiny place reserved in my heart for Exeter City. Every time I went to visit my grandparents, I checked to see if the Grecians were playing a home game, and if they were I took my place in The Cowshed, the most vocal section of the Exeter City crowd. Events on the pitch were rarely that exciting - the half-time race between two opposing fans was often the highlight of the afternoon - but you don't go to watch Division Three football because you're a lover of the beautiful game, but because you're a lover of singing yourself hoarse and jumping around with a bunch of strangers. My favourite Exeter chant was the 'Disco' one which started by spelling out the five-letter word followed by, "Lets all have a disco" while lots of sweaty blokes took part in an impromptu mosh-pit. The other great thing about Exeter was that they seemed to attract an odd selection of celebrities. I bumped into Uri Geller at one match in the club-shop - he was part of the board as was Michael Jackson, David Blaine and the bloke who played Darth Vader in Star Wars. They also, incredibly, played a pre-season friendly against the Brazilian national team in 2004, something no other club had done at the time. I still keep an eye on Exeter's results and am glad to see they have clambered themselves up to League One and currently sit just three points behind Brighton. 

4. Lost to my granddad at tennis

My grandad on my mum's side is no longer alive, but while he was, he was man who didn't let age stop him from doing the things he loved. He stayed politically active and physically active well beyond retirement. Tennis was the sport that kept him going into his 80s. I knew that he played most days, but I still thought that I, an occasional player, would beat him reasonably comfortably. I was very wrong. He played a powerful and intelligent game that meant that I was sprinting around the court scrambling to return the ball while he took short sidesteps before wellying the ball beyond my reach. The final score was 0-6, 1-6, 0-6. I hope I can smash my grandson when I'm in my 80s, but I have my doubts. 

Dulosis

Ants are often used as images of what teamwork can achieve. The six-legged scuttlers are able to lift twenty times their own weight. They gather in colonies of up to 700,000 and when they combine their efforts, they can achieve pretty special feats. If humans could match their strength, then the Aston Villa fans traipsing out of Wembley this afternoon would be able to carry a fully-loaded Titanic with them back up the M1 (that took me quite a while on the calculator by the way).

  Whilst we laud praises upon the ant, we are unaware that the Chuckle Brothers' "To me, to you" work ethic is not something all of the ants share. Dulosis is the problem and the issue that has got the William Wilberforce of the ant world up in legs (all six of them). Dulosis is the enslavement of ants by other more nasty ants. The way they go about it though is what makes it even more chilling. An invading ant army storm another ants' colony and steal the pupae (ant frogspawn) and then when it develops, they force the youngsters to work for them, with the slaves feeding their slave-masters the food they forage. The insect kingdom is a darker place than I realised. The 1998 animated movie Antz made me think that termites were ants' main problem; surely the film should have highlighted the danger within the ants' own ranks.

  We should think more carefully before placing ants on a pedestal and look a little closer at who it is that is shifting the Antanic to the ocean for its maiden voyage. 

Disclaimer: not all ants act in this way.

Requested by Adam Jarvis

Democracy

I have written blogs before and whilst I start with the good intentions of writing interesting stuff, I very quickly start to write inane drivel about Brighton and Hove Albion's recent form and then let my blog dwindle in content to the point where it is no longer updated. This time will be different (perhaps). This time I have chosen an angle, a theme, a broad subject that will keep me banging away on the keyboard for weeks, months, perhaps years: my plan is to discuss things beginning with the letter 'D'. I may choose some myself, but it would give me much pleasure if you would contribute ideas that you would like me to discuss. The only rule is that they must begin with the letter 'D'.

  My first subject is democracy - a pretty big pillar of our society and a bit of a gargantuan topic to write about. It was on May 6th 1999, at the age of 19, that I was first given the opportunity to exercise my democratic right. Local elections were combined with a referendum on whether Brighton and Hove Albion should be allowed to build a new stadium in Falmer on a site at the north end of the city. The referendum question interested me most and I took the short walk to the polling booth to tick 'Yes' to the question of whether I thought Brighton should have a stadium and 'Yes' to whether I thought that Falmer was an appropriate site. Brighton had just finished a season playing their home games 75 miles away in Gillingham and I was desperate to see the team I loved playing back on my doorstep once again. My political convictions were less straightforward. I didn't want to vote for the Conservatives because my parents had imbued me with a belief that the Tory's political purpose was to make rich people richer and poor people poorer. It was a simple and arguably accurate understanding of their policies. I'm not sure I understand a whole lot more about what they stand for today other than that they have drifted closer and closer to a more moderate ground where they perceive the votes can be found. I would have voted for Labour had I not taken a dislike for the Labour MP after he had lied to my mum at the school gate about which way he would vote in a planning permission decision about a new leisure centre. The Liberal Democrats would not be receiving my vote because the former Chief Executive of Brighton & HA, who had brought about the club's demise, was an ex-Lib Dem MP and I associated the Green Party with vegetarianism and didn't want to give up sausages. The other parties were all acronyms that I knew nothing about, and so I handed in my ballot paper without an X marked anywhere. I'd abstained through whimsical reasons - tangents that my mind followed and negative connotations that I associated with some parties meant that I refused to commit myself. 

  Two years later, the election of 2001 came around. I'd thought that I would never vote Conservative, but standing in the Tory seat was my old baby-sitter and because I trusted her and because she'd sat downstairs watching TV while I slept, I gave her my vote. The Labour MP was still the same untrustworthy chap and so despite a desire that the Tories wouldn't get into government, I voted for her in the hope that my baby-sitter would get a seat above Porky. In the end Labour won both battles. A mildly interesting side-story to this election was that I received two voting slips, one at my parents' address and one at the flat that I lived at. I could quite easily have voted twice in this election. Would I have been committing a crime if I had done this? I suppose I would have been committing electoral fraud, but the story is not really worth pursuing as fear of detection, laziness and a moral conscience all meant that I was never likely to do this.

  Four years on and I had moved out of Hove and into Brighton - both Labour seats. After failing to vote for Labour on two previous opportunities, it was finally time to put my 

cross in the box and watch on as Tony Blair made it three victories on the bounce. A girl on the same English Literature course had been convinced by her mum that Blair was a crook who was destroying the country. It gave me immense satisfaction to follow her into the voting booth and undo her Tory vote.

  One more local election gave me an opportunity between the last election and the one on the horizon. I was back at my whimsical best and felt frustrated belatedly about the Iraq War. Subsequently the Greens got my vote. I felt that local elections offered an opportunity for the smaller parties to grab some power and I'd been impressed leading up to the election by a Green Party candidate talking about how they weren't a single-policy party on a Radio 4 programme. The fact that on a car journey, Radio 4 had been the only station with decent reception had brought about a sway in my vote. 

  And so, May 6th eleven years on offers me my fifth opportunity to take my place in the polling booth. I love that moment standing in a darkened cubicle feeling like the destiny of the country is in your hands. It isn't, but it some ways it is. I have tried to get to grips with my political beliefs by filling in a questionnaire on www.politcalcompass.org.uk They claim that dividing politics into left and right wing policy is too simple and that a vertical axis labeled Libertarian/Authoritarian is necessary also. After answering a range of questions, some of which I didn't quite understand, I came out in the left-wing libertarian box alongside Nelson Mandela and Gandhi. How this affects who I'm going to vote for, I'm not sure. I seem a bit of a distance from Gordon Brown (who they claim is slightly right of middle and closer to authoritarian). David Cameron isn't on it, but I'm sure he's even further away from me. Having abstained, voted Tory, voted Labour, voted Green, am I going to jump ship again and vote Clegg? I'm not sure.