00:30 I leave the Red Lion and head for the count at Stevenage Leisure Centre. I am an ‘Official Counting Agent’ tonight. I’ve been advised to get there sometime after midnight, “Not much happens before then.”

As I walk from the Old Town I fall in with four guys. Three of them are Labour and one Conservative. In Stevenage You can’t tell who’ll be voting for whom from appearances. We’re definitely post-tribal.

One asks who I voted for today. I decline to say. He apologises for asking. Everyone takes the secret part of voting very seriously. They turn for the leisure park to go clubbing. I carry on to the Leisure Centre for the count. I feel very grown up and sensible.

01:00 Arrive Stevenage Leisure Centre. Some constituencies in Sunderland have already returned results! How do they do that? Sunderland’s a Labour strong hold and foregone conclusion. Maybe they just declare for Labour and go down the pub.

In Stevenage they’re still separating local ballot papers from general election ones. As most people fold their voting papers together this takes time. The local election papers are put aside to be counted in the afternoon.

I’ve been given a badge telling the world I’m an ‘Official Counting Agent’. But no one’s told me what I’m supposed to do. I decide to spend some time asking dumb questions. I’m not sure if this is part of my role, but I can’t help verify a vote if I’ve no idea what’s going on.

Every one I talk to is very helpful and willing to explain to me what they are doing and why. There’re a couple of Police officers present. I ask one why they’re here,

“It’s just in case…”

“Are you expecting trouble?”

“Not at all, we are only here as a precaution.”

“What are the plans if there’s trouble?”

“None, seriously, this is Stevenage…”

There’s also some private security present. That bothers me a bit. I recognize one from the Old Town. Apparently Labour have hired part of the Leisure Centre for a private function and the Leisure Centre have employed private security to make sure no one crashes Labour Party’s party.

I spend the next hour drinking coffee and watching the TV as the results come in. A hung parliament is predicted.

02:30 The count is starting in the main hall. There’s a large horseshoe of tables with the counting staff sitting on the inside. There’re chairs on the other side of tables from the counters for observers, agents, candidates and anyone else here to monitor the count.

The ballot papers to be counted are in bags on tables in the centre. These are fed to the counting tables where all the action is.

There’s no organization to the monitoring. All parties have agents present. All candidates are present. Independent observers can apply to be present. Basically you go stand / sit where you like. I suppose the randomness of it all ensures systematic cheating is difficult.

I decide to sit at one table for the whole count rather than wandering around. I sit down and say hello. As usual everyone is polite and friendly. I watch eagle eyed for two hours to see if I can spot any mistake by the counters. They don’t make any.

One of the counters put aside a ballot paper. It has marks in all the boxes. The supervisor passes it. I ask her to explain her decision. Everything stops on my table. This badge makes me quite important.

The paper had one tick , the rest ‘X’s. The rules are explained to me. The voter must clearly differentiate the candidate that they are voting for. So it passes.

I accept that explanation. Perhaps I’m being a pain. To me it’s due diligence, or maybe the power of the badge going to my head.

04:00 The count is over at the tables. All votes have been collected into bundles of 50. The bundles are placed on tables, 2000 to a table I think. We are sitting on the outside of the horse shoe in our party groups. It is obvious that Julia, the LibDem candidate has not won. But it is quite close between Labour and the Conservatives.

05:00 Stevenage declares for the Conservatives. Conservatives cheer, Labour look daggers, everyone else claps politely. Stevenage will have a Conservative MP for the first time since Tony Blair’s landslide in ’97.

05:30 I arrive home and watch TV for an hour. It is definitely going to be a hung parliament.

06:30 I get to bed. I need to be back at the Leisure Centre for 14:00 for the local election count.

Continued Monday with the the local election count.

general election 2010

05:30 My alarm goes off. The big day has arrived. Today in Stevenage we will be voting for a member of parliament and local councillors. I stumble around my flat, half asleep, hoping I will wake up soon.

I’m starting the day ‘telling’ at Fry Road. I need to be there for opening at 7:00. Telling involves sitting outside of a polling station asking for voters’ polling card number.

06:30 I leave home. It’s bright and crisp and way too early. I walk to the polling station, there are no other tellers around when I arrive. The Labour teller turns up. We shake hands and introduce ourselves. Howard is a Labour councillor for the ward although not running this year.

The polling officer brings us a cup off coffee, which was nice of her. She didn’t have to. Early morning voters turn up on their way to work. Everyone seems happy to be voting. There is a kind of holiday atmosphere.

Howard gets out the Guardian crossword. I’m no good with crosswords but get a couple. We are mostly stuck. The two hours pass quickly, chatting to Howard about music and football in Stevenage. These both come under his brief.

09:30 I arrive at my parents place for breakfast. They live near Fry Road so this saves me from going home. I talk politics with my Dad, then have nap. Later, my Mum comes in for lunch.

13:00 I am back at Fry Road for two hours. There is no Labour teller this time. Are they very confident or overworked? I catch the end of the lunch time rush, then it goes quiet.

Rules regarding political activity near polling stations are strict. You can’t attempt to influence a voter or even ask for a card number as they go into the station. You have to wait until they come out. You can’t ask people how they voted, just their polling card number. They’re under no obligation to answer. You can only ask once.

The problem is that on the way out of the polling station voters no longer have their polling card with them. Few people remember their number. So you ask for the first line of their address instead.

15:30 I arrive home. I voted by post a few days earlier so I do not have to vote today.

In the weeks before the election we canvassed homes looking for potential supporters. With the information gathered from telling we can tell if our potential voters turned out.

On polling day, if things are looking close, we drop in on non-voters to remind them to vote, offer lifts to the polling stations etc. This is called ‘knocking up’.

I’m on stand-by for ‘knocking up’. I play World of Warcraft with the TV on in the background. It looks like it’s going to be a big turn out.

20:00 I have not been called up to do any ‘knocking up’. It is unlikely I will be now as the polls shut at 22:00. Either the vote isn’t close or they have forgotten I exist.

I’m due to be monitoring the count at Stevenage Leisure Centre as an ‘Official Counting Agent’ tonight. I’ve been advised to get there sometime after midnight, “Not much happens before then”.

22:00 I’m off out to the count via the Red Lion. I need a break from all this grown up, sensible, respectable behaviour, so I go watch some live music. Thrash metal – not really my thing, but it breaks up the day.

00:30 I’m on my way to the count. My first ever count, I’m quite excited even though there is little chance of a LibDem win in Stevenage.

Continued tomorrow with the the general election count.

I would like to point out to any bankers who maybe reading this, that the credit crunch thing is now personal, and YES we do have a problem.

Looking at last week’s vid of Bowie in the 80s made me go look for some of his stuff from the 70s. This is when, under the influence of my elder sister, I became a Bowie fan.

This is “Starman” another classic Bowie song. It looks like it is from “Top of the Pops.” I used to think this was the coolest thing on TV. Not that I’d call it “cool” back then, “Fab” maybe.

It is so painful to watch now, particularly the audience. Maybe they had rules about the audience enjoying themselves too much.

Punk saved me from all this, but more of that next week.

As I walked in the door the first question I heard was, “On what album, produced by Ian Hunter did Davis Bowie play the saxophone?”

Does anyone know stuff like that? If they do, are they allowed out of their institutions often?

Seriously, WTF? The answer should be, “Get a life.”

So we decided to give the Rock Quiz a miss and head off down the High Street. We ended up in the local Witherspoon’s bar, “The Standing Order.” This place gets its name from the fact it is a converted bank.

Anyway they are selling Green King IPA for 99 pence a pint and will be until April. It costs £2.55 a pint in the Red.

Result.

As you can imagine with beer selling at 99p a pint, the place was packed. With some of the clientèle looking as if they had seen better days. And that’s coming from someone who definitely knows about these things.

This explains why the “The Standing Order” is known locally as “The Bouncing Cheque.”

So for tonight’s music we have a David Bowie track I have no idea who played what on it, or who produced it. It is a great great track and music is for listening to, not answering dumb, boring trivia questions on.

When I got there they had no band on. Apparently they are having a bit of a break after Christmas – great.

Then something went wrong with the nitrogen gas used to pump the beer with, which is ironic as I have been writing about running out of gas all week. This is a very sad sight at 11 pm on a Friday night.

So no music and only bottled beer, unless you drink the brown stuff.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse there was a fight outside the pub, and lots of Police turned up. I tried to take some pictures, but they did not come out.

All said, not a good Friday night. I don’t get out as much as I used to. I think I realise why now. I wasted an evening and £12.20 sitting listening to the duke box.

But, now I look at the pictures of the Police outside the pub, I see what an interesting effect all that reflecting material makes. So not a completely wasted evening then.

Anyway, the price of a pint had not gone down. I was outraged and complained to the Wayne the Manager, who patiently explained that they put the duty on beer, wine and spirits up at the same time as they dropped VAT, so the prices stayed the same.

Nanny Gordon knows best and does not want us to drink more. He doesn’t want us to waste our hard earned money on English Ale or Scotch Whisky. We should spend it instead on Chinese made toys.

It’s nice to know that the powers that be, having presided over the possibly the biggest financial f**k-up this country has known, still think they know better than us how to run our lives.

When it comes to running the economy, they can not find there own backsides with both hands. But that will not stop them from attempting to micro-mange the whole nation – in our own best interests of course.

If we all drink less, work harder and learn our place in the scheme of things, then one day our kids could be in a position where they will be protected from there own gross incompetence by their pals in the government splurging out our money.

It has gradually become important, to adults as well as kids. For the past five years or so my local pub, The Red Lion, has marked Halloween with a fancy dress night. If the idea is to get punters in the pub it works for me. Kev Thomas phoned up and we went out to see who had dressed up as what.

I managed to remember to take a few photos.

At the end of the evening my friend Clare tells me her has missed her last train. I think she had probably drank a bit too much for her own good. Anyway she tells me she was was staying overnight with these three guys, but she “barely knows them.” So obviously I offered to put her up for the night.

Luckily her boyfriend was willing to drive down the pub and pick her up, which was nice of him.

I do not think he was very pleased though.

They were pretty good. As I was leaving the Red Lion last night (1am this morning in fact), Bev Glanfield yells to me, “Tim, we tried!”. She repeated it, so I assume it must have been fairly important.

I have not got the vaguest idea what she was talking about. But I was on my way home and had had a few drinks so I thought I would leave it. This kind of thing happens way too often to me. Although not as often as it used to. Just once I wish I knew what was going on in my life.

I have left a message for her on facebook.