Thursday 24 April 2008

Going postal

So, it may not yet be May, but due to the wonders of the electoral system, I've already put my Xs in the boxes and posted my vote. So Boris: you can stop trying to persuade me to endorse you, because it ain't going to happen.

What was slightly distressing was this morning, my expat boss called me into his office and asked if I understood voting. Pink, yellow and peach forms for him and his wife were spread out over his desk. 'I don't care who gets in,' he drawled, 'as long as Livingstone goes and there is no more Congestion charge. So I must vote for Boris, right?' Panic hit me like an anvil as it became clear that, in the next few seconds, I might be forced to assist not one, but two people to vote for Boris Johnson. Vomit rose in my throat. Blushing, I tried to explain to my boss that he was putting me in a position I found more uncomfortable than Downward Facing Dog, without using a lameass yoga analogy. It was an internal battle between political loyalty versus the need to assist one's boss personally, when one's job title is Personal Assistant and one's mortgage and mediocre existence depends on one's boss thinking one is doing a good job...

Like Robocop, I scanned my internal data to find a mutually satisfactory solution. And I am ashamed to say that political loyalty did not emerge as the unequivocal winner of the day. But I am very fond of my flat... And it wasn't all bad. Of course, the result of our exchange is confidential but I can say that through the virtues of the new two-choice system and by exercising some diplomatic brilliance of my own, I somehow managed to glean another couple of votes for someone other than the anti-Christ and leave my boss feeling that he was doing the Right Thing for the gas-guzzling drivers of London. With negotiating skills like these, maybe it should be me running for mayor.

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