Election Fever...

...It's all hotting up with candidates declaring themselves available for office on an almost daily basis.

Most of the front-runners' hats have already been so tossed into the ring and not a few utter unknowns with weird and fanciful notions of 'social justice for all or failing that a year's supply of Jammy Dodgers'.

Bad mouthing stories are beginning to emerge of how one contender's primary school once had a headmaster's cousin who was a driver in the Great Train Robbery of '63 (so clearly very nearly a terrorist then), which other camps are fretful to deny ever originated from them.

Urgent debates are beginning as to whether the left-leaning Mrs C can be manufactured into something of less a Stepford wife and more a good time gal. The right's Col. Z, equally, has somehow to learn to sound more thoughtful and less gleeful when debating the merits of hanging over lethal injection.

Rubbish bins are being emptied in search of inflammatory material, such as subscriptions to 'Bondage is the New Black' (which H assures me most insistently it isn't!) or, even worse, cardboard packaging that could and should have been recycled.

Generous and utterly vague, if not actually spurious, promises are being made to rid the world of cancer/war/poverty/Noel Edmunds by 2012 or thereabouts.

Above all covert fundraising and overt meejah presence are driving the bandwagons from standstill to at least second gear by the weekend:

"Why of course Parky/Oprah/Mr Humphries I've always considered myself a man/woman of the common people. Let me tell you my own upbringing was far from the modest position of untold wealth and power I now enjoy..."

"It's their hearts not their wallets I want. My good friend Alexa has set up a website where you can donate pledges, cash or blood right this minute."

...You thought I was referring to the Parish Council elections as aforementioned? Steady on folks! We're good, but not that good. America goes to the polls in two years. It's non-stop from here.

At least we'll be done with it all by weekend after next. Can't wait myself. (When I were a young and reckless curate I used to bear the badge reading "Don't vote, it only encourages them." Must be somewhere in the loft. Must dig it out!)