First class people

An exhausting few days for someone who's not used to discipline. I was working at the elections. As well as the General Election we had elections to the City Council to run. My main job was Presiding Officer at one of the polling stations at the University.

The alarm went off at 4.40 and I got up straight away, having spent most of the night worrying about whether it would go off. The taxi, a splendid old BMW, was driven by someone who, from the note of embittered resentment running through her chat, I guessed would be voting Tory. Had we gone a few miles further, it would have been all these immigrants.

I started setting the polling station up in an old stone farmhouse which has been swallowed into the University's seeping reach, and welcomed the other staff. We ate and drank constantly, mainly out of boredom. My stick-thin poll clerk drank large glasses of this pulped vegetable drink. The sludge colour came from kale, a vegetable which the Lord above, in His infinite wisdom, intended only for goats and pigs.

I made a joke which didn't go down very well. We have these long poky rod things to push the voting slips down into the ballot box, and using it I measured the volume of voting slips in my ballot box compared to that of the other (female) clerk. "Well you've got this much," I said, opening my thumb and forefinger to a few inches apart, "and I've got this much," narrowing it to an inch. "Not the first time I've had to say that to a woman, boom boom." Never was a subject changed so quickly.

The president of the Student Union, along with a friend, chained themselves to a barrel at an anti-fracking site in Manchester recently. A merry band of us, plus a well-meaning tweed-clad vicar who turned up from somewhere, went down to Manchester Crown Court to support them in their appeal against a charge of Obstructing a Police Officer in the Execution of His Duty.

One of the party put on some drum n' bass as we walked to the Court, which I found slightly embarrassing. In the court, Bez from the Happy Mondays turned up to support us. "I was at a rave last night in Bristol," he said, "and at some point I've lost my false teeth."

We waited around for six long hours, before being informed that the case was adjourned, pending the outcome of a similar case currently before the High Court. I was looking forward to some extra-judicial socialising, but one disadvantage of going out with environmentally conscious social activists is that you end up in a vegan cafe rather than a pub. I said I was going to have a quick look round a nearby record shop, and managed to quaff a couple of pints. On the way back to the cafe, I sneaked in to a sex shop -- unseen, I hoped, by my right-on pals -- to buy some poppers.

As we were about to leave, one of the arrested asked us all how much we'd spent on the train fare, and refunded us all in cash from the proceeds of a benefit gig a while ago. That was humbling.

On the packed train we went and sat in first class. The woman opposite shuffled and squirmed for a while. "I hope you've got first class tickets," she eventually said. "We're first class people," I replied.