Holidays are coming and so is electioneering. In fact where you are it may already be here.
All over Britain people are drawing curtains and turning down their televisions for fear of encouraging the doorsteppers.
Our time will come in Ireland in the New Year.
When election posters will go up on every available pole.
It’s like being gatecrashed by the annoying people down the pub.
It’s not just that they have an opinion on everything and promise you the Earth with no intention of delivering.
Or eat into your time when you’re watching I’m A Celebrity.
But those damned posters are so distracting in your eyeline when you’re driving.
I’ve seen how they do it in other countries and although, of course, I’ve not been in the tinpot dictatorships of the world.
I’ve found other people do do it better.
For example in Ehrwald in Tirol in Austria https://www.tyrol.com.
Where they were holding a general election when we visited with https://topflightforschools.ie.
You wouldn’t have known it as nothing cluttered the pure white vista.
And Daniella, our Italian hotel host, seemed pretty non-plussed on Election Day when I’d asked who’d won.
In other European countries too they make sure politicians don’t become a blot on the landscape.
Like in Belgium where they make sure half of their government is French-Belgian and the other half Flemish.
They know from history that compromise is the only way to peace… A pilgrim’s prayer and https://www.visitflanders.com/en/?country=en_GB.
You may have caught on that screen in the corner of your room that the Americans are ratcheting up their Presidential race.
But when we visited New York as a family back in November 2008 it was all low-key on the street.
Yes, you could get buttons (or pins as we like to call them).
And I recall wearing a We’re With The Duke button when I was working in Boston in 1988.
I can always be depended on to pick a loser.
Back to Obama and that election race and it being Halloween when we visited I was particularly taken by the Obama pumpkins.
While even better are the Trumpkins… New Yorkers https://www.nycvb.com can be guaranteed to give you your (not their) opinion too.
And have been since the days of Hamilton…
Vote this way
Of course for all our ennui with politicians and elections there are some countries for whim true democracy is still nascent.
Which our South African hosts shared tales of queueing from the early hours to vote Nelson Mandela in in the Nineties.
When I visited Port Elizabeth http://www.visiteasterncape.co.za and the Eastern Cape with https://www.southafrica.net/uk/en/.
I’m putting my cross next to the Monster Raving Looney Party.
