1. Ooh, has my voting form just arrived in the post? No - it's a letter helpfully explaining that I will be receiving a voting form "in the near future".

(As communications go, this is about as useful as making a posting on a weblog saying "In the near future, I shall be making a posting on this weblog." Except that weblog postings don't carry hefty administrative costs.)

2. Read various gloom-laden news stories of administrative cock-ups, missed deadlines, Royal Mail inefficiency, evil skiving posties, etc etc. Keep a watchful eye on the letter box.

3. Receive envelope containing ballot paper, over a week before voting deadline. Place on the kitchen window-sill, unopened. Hell, there's still plenty of time.

4. Three days before the voting deadline, remember the unopened envelope on the kitchen window-sill. Resolve to Do Something about it when I get home.

5. Two days before the voting deadline, remember the unopened envelope on the kitchen window-sill. Resolve to Do Something about it when I get home.

6. One day before the voting deadline, remember the unopened envelope on the kitchen window-sill. Realise that it's too late to put the ballot paper in the post. Thankfully, an offical polling station is only 5 minutes' walk from the office. Recalling the gloom-laden stories in #2 above, congratulate myself on taking the safe, sensible, responsible option.

7. Get home, open envelope, open partner's envelope. Note with bafflement the statement at the top of the ballot paper, in a typeface at least four times the size of everything else: "This ballot paper is WHITE". Ponder whether the authorities are expecting a flood of forged ballot papers on coloured paper.

(Yes, that will fox those evil counterfeiters. They won't have thought of ordering white paper.)

8. Note with wry amusement that the official logo of the BNP is printed directly below this statement.

9. Note the existence of a "Declaration of Identity" next to the voting boxes, which K will have to witness.

(Ooh, isn't that a bit cheeky? I thought it was supposed to be a secret ballot.)

10. Decide that this all looks very complicated, and that it can all wait until the morning.

11. Just before leaving the house for the office, suddenly remember existence of ballot papers, which have now moved all the way from the kitchen window-sill to the work-top above the washing machine.

12. Scrabble round for biro in mad panic.

13. Quickly decide who to vote for. Where are they where are they where are they can't find them blimey what are they doing hiding down there? Place a cross in the appropriate box.

14. Finally decide to read the instructions, in microscopic type. (Mutter mutter discrimination against the visually impaired mutter mutter.)

15. Discover from the instructions that the form is actually perforated, meaning that the voting form can be separated from the Declaration of Identity after all - thus preserving voter confidentiality, should it be needed.

16. Carefully tear down the central perforation of the ballot form, separating my vote from all the other gubbins.

17. Carefully tear the other gubbins in half, separating the voting instructions from the Declaration of Identity.

18. Sign the Declaration of Identity, as a voter. Fill in K's full name & address, as a witness. Tick the box which says that he has witnessed me signing my Declaration of Identity.

19. Decide to help K out by doing the same thing for him. Tear along both the perforations on his ballot form; fill in my full name and address (as a witness); tick the box which says that I have witnessed him signing his Declaration of Identity; sign the Declaration of Identity myself (as a witness).

20. Realise that all the various bits of paper are getting muddled up with each other. Momentarily panic that I will end up putting the wrong bits of paper in the wrong envelopes. Administer conceptual slap on the cheek.

21. Thus calmed, take all the pieces of paper and envelopes up to the bedroom, where K is shaving. Summon him over to the bed, to perform his solemn duty.

22. K tries to sign my Declaration of Identity, but the biro has stopped working. He scribbles on the back of one of the envelopes, causing me to momentarily panic that this will count as a "spoiled" paper.

23. K successfully signs my Declaration of Identity (as a witness) and his own Declaration of Identity (as a voter).

24. K asks whether he is supposed to vote with a tick or a cross. I recommend a cross, as ticks may count as "spoiled".

25. K votes.

26. Place my voting form inside "Envelope A" (brown), and seal it.

27. Place my Declaration of Identity inside "Envelope B" (white), making sure that the bar code is level with the window on the envelope.

28. Place the sealed "Envelope A" (brown) inside the unsealed "Envelope B" (white). Goodness, that's a tight fit. Struggle a bit.

29. Check that the bar code from my Declaration of Identity is still visible through the window of "Envelope B" (white), and that "Envelope A" (brown) hasn't got in the way.

30. Seal "Envelope B" (white).

31. While following steps 26 to 30 above, talk K through the same process with his own voting form, Declaration of Identity, "Envelope A" (brown) and "Envelope B" (white).

32. Take both "Envelopes B" (white), place in satchel, and leave for work.

33. At lunch time, remove both envelopes from satchel, and proceed to the Council House in the Old Market Square.

34. Inside the main door of the Council House, there is - guess what! - an old fashioned ballot box, accompanied by two officials. Just like the old days! How reassuring!

35. Try - and fail - to post the envelopes in the ballot box; the slot is too narrow.

36. One of the officials suggests that I fold each envelope in half. This is a bit unwieldy, as each (stiff) envelope contains a Declaration of Identity, a folded voting form, and another (stiff) envelope.

37. Squeeze each folded envelope through the slot as best as I can. Even after posting, I can see them winking back up at me through the slot (it's not a large ballot box). Wonder to myself how quickly it will take the box to fill up.

38. Leave the Council House, bathed in the virtuous glow of the Active Participant In The Democratic Process.

39. Conclude that, with an almost endless scope for Human Error along the way, this "pioneering" new system amounts to nothing less than the wholesale disenfranchisement of Stupid People.

40. So that's the BNP vote comprehensively f**ked, then. Result! It has all been worth it! Skip back to the office with a sunny smile.

In the near future, I shall be making a posting on this weblog.

...and because I enjoyed reading them over at Stuart's and Elsie's. I luvva bitta Meta, I do.

1. Do you try to look hot when you go to the grocery store just in case someone recognizes you from your blog?

("hot...grocery store...recognizes..." You're from o'er the pond, aren't you? Oh, I can always tell. It's a gift. )

I certainly do try to make myself look reasonably attractive and presentable whenever I leave the house, for whatever purpose; in this respect, I am my mother's son. The only exceptions are hiking and gigging, when I dress for practicality and comfort alone.

(Ironically, the only time that a stranger recognised me from the blog was just after a gig. I dare say that I looked extremely hot by then; just not in the way that the question implied.)

2. Are the photos you post Photoshopped or otherwise altered?

Like so many pieces of functionally rich software (Access, Flash, Movable Type), the thought of Photoshop scares me so much that I don't even own a copy. This state of denial can last for years. Irfanview serves my needs perfectly adequately, thank you.

I have a copy of Paint Shop Pro at work, but am stuck at the stage where super-imposing text onto an image (see doctored Beatles pic below) feels like the last word in daring creativity. De-gaussing? Raster layers? The mere sight of such terms is enough to bring me out in hives.

I can, however, crop for England. It's an overlooked skill. I should add it to my CV.

3. Do you like it when creeps or dorks email you?

My pathetic need for self-validation is so great that any unsolicited e-mail from readers is welcome, irrespective of creepiness or dorkitude. Yes, even the one which called me a "vaseline-arsed fairy". Hey, at least I provoked a reaction.

4. Do you lie in your blog?

Sometimes, I wish I had the nerve (it could be such fun!) - but I am burdened by having a major, major beef with dishonesty in all its forms. The ensuing guilt would simply be too much to bear.

The nearest I have come to lying on the blog was when I invented a fictional guest contributor, for the purpose of telling true stories which I didn't fancy putting my name to. Despite filtering these stories through a fictional persona, the ensuing results were, paradoxically, amongst the most honest pieces of writing I have produced.

A couple of years ago, I toyed for ages with the concept of blogging a piece of fiction as if it were fact, building up a story over several days, and only 'fessing up afterwards. I had a cracking good story all lined up, and came very close to writing it. In the final analysis, it felt like too much of a betrayal of trust, and so I shelved the idea.

5. Are you passive-aggressive in your blog?

Passive-agressive: what a ghastly pop-psychology concept that is. In real life: I suppose that I have my moments. As for the blog: exactly how can one be passive-agressive on a blog? Does not compute. This question perplexes and annoys me. I shall move on.

6. Do you ever threaten to quit writing so people will tell you not to stop?

Good God, no. As manipulative, attention-seeking strategies go, it is too crass, too obvious, too transparent. I can do much better than that.

7. Are you in therapy? If not, should you be? If so, is it helping?

Not in therapy; never have been. I do sometimes wonder if it might be beneficial, but cynicism and inertia always prevail. I also suffer from the narcissistic delusion that my hang-ups are so uniquely complex that no therapist could possibly know how to deal with me. (Of course, I also acknowledge that this is probably one of the most common syndromes of all.)

8. Do you delete mean comments? Do you fake nice ones?

The only mean comment I have ever deleted was at the subsequent request of the commenter. I have also deleted a comment which threatened to compromise someone else's privacy. Other than that, I adopt a fairly laissez-faire attitude. So far, I've been pretty lucky.

The concept of faking nice comments has never occurred to me before. There have been a couple of occasions where I have been polite through gritted teeth, though.

9. Have you ever rubbed one out while reading a blog? How about after?

I can honestly say that I have never been sexually stimulated by anything I have read on a blog, ever.

Well, maybe the occasional photo, slightly. But the question referred to "reading", not viewing. Besides, any ensuing stimulation stopped several yards short of, ahem, "rubbing one out".

(Is that a new expression? Now that I have banished the image of pencil erasers from my mind, I must concede that it has a certain graphic potency.)

10. If your readers knew you in person, would they like you more or like you less?

That's hardly for me to say, is it? To dwell on such matters is fatal.

11. Do you have a job?

"Job" is certainly the mot juste in my case. As opposed to the spurious dignity inherent in the word "career". Let's not fool ourselves.

12. If someone offered you a decent salary to blog full-time without restrictions, would you do it?

In the blink of an eye. (It sort of happened for a while, didn't it?)

13. Which blogger do you want to meet in real life?

There are so many. However, the first person that springs to mind is Anna.

14. Which bloggers have you made out with?

One. However, this was several years before blogs were invented. We didn't need no fancy computers to cop off with in them days! We made our own entertainment!

15. Do you usually act like you have more money or less money than you really have?

I think I give a fairly accurate representation of this, wouldn't you say? Occasionally, I worry about how this might be perceived. But I have to say that it is only a minor, tangential worry.

16. Does your family read your blog?

My sister keeps up with it on a regular basis, particularly on the brief occasions when she is back in the country. As she is now. (Hiya, sis! See you on Sunday!)

I believe that my cousin dips into it from time to time.

My mother doesn't own a computer, and has no desire to do so.

After many years of prolonged nagging from the rest of us, my aunt and uncle have finally gone online, and are probably going through their Honeymoon Period as I speak. My archives have been duly checked for Googlability.

17. How old is your blog?

It blends the noisy attention-seeking of a seven year-old, the self-questioning angst of a sixteen year-old, and the cocky swagger of a nineteen year-old.

Let's see, then. 7 + 16 + 19 = 42. Ooh, coincidence!

18. Do you get more than 1000 page views per day? Do you care?

This has happened six times in the past month, although my usual figure hovers somwhere between 600 and 900.

Although it would be disingenuous of me to pretend that it wasn't a source of some satisfaction, I have also been knocking around long enough to take this sort of thing with a hefty pinch of salt. All those pop-culture references get me a lot of Googlers; my traffic spikes always occur for bizarre and unpredictable reasons; my above-average number of references to other blogs generates a certain level of interest; and I'm a frequent updater, so people come back and check more often. Oh, and I've got all sorts of sub-pages beneath the main page, including two and a half years of weekly archives and separate pages for everything in the 40 In 40 Days Project. Plus there are all the Google image searches, which count for a hefty slice of traffic, and...

Hmmm.

19. Do you have another secret blog in which you write about being depressed, slutty, or a liar?

I've often thought about doing this, but know full well that it would only end in tears. I'm absolutely crap at keeping secrets.

20. Have you ever given another blogger money for his/her writing?

No, but I rewarded my first set of guest bloggers with home-made mix CDs. So much more civilised!

21. Do you report the money you earn from your blog on your taxes?

I don't think that the Inland Revenue would be overly troubled by the meagre income generated by my merchandising boutique. Meanwhile, my Amazon referrals have not yet been sufficient to convert into real earnings.

22. Is blogging narcissistic?

Yes, of course. But at its best, it's also much more than that.

23. Do you feel guilty when you don't post for a long time?

Tragically, I do. And then I feel guilty for feeling guilty.

24. Do you like John Mayer?

Now, you see, this is why I rarely bother with questionnaires like these. Because there's always at least one supremely irrelevant question near the end, isn't there?

Being only dimly aware of the fellow, it would be presumptious of me to venture an opinion. However, based on what little I know of him, I strongly suspect that he is Not My Sort Of Thing At All.

Sorry, John. Nothing personal. Keep on keeping on, and all that.

25. Do you have enemies?

None that I am aware of. I've had the odd fractious ding-dong along the way, but have always managed to reach a suitable resolution in due course. Long may this continue.

26. Are you lonely?

Hardly. My voices are all the company I need.

(It's the penultimate question. I feel I've earnt the right to some measure of bleak flippancy.)

27. Why bother?

Because the benefits outweigh the botherations, many times over.

After last week's experience at Uborka, I can now heartily recommend guest-blogging to absolutely everyone. (Yes, even those of you without blogs of their own).

Firstly - the desire to match the standards of a site which you admire imposes a healthy discipline; it makes you try that little bit harder.

Secondly - trying to work within the overall style of your host site is a fascinating exercise, which can result in material that might otherwise never have occurred to you.

Thirdly - it's good to get out of the house once in a while. I should do it more often.

This time a year ago, I was still regularly offering MP3s on this site; about four per week, in fact. One of the main reasons I stopped was the lack of feedback; with no means of measuring the number of downloads, and with few comments to go on, I began to suspect that most of them were being aimed at the wrong audience.

(This suspicion was confirmed when I accidentally posted an MP3 with a duff link, and nobody noticed. I stopped almost immediately afterwards. Yes, I too am not immune to the occasional Blogger's Hissy Fit.)

It was therefore immensely gratifying to receive such an extraordinary level of interest in the MP3 of Usha Uthup's One Two Cha Cha Cha. Thanks to links on BoingBoing and Fluxblog (and subsequently a few others besides), my stats went through the roof on Friday afternoon, peaking for a couple of hours at an average of one visitor every ten seconds.

(You should have seen them all: stampeding all over my fixtures and fittings, dropping crisp packets everywhere... and oh, the noise, my dears, the noise...)

Most thrillingly of all, it turns out that one of my regular readers, Plumpernickel of Baker's Dozen (a thoroughly engaging blog from Somewhere In India But I'm Too Lazy To Trawl Through The Archives And Find Out Exactly Where), actually lives on the same street as Usha Uthup. Indeed, they see each other practically every day.

"I never thought in my wildest dreams I'd find her here!" exclaims Plumpernickel, quite understandably. "I need to tell her this. :)"

Usha Uthup: if you are indeed reading this, then the readers of Troubled Diva salute you.

...your immediate reflex reaction upon seeing all those St. George flags sticking out of car windows (in support of the England squad at Euro 2004) is:

Ooh, that can't be safe. They could have a kiddie's eye out with one of those things.

I am unfamiliar with it, so I must disapprove of it.

It's a slippery slope.

Extremely dodgy thematic link: On the candidate list for this week's European elections, our BNP candidates have addresses like "St. George", "Victory", and "New Dawn". It's almost camp, isn't it?

Even more dodgy thematic link: As a grieving planet offers up its fond tributes to The Big Gipper, three memories of Ronald Reagan immediately spring to mind:

1) During the 1980 Republican leadership hustings, in the middle of a heated public debate between the candidates, a harrassed Reagan finally snapped: "I paid for this microphone." He started off almost as the joke candidate, as I recall. No-one really thought he'd get the nomination.

2) His infamous oops-I-didn't-know-this-mike-was-on quip: "I have passed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

3) His stunning grasp of language. "You know, in Russian, they don't even have a word for Freedom."

In short, the man was a blithering idiot. However, unlike George Dubya, he was a blithering idiot with charm and charisma. And that, I am afraid, is the best that I can say about him.

For a vastly more considered reflection upon The Great Man, I urge you to visit PB Curtis forthwith.

Guesting on Naked Blog, Jonny Billericay describes the obligatory round of cheery morning greetings that every self-respecting village dweller must enter into when staggering, bleary of eye and fuzzy of brain, down to the shop for the morning newspaper. In our village (and maybe in most others), there is also a secondary, vaguely class-based convention to observe.

If you don't speak with a local accent, then the correct form of greeting is a clearly enunciated "Good Morninggg!", delivered in a sing-song intonation, with plenty of reverb on the final "ng".

If you actually know the person you are greeting (that is to say, you have been formally introduced and have exchanged at least a few sentences of conversation with each other), then this may be shortened to "Mooor-ning!" - delivered with just the merest hint of hey-ho-here-we-go-again world-weariness.

If you do have a local accent, then the correct greeting is a simple, unaffected, I'm-just-a-straightforward-son-of-the-soil, no-frills-and-flounces-here-thank-you-very-much, "Ullo".

And of course: if you live in the city, than do not, under any circumstances, attempt any of the above. They'll only think you're weird. Sometimes, back in Nottingham during the week, I have to make a conscious effort of will to remember this.

Over the weekend, I somehow ended up spending three and a half gruelling hours raking the churchyard. Try as I might, I have no recollection of volunteering my services. I can only suppose that it must have been very late, and that I must have been particularly well oiled. This suggests commendable (and characteristic) shrewdness on the part of the person who enlisted me.

However, of one thing I am quite certain: I would never knowingly have volunteered for anything which started at 9:30 on a Saturday morning. (I was about to say "at the ungodly hour of", before realising that it was quite the opposite. God thrives on Bright And Early Starts.)

Let me make something quite clear: I am, by nature, a self-confessed Effete Drawing Room Fop. Extended periods of physical exertion are anathema to me; for I have no wish to be brought face to face with my wide range of incompetencies. Show me a hoe, and I will automatically hold it upside down. Put me in charge of a lawnmower, and I will squeal with terror as it charges away with me. Hand me a rake, and I will deploy it in such a way that my entire body will hum with pain for days afterwards - as evidenced by my current pitiful physical condition.

The worst of the pain is centered around my lower back, and - thanks to a brief but debilitating attempt to wield a pair of shears - both of my wrists. "They've never exactly been my strong point", I quipped, somewhat daringly, over lunch in the pub with the rest of the morning's conscripts - carefully curling my delivery with the requisite degrees of irony. With gags like these, you walk a tightrope.

Dragging my rake directly over the top of the village's former chief supplier of heterosexual pornography (we ate lunch together only three years ago), I was surprised - cheered, even - to feel not even the slightest of shudders. In a village, you can readily attain an easy familiarity with the cycles of birth and death.

Later that afternoon, hobbling round the cottage like an elderly arthritic, I caught sight of the bulls in the field opposite, and mused benignly upon the gastronomic pleasures that lie ahead. At times like these, one feels so deliciously elemental, my dears.