sashinka | observation orientated, with a twist of lime | a blog

Speaking of the election, here's a thing.

My MP is Glenda Jackson in Hampstead and Highgate.

Now, I probably would like to vote Green, as I can't believe that global warming/carbon emissions/road pricing/energy/etc is not top of every single election agenda. Who will care about the NHS and education when we are all knee deep in an artic winter and have run out of fuel or it cost £100/gallon?

Of course, some say I'm just glass-half-empty/expect the worst. Some may be right.

So my Properly Green Friend (PGF) used to be a road protestor and knows his stuff, and he tells me the green party haven't been up to much since Jonathan Porrit left in the early nineties. I believe him. Glenda has a stonking majority, so I don't know whether a tactical vote (I'd so like to teach Tony a lesson) will help, and frankly, I can't bring myself to vote Tory on their current immigration platform (of which more later), so I decided to find out Glenda's record on the green stuff.

I check out online, and find nothing special, try Camden town hall who tell me to call Westmister, so I call the Houses of Parliament, and they - quite rightly - tell me she's no longer an MP, but give me a local constituency number. It's voicemail, and I leave a message to say I'm interested to find out if there are any local hustings, and I leave my number. This was Friday a couple of weeks back, just after Parliament had been dissolved, about 1.45.

At 2.15 my phone rings.

"Hello, may I speak to Sasha F____, this is Glenda Jackson, with information about hustings."

Glenda Jackson returned my call. Hell, with a 27,000 majority, who wouldn't chase every vote?

"Hi Glenda," I respond, "thanks for calling me back. I was really interested to know your views on a couple of issues, so seeing as you're on the phone, can we just talk?"

Glenda trots out Labour received wisdom on Kyoto and climate change (all front, no behind) but does the business. She says she can "print out their green stuff" and post it to me; I suggest she emails it, to save some trees. She asks me for my web address. I say does she mean email? She says she's not very technical (like, yeah?) and as I tell her my address, she says "is that all lower case?"

Yeah, Glenda, all lower case.

Now this isn't fair, because she did everything I asked, and charmingly, but I asked her one more thing.

"Glenda, I wondered if you have a weblog?"

"What's a weblog?"

"A blog, an online diary, of your thoughts and stuff." I hate saying online diary, but when someone doesn't get it...

I sidetracked by telling her I'd found a fake blog and she really didn't understand me and told me that of course she has a website on that internet thang.

So I'm impressed she called me back, but we need to get her to one of those LearnDirect internet classes. This is the online era, and you want my vote. Work for it, baby.