The Final Countdown

And so Albia comes, finally (and I can hear peals of heavenly bells as I write this), to the last day of campaigning for tomorrow's General Election. Even as I type, the last few hands are being shaken, the last few posters are being erected and the last "pledges" are being made. As I have noted previously, this campaign has been remarkably incident-free: Deputy Prime Minister Rrrowr has failed to maul anything other than the Albian language, Shadow Finance Minister Pompadur Lahsur has avoided any embarrassing gaffes about public spending or preferring to be hung from an electric pylon by his own testicles rather than have to send his children to the local state school(1) and Drid Party leader Yin Flok's bumbling has been treated as the charming byproduct of his newly acquired status as a father, rather than an illustration of his unfitness for anything other than occasional appearances on television quiz programmes. For the minor groups, the Bear Baiting Alliance have failed to bait any bears, Fathers For Headlines have failed to chain themselves to any barricades, Da Redz(2) show no sign of making a breakthrough and Berot Yolik-Lesk's Vanitas party seems in danger of disappearing into a hole even darker than its leader's tan. Given the need for me to unearth news of the sort likely to pique the interest of my readers (a need of which I am frequently reminded by the Head of News) I can only hope that there is still time left in the campaign for something a little more enthralling to occur. On which note, I regret that I must leave you while I go in search of some eggs and rotten tomatoes, and start filling some prophylactics with purple flour.

(1) This silence on his part has, I understand, been achieved thanks to the decision of the Nyesti Party's antipodean campaign manager Bruce Urthy to have Mr Lahsur locked in a coal-cellar in his north-coast constituency.
(2) Albia's Green party. Sometimes Albian can be a deeply unhelpful language.