I’m just out canvassing in Hartlepool and blogging via my mobile phone. The reception has been great – everyone here is really friendly and most of the residents I spoke to are backing Jody. Grey clouds overhead but smiles on the doorstep! No wonder Labour are so worried.

The Tories aren’t keen on wind farms.

It’s not surprising. Wind farms are more likely than not to be built in the countryside, which gets the Conservatives’ backs up because they are the self-proclaimed defenders of rural England. (Which it’s not hard to be when you are irrelevant in the inner citiies.)

The Tories are promising to stand up for local people who don’t want wind farms nearby. And who would? (Actually, I think they look quite elegant…) This is nimbyism, but the Tories are happy to pander to it in the name of populism. People might not want wind farms built nearby, but they’d probably object rather more to a new power station, be it nuclear or fossil fuel burning. Wind farms have to go somewhere. Some can go off shore, some can go in cities, but some will have to go in the countryside.

But perhaps this isn’t just populism. Michael Howard is getting on a bit. His average party member is pretty ancient. What do the Tories have to fear from global warming? I’m reminded of William Hague’s infamous “you’ll all be dead” speech from the 1970s.

In the unlikely event of the Tories getting re-elected, some of us will have to live in their polluted future world, stripped bare of its natural resources. Michael Howard will have died of old age (he’ll probably have died of old age before the Tories get re-elected), but it would be nice if the rest of us could look forward to clean air and a sensible climate.

We need to invest in all manner of renewable energy sources, but we also need to start building them yesterday.

We began with enthusiasm and sandwiches at 1pm. The first few hours went by slowly but we got in to the routine of pausing the episode as the clock appeared following the ad break and waiting for our big “real time” digital clock to synchronise with the episode.

Having caught a train from Scotland early in the morning, I felt myself flagging around 9pm. I began resting my eyes in ad breaks after around 11pm, but this resulted in short naps. We filled many of the gaps with bits of South Park which helped a little.

I started feeling more awake around 3am and was helped by two cups of strong coffee and a packet of crisps. As dawn broke, the tiredness wore off, as if I’d spent most of the night asleep. At the first ad break after 9am, Andy popped to the shop to get an Observer and some air freshener. Both helped. Mid-morning, as the plots began to resolve, we longed for it to end. And at 1pm, relief.

The series breaks down into three or four sections, a big twist dividing each. It was more linear than previous series, and we agreed that the main President Palmer plots were more divorced from CTU activity. Andy picked eight characters he thought would be dead by the end; he got a respectable five right. We were disappointed that Chase Edmunds, with his one expression, didn’t suffer a worse fate.

When you watch episodes back to back, you start to spot the inconsistencies. Characters move to different parts of CTU between episods – i.e., instantaneously. Some appear to have their hair done. There are also patterns. Dull briefing meetings are conveniently scheduled during ad breaks. Any chase that starts before the commercials will still be in full swing afterwards. And woe betide anyone who expects to get to the top of the hour without something dramatic happening.

The series did stand up to watching in twenty-four hours, but I’m not sure that it’s something I’d want to do again.

So the gimmick of popular US TV series 24 is that the story plays out in real time. In each hour long episode (about 42 minutes with ads removed), the characters race to save the world, blissfully unware that, as the beeping digital clock approaches the top of the hour, a shocking cliffhanger is inevitable.

Despite the events of each series taking place over one day, watching it on TV takes neary half a year. But not this time.

Saturday, 1pm – Sunday, 1pm: we will watch the third series of 24 – in just 24 hours.

The commercial breaks will provide for short rests and pizza ordering, but sleep is out of the question. Ridiculous twists (plus Coca Cola, Red Bull and Pro Plus) will keep us awake through the night. A digital clock on top of the TV will guide us in matching as closely as possible the time on screen.

Why attempt such a dramatic feat of human endurance?

Because we can.

Beep bip beep bip beep.