Had a quick trip to Rome. Highlights included the ruins of the imperial forum, lots of ice cream and a very enjoyable afternoon catching up with a university friend who’s now a deacon. Low point was the flight out being cancelled and almost not going at all, but that ended happily. May write more about it and bung photos on Flickr, but in the mean time, here’s a video. You may need to turn the volume up…
Today’s list is a quick list of things to remember about General Election polling day:
It’s on Thursday (6th May).
Polls open at 7am and close at 10pm.
In many places there are local elections on the same day.
If you’re eligible to vote, you should have had a polling card from your council telling you where your polling station is. If you haven’t had one and you think you should be able to vote, give them a call as soon as possible.
You don’t need your polling card to vote, but it helps the polling station staff if you have it.
If you have a postal vote and haven’t returned it yet, get it in the post asap. It has to arrive with the council before the polls close on Thursday.
If you still have your postal vote on polling day, you can take it – sealed in its envelope – to your local polling station, or to your local council.
When you vote, put a cross in the box for the candidate you want to vote for (or, for local elections where you have more than one vote, the boxes of the candidates you want to vote for). Don’t write anything else on the ballot paper or you risk it being spoilt.
After the polls close, the ballot boxes will be taken to the count location. First, the council will check that the number of ballot papers in each ballot box matches the number of ballot papers given to voters. Then the votes will be counted.
Most counts for the General Election are taking place on Thursday night. Get an estimate of when the result will be announced for your constituency from the Press Association.
Tuesday was this blog’s sixth anniversary and so the one day of the year I talk blog stats. But it was also the day the General Election was called, so I’ve been a bit busy this week. I’ve therefore merged this weekend’s list with the annual number round-up.
So here we go. The previous five years’ figures are in brackets, last year’s first.
3 (3, 2, 2, 2, 2): number of servers this site has been hosted on
2 (2, 2, 2, 2, 2): number of blogging applications used
1,157 (1,123, 977, 873, 588, 226): total number of posts
1,742 (1,614, 1,518, 1,350, 774, 444): total number of comments
1.51 (1.44, 1.55, 1.55, 1.32, 1.96): average number of comments per post
137,317 (112,651, 70,993, 43,016, 6,322): total unique hits
Top seven referring websites (excluding search engines):
(I should point out that those Derren Brown referrals came from someone in his comments, not the scary brain man himself.)
Top ten search terms:
10 (-): “derren brown” lottery
9 (-): hut 33
8 (-): barry letters
7 (-): derren brown lottery how
6 (-): eurovision 2009 island
5 (-): top 10 iphone apps
4 (-): darren brown lottery
3 (-): derren brown lottery prediction
2 (1): eurovision 2009
1 (-): derren brown lottery
Turns out that lottery song brought in much of the last year’s traffic. Other choice searches from the top 30 include toby stephens (finally out of the top 10); freebmd; karaoke circus; and colin jeavons.
What with the new series starting IN LESS THAN AN HOUR I thought I should write something Doctor Who themed today. Bit stream of consciousness this list:
First new TV story I saw: possibly Time and the Rani (I think can remember the giant brain) but if not then certainly something from season 25
First novelisation I read: The Daemons
First VHS I saw: probably Death to the Daleks (with Pyramids of Mars and Spearhead from Space around the same time)
First new TV story I saw as a self-defined fan: Dimensions in Time. Ho hum.
First novelisation I read: The Daemons by Barry Letts
First New Adventure I read: Nightshade by Mark Gatiss
First issue of Doctor Who Magazine I bought: don’t know the number but was probably around 1993 and had Sylvester McCoy in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy on the cover. I bought it from a small newsagent at the edge of the pedestrianised shopping precinct in Tunbridge Wells.
First VHS I bought: The Keeper of Traken, at the end of 1992. Also bought in Tunbridge Wells, in the WH Smith in the Victoria centre. What useless things we remember.
First convention I went to: Blue Box III in Southampton in 1994.
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