Well, that could have been worse...

It's been an odd election.

John Prescott hasn't hit anyone once.

They wheeled out Baroness Davros to remind us that her favoured son was following in her grand tradition of winnng and winning and winning...

And the Boy Brown knows who wins next.

A chastened Labour Party are cut down to size enough to make arrogance dangerous, yet strong enough to be effective.

The Lib Dems grow; very interesting to see that, though the decapitation strategy was obviously shaky from the start.

This remains a strong Labour seat; whilst it is not how I voted, we could do a lot worse. Meacher's OK.

In our constituency, the BNP took a -9.5% hit. Most excellent!

The only really sour point for me was Bethnal Green's election of the most corrupt disgrace to the principles of socialism I have ever had the misfortune to see in action; How could they do it? I have watched the transcript of his horrible fawning over Saddam Hussein; ('We salute your tenacity!') Does he also salute the rapes and war crimes committed by that dictator and his followers? And Oona King loses her seat to him! Those who voted for him deserve him, and had better be prepared to pay for the privelege, for he likes a bit of cash in the back pocket does old George Galloway.

Still, onwards.

I am so glad to be able to think of other things!

Self indulgence; Tales of the Alhambra

I am so relieved at being able to forget my civic duties for the next five years.

Now I just want to go somewhere beautiful/create fantasies in my head. My love is playing on the PC next to me, so I can't really concentrate. Instead, I am going to let my mind wander.

This is a shot of the Alhambra, the castle overlooking my mother's home city, Granada:

http://ergodic.ugr.es/jmarro/images/alhambra.jpg

The palace and of course the mountains behind it are haunted and spellbound; Washington Irving's book,Tales of The Alhambra describes all the stories with far more charm than I ever could, but here is a tiny one, the tale of the last moorish king of Granada, Boabdil, el rey chico, the boy king.

( Tales of the Alhambra )