Why do people pretend to be out when the doorbell rings? OK, in our case it’s because of acute embarrassment at our untidiness, but since a lad I’ve always enjoyed a debate with extreme religious groups that attempted to recruit me. Initially it was out of my learning curve and curiosity and then it became better entertainment than TV. Maybe it’s cruel, but the proselityzers have to learn too. hah. And so it is with the current crop of door knockers – the electioneering canvassers. I welcome all (I was going to add ‘and sundry’, but if I welcome all, then sundry is included isn’t it?) especially the political parties I reject. Eh? Yes, the greens and Labour party can have both my votes (I know I only have one, but they don’t know that) and run along to the next house. The right wing and other oddities can come in unless they are prepared to stand for an hour while I fetch a chair and a cup of tea for me! I am a reasonable person and will change my mind on issues if a logical case is presented that defeats my earlier conclusions so they do have a chance. But they are up against it, big time. It’s because I am in entertainment rather than learning mode these days.
So yesterday a woman in a very bright blue suit rang my bell. She handed me a card with the candidates name writ large to aid my memory cell, and urged me to support him. It’s unlikely, I say, and why should I? She obviously had been through a doorstep training programme and started her spiel with ‘how long have you lived here?”
Well you all know me by now, and so my wicked funny synapse made me blurt out: ‘Well, in exactly two weeks, we will have lived here for twenty eight years, four months and five days.’
That threw her. Exactitudes of a bizarre nature didn’t feature in her course. But she rebounded with: ‘Do you have any questions for me?”
“I do. I have a problem in the book I’m writing. Would the Vandenberg USAF Base in California be the Mission Control for a military strike against a possible alien space ship?”
“Erm, I’m sorry? Do you have a question about local issues?”
“It could become very local if the aliens landed here. Oh, all right. Why doesn’t your party support the extra cycle path we need to make cycling to Wrexham safer?”
She left in her big Bentley.
