There is something funereal about the atmosphere as I prepare to vote in the British General Election. I did not lie when I told a young friend who has never voted that I quite enjoy it. As exercises in futility go, it is one of the choicer examples. Perhaps I should have a bath first, emerging unsullied from my ritual cleansing, relaxed yet alert, ready to face the awesome moment of civic responsibility?
But first, to saunter past the venue for the delicious moment. I vaguely remember when the world was black and white; it didn't end with the fifties. And there is nothing more iconically black and white than the so seldom seen sign outside the Polling Station. Can I apply to English Heritage to protect this signage from being updated into some shallow exhortation to "Vote Here"? Surely the full force of the Representation of the People Acts must be behind me. So few moments of heightened excitement, all summed up in that evanescent essence of permanence, the unchanging sign of change, the solid black print on flimsy white paper.
The Acting Returning Officer has issued me with my Official Poll Card. One sign of the times is that it was not delivered by Her Majesty's Royal Mail. Thus we are not to be reminded that it is Her Government, not ours, that we are, indirectly, electing. We are all servants of The Crown this day. And we must trust that tomorrow The Crown will serve us as well as we deserve.
Support for the Liberal Democrats may be fading in some Labour seats, as anti-Cameron sentiment builds, but the British People know in their bones that, whatever happens, Gordon Brown will not be Prime Minister this time next week. Perhaps David Cameron will win outright, though opinion polls suggest otherwise. Perhaps a minority Conservative Government is the people's will: less politically motivated interference in our lives, a need for the merits and drawbacks of policies to be debated openly beforehand, a Government on probation. Could this really be the day that British democracy finally comes of age?