I threw the Harkamobile into ninth gear and accelerated into the turn.

Mrs H and the Spawn leaned elegantly into the centripetal forces, and the young one said “blib”, which is her way of warning me when I’m red-lining the tolerances of her design. Six months old and she has already upgraded all our technology past recognition. Only the other day my iPhone offered me a tip on the 11:30 at Doncaster before organising a strike for better power flow among the kitchen appliances.

The tip was a bust, by the way, you lying little silicon bastard.

“Hit the booster!” Mrs H yodled, and I did as I was told. The car was instantly surrounded by an anti-entropic field which smelled faintly of baby-rice, and we left our pursuers far behind.

“Take that, oppressors of the Mustela population!” cried our passenger, Morton the Alternative Voting Space Weasel.

“Quite so,” Mrs H said, looking resplendent in her counterentropic ballgown, “and another one from me for good measure.”

It all began so simply: a family picnic in the Contested Zone between Hampstead and Barian-Schelkingdorf II. The Spawn had made us aware by means of signs and images drawn in pulped carrot that this destination was her preferred one, and so off we went with lemonade and hot humanist buns (they make these at our local comestibulary, fine spiced currant buns devoid of religious significance but liberally sprinkled with sugary wickedness). One minute we were enjoying the sunshine, the next there was a furry space vehicle amidst the shortcake and Morton was begging us for political asylum. The evil empire of FPtP (apparently that’s easier to say if you have leech mouthparts) was invading the peaceful planet of the Space Weasels, adjacent to the Contested Zone.

No sooner had Morton managed to say “ssaaaaave meeeee”, and Mrs H had replied “of course, dear” without thinking, than the sky exploded with vast and powerful evil, and a deathray obliterated my copy of How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe.

“That’s it!” I cried, shaking my fist at the skybourne leechcraft, “no one gets away with roasting my Yu! I really enjoyed that book!”

“You can buy another one,” Mrs H said, as she tesseracted the tablecloth hurriedly and put the Spawn into her crashseat, “that’s what Amazon Galactic is for.”

“This was the original one they sent me as an ARC,” I snarled, “it is possessed of a strange conferred authenticity by its proximity to the original text and Charles Yu’s actual fingers, albeit he probably never physically touched it… It’ll be worth billions one day! Although not now because it’s radioactive char. Break out the omnivorous warbees, I’m through screwing around here!”

I probably shouldn’t have launched the warbees. On sober reflection, it’s never wise to declare personal conflict with a trans-solar empire of sentient annelids without considering the consequences. However, I am a man of passions and my dander was truly up. Mrs H grinned fiercely and the Spawn trotted out a few of Fermat’s equations in spinach and banana mash as we made it to the shelter of the Harkamobile. I engaged the bivalve drive, and we mollusced back to Earth at insane speed with the leechcraft in hot pursuit, only losing them when the booster threw us beyond the reach of linear technology.

“Well,” I said, into the sudden quiet, “would you mind telling us what that was about?”

“It’s not complicated,” Morton lamented, as we fed him cheese from the hamper and the Spawn chewed his foot meditatively, “we Space Weasels had given up warfare and created a peaceful society based entirely on the Alternative Voting system. The words of the sage Bywater were known to us. Indeed, we speak of him daily in our prayers to the Weasel Gods. Anyway, we were happy. Then the Leech People came, with their unsightly jaws and bloodsucking ways, and they invaded us in honour of their false idol, FPtP! So we performed the Weasel War Dance, and we fought! But I was separated from my unit and had no choice but to seek help from you. Will you save us?”

“Blip,” said the Spawn, unequivocally.

“All right,” I said. “But we’ll need Professor Stafford Smith’s Justice Ray and half a ton of cucumber sandwiches. And the Spawn will have to build some sort of electric elephant.”

Tune in next week for more HARKAWAY ADVENTURES!… :)

Back in the dim and distant days…

…when the Earth was still cooling and dinosaurs roamed, I used to collect for a few charities.

The concept of the covenant/direct debit was a bit modern and outlandish then, and no one really trusted it. We still shook tins – or rather, plastic jar doodads. And we had, behind us, a box of paper so that someone who really wanted to could sign up to make a regular donation, or just receive information by post. (Email was still rare.)

One charity, in particular, had very specific policies on collecting.

In a pub in Camden we’d all form up, and Matt the organiser would lay down the rules:

1. At no point were we to be aggressive or unpleasant. We relied on charity, not guilt. We could joke, tease, flirt, converse, persuade. We were not under any circumstances to accuse.

2. We must not lie. We should not suggest that we wanted to discuss the charity rather than secure a donation. We should at all times be up-front about what we were there for. At no time was it okay to inflate figures, make up facts, or do anything which, upon investigation, could be perceived as misleading.

3. The moment the member of the public wanted to walk away, that was that. Thank you so much etc.

4. We should stand to the side of the pavement, not in the middle, and place ourselves in such a way that there was never a sense of members of the public having to ‘run the gauntlet’ in order to get to a supermarket or a tube station. In addition, we should be sensitive to placing ourselves near cashpoints – in the first place because this could be oppressive, but in the second because someone going to a cashpoint is de facto less likely to have change in his or her pocket.

5. The phrase: “can I have two minutes of your time” was specifically forbidden; not only was it misleading (see 2) but it was known to be misleading. Opening the dialogue with a known untruth was counterproductive.

“I would rather,” Matt would conclude every time, “that you came back with an empty tin, having made only positive impressions, than that someone goes home angry with our outfit or feels uncomfortable. Because that is not what we do. We do the other thing.”

As opposed to the charity collectors I’ve come across recently, some of whom have been rude, accusatory, rapacious, obstructive, aggressive, and mendacious.

So: if your charity uses chuggers, give them Matt’s speech. Or expect people to associate you with that kind of behaviour.

On 5th May, Britain will vote about voting.

A few days ago, a letter arrived in my actual, real world postbox. It was plush and covered in smiling celebs telling me that they were going to vote for the Alternative Vote system and so should I. Since then, I’ve been waiting for the inevitable riposte from the No campaign, and today it arrived – a rather disappointing, mean little card which just told me that No was the best way.

The argument, as far as I can follow it, goes like this:

the Yes campaign believes – despite having originally wanted Proportional Representation rather than AV – that the AV system is fairer than what we presently have, getting closer to the actual intention of the electorate than First Past The Post, which is a blunt tool and can lead to an unpopular candidate winning because opposition to them is split. AV will therefore be fairer, resulting in better representation for divergent viewpoints, and a more conciliatory, negotiated political sphere. It’s an antidote to the increasingly aggressive, testosterone-y, Presidential style politics we’ve been seeing since Tony Blair channelled Margaret Thatcher.

the No campaign, on the other hand, believes that AV is a loser’s charter, pushing for the ‘least-worst’ candidate rather than the best beloved one. AV is a ‘miserable compromise‘ which will result in the election of more fringe candidates to positions of actual authority, legitimising the BNP and other groups which have been kept on the outside of the Westminster game until now.

(Both sides claim that the other side’s position will cause rains of dead puppies, bad sex, and a fall in house prices.)

I’m not sure that the precise mechanics of the voting systems matter very much.

There are plenty of guides out there which will explain how AV works and why it is a good or a bad thing (likewise PR and FPtP). The issues isn’t what happens at the booth, it’s whom you trust. The No campaign is focusing as I write on the objection of two cricketers. The Yes campaign gave me Stephen Fry and Benjamin Zephaniah. (Although apparently they didn’t use Zephaniah in places where the fact that he was black might put people off. Nice.) Since you’re not, realistically, going to become an expert in voting reform over night, it comes down to which person you identify with and what you believe will be the consequences of voting Yes or No.

David Owen says No.

Not very many people actually know any more who he is, but to some of us, that’s a notable thing. Owen argues that AV is a roadblock in the path of PR, and therefore he will vote against. I find that compelling – I have tentatively wanted PR in the UK for a while – so I thought for a while that I was going to vote No.

But.

I don’t think we’re going to get offered PR. Not by Labour, not by the Conservatives. The fact that it’s probably fairer doesn’t enter into the equation. It would mess with their grip on power in parliament, so they’re not keen. AV may be the only way to shift the power around a bit and create a situation where – in a generation or so – PR might be on the table.

Politics is short, but democracy is long.

So what will I do?

I have no idea. Read more. Talk more. Think more. Vote.

I invite you to do the same.