Politics has never been "my thing". Should it ever come up in conversation, I always rush to say "you can't underestimate how little I know!" before I embarrass myself yet again ("Like, how are you supposed to remember what the 'right' and 'left' even mean?").
But when election day came up even I was excited. There were two reasons for this: firstly, I am now allowed by law to vote, and it's fun to know you have a say in, you know, the ol' democracy situation. Secondly, our student radio station LSR had planned all-night coverage of the #GE2015, from the closing of polling stations at 10pm, until midday on the 8th. Somehow, I managed to convince my radio superiors that I now knew enough about presenting to cover the gaping holes in my political intelligence, and landed myself the job of sharing a two hour slot, starting at midnight. I could not wait.
The past 35 hours - because that is now how long I have officially been awake - feel like too interesting an experience not to share. It's been pretty hilarious, even if the majority of university now seems to be sitting under a Tory-hate-filled cloud, and if nothing else, how incredibly lucky am I that my first vote in the General Election falls neatly into my first year of university?
With all its ups, downs, naps and some pretty impressive radio moments, I present to you: a taster of the past 24 hours - the UK General Election 2015.
General Election, Lieutenant Live-Broadcast & Major Sleep-Deprivation
19:25, 7th May - My friend and I hit Asda to stock up on treats for the night. We're like children, grabbing chocolate... and then we're less like children, grabbing some alcohol. We figure that we'll need a reward once our respective presenting and producing jobs are complete.
21:00 - I eat cereal and consider napping. In the end I don't. I will end up near weeping with regret at this choice, much later on.
22:00 - The radio office has definitely seen emptier days and it is already significantly above comfortable temperatures, but the atmosphere reminds me of a dressing room pre-show, so I am beyond hyped up nonetheless. My ears start burning red - the trademark sign that something exciting is happening. The colour of my ears continues to indicate my stress levels throughout the night... Put simply, they stay really, really red. At 10, the first show kicks off.
At some point after that - The madness descends early on as I volunteer to help record a bit of a spoof Party Political Broadcast that's being made for a show in the early hours of tomorrow. It involves unicorns, rhino-unicorn equality, and me pretending to be a unicorn... It's pretty surreal and makes me feel like I'm not fully conscious.
23:24 - I make another few attempts at getting as clued up as possible before our show starts. I now know what SNP stands for. JUST KIDDING ha, ha, ha, I already knew that one but I do have a serious revision session. Then comes the creation of a game which will later be a lighthearted intermission on our show: "True or False? Ridiculous 2010 UKIP Policies".
23:36 - Some surreal photoshoots (see above) take place which involve some unintentionally sinister politician masks and groans of "Oh do I have to be Nige again?"
23:58 - We head into the studio and get set up and ready for the next two hours. The exact schedule is up in the air because of the fact that we're reporting a live event - this combined with general nerves means 1) my ears are ON FIRE and 2) I start picturing all the potential blunders I could make. Like nerve-sneezing on air or accidentally referring to Farage as "bae" or something. I'm dithering.
00:45 - All is going well. We cross over briefly to a correspondent at a General Election party and I end up talking about pork pies more than I would have envisioned.
01:00 - Quite a few seats are announced and we seem to have quite a good set up as far as finding cutting edge gossip is concerned; I find a friend who is counting votes at Leeds Central and she tells me there has been a forged ballot - I'm far more excited than I should be about this rumour. "OOOhHHhh my god guys there's been a forged ballot apparently in Leeds!" Our political expert on the show gently informs me that it's not actually as big a deal as I had hoped. But they seem to think it's info worthy of social media and tweet the rumour anyway. I feel proud at my mini contribution. I turn my energy to Google searching "biggest ever politician mistakes on social media".
01:22 - I'm learning a lot. I'm asking the political expert a lot of questions. I try to make it sound like it's because I'm being an inquisitive journalist type, and not because I genuinely do not know the answer. (I don't ask him about the difference between right and left.)
01:25 - Our producer says I'm doing a good job! I almost cry.
01:57 - The show draws to a close and I realise that I am now free of responsibility. I'm quite sad that it's over so quickly. The only challenge now is to stay awake, and in a largely Labour-centred student environment, morale is low because of the exit polls. Adrenaline is keeping me up. We crack open the #BEVS. In a responsible manner.
02:43 - We hear there are tears in the Union bar as well as a Labour v Lib Dem physical fight. And they said students didn't care.
03:00 - The next show is well underway and my body seems nicely convinced that it's only around midnight so I feel hopeful about staying up. A friend makes a pact with me that we will stay until the very end, so I can't back out. There are rumours of an imminent pizza order.
03:30 - My body is so confused because I'm eating a lot of pizza at a weird time but haven't been on a night out. First world problems. Each hour, at half past, a "one minute rave" is played on air to enliven the presenters and listeners. They are a little more taxing to tolerate as the night rolls on. But then I find out that Leeds Student Radio's coverage of the General Election is longer than any other student radio's and that perks me up considerably, even if the actual General Election results don't. Very proud.
03:33 - "Tone Radio" of the Uni of Gloucestershire spots my tweet about LSR's coverage length triumph and congratulates us, wishing me good luck. I get emotional. It's just so nice to be personally supported by the University of Gloucestershire. I'm slightly delirious.
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| Yes yes of COURSE I later wept at the typo. |
04:40 - The noise in the bar means that I cannot hear the presenters upstairs properly, so end up asking the same question twice. Understandably, the interviewees are baffled. Someone mentions throwing dairy products at Farage. Coupled with a slight issue in the headset which means that I hear my own voice but with a headache-inducing half-second delay, I get another wave of "What on Earth is going on? Is this real life?" I panic as I recall a Scott Mills feature where he uses a SpeechJammer to make the speaker confused and cause them to slur their words. I wonder if it's appropriate to say "Back to Tom in the studio P.S. if I'm slurring I promise I'm not drunk it's just a headset issue..." I decide against it.
05:20 - I am starting to feel tired and every politician in the UK seems to be quitting. It's a low moment. Even though the sun is rising.
06:12 - There is a napping epidemic and people are dropping like flies. Someone is curled up on the floor on a pile of coats. A bit like a studio pet. Yet again, I wonder if this is reality.
07:50 - I am ashamed as I wake up, completely unaware of the moment when I fell asleep. I'm on a sofa. Luckily, it's the one in the radio office (and I was only out for ten minutes so we aren't counting it as a nap). My neck feels permanently crooked. Then the "rEaLiTyyYy???!!1!?" situation worsens as the aforementioned "Unicorn Alliance" broadcast is played. Someone asks if I was on helium when I recorded my snippet. I'm too tired to decide if I'm offended or not.
08:00 - As the 6:00 - 8:00 show ends, my Stay-Awake-Pact-Buddy and I finally decide to call it quits... Twenty minutes later the Leeds results are announced. But we made it right through the night and I have a seminar in a couple of hours and everyone is distraught and so we trudge home.
It was a manic day and a seriously wonderful experience. Huge well done to the people whose hard work made our election coverage the success that it was. I feel very lucky to have been trusted with even the smallest part of the process.
And I can now definitively say that you haven't experienced the true joys of a General Election in a student city until somebody says "And so then we threw packets of butter at Nigel's face."
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