Pot in Colarado and a lot of money spent by Obama and Romney

Earlier this week people were calling me on behalf of the President. There were so many I stopped answering 0800 numbers. They they got me by using a local code.

I resorted to brusqueness and confusion tactics, completely flooring one woman by telling her I was going to vote for John McCain.

For some reason nobody representing the President has called me since Tuesday, perhaps because he will continue to be the President and I am just some unimportant and rude sort of bloke.

I'm not really complaining. The best guy won and there was no way I was going to vote for a guy whose company did all those bad things in El Salvador. I've seen the movie Salvador a couple of time and there were scary dudes out there in retro sunglasses. At least the photographer gets the killer shot at the end - just before his head is blown off.

The election was fun in it's own way. I derived the most pleasure by flicking over to Fox to see the normally smug expressions pained. It's always good to see Bill O'Reilly looking peturbed but am I alone in finding his comments about the white establishment subliminally racist? Why do whites have a right to be the establishment? And how come O'Reilly never mentions the Native American establishment which was quite well established before the white establishment?

So while election night was worth it just for the expressions over at Fox, I am rather concerned that the election cost about $2 billion. That's a lot of money to spend for no change. If you went to a car dealer and put down $20,000 for a new Cadillac you'd be somewhat miffed if the guy told you, you'd purchased your old Chevvy again.

At least Obama can say he won. Apparently one Republican candidate for Senator out west somewhere spent $3 million but lost.

At the risk of sounding all PC here I do wonder if some of that money would have been better spent digging wells for impoverished kids in Africa or even helping kids in the ghetto with education programs. The scary thing is the only other person who seems to have taken issue with the cost of the US elections is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Incidentally is it just me or does this guy never age? Maybe it's down to what Bruno described as his taxi driver chic. Given Bruno's wide knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs, who can argue with him?

There has been something else that has been bothering me about the election. Oh yeah that will be the X billion fiscal cliff we are about to fall down. If this was such a massive and pressing issue how come neither candidate mentioned it during the election? More to the point how come nobody in the media thought it was worth a question in the three debates? The other big question raised by the election was surely how was it that Colorado backed the legalization of cannabis while Oregon,  a state that surely contains more New Age liberal types, rejected it? There must be some Rocky Mountain high theory.

That's a sort of comedy in itself, but on the issue of comedy I was sad to read this week about the death of Clive Dunn. He was 92 so you can't say it was tragic but Dunn was part of my childhood and always reminded my of my own grandfather who died when I was about 12. I still remember my brother throwing up in the back of the Morris Marina during the funeral procession and an outraged great aunt almost giving herself a hernia by jumping out of the way; I remember slugging back the whisky that nobody else would drink, which is probably not groovy for a 12-year-old.

Dunn played Cpl Jones in the comedy Dad's Army, a character who was famous for his meandering monologues. I checked out a video of the comedy at the time of his death and was amazed at how well it was written and the brilliant characterization. It's not easy to sum it up succinctly but I hope I can do better than Jones. The comedy was about a Home Guard unit from World War Two, typically made up of oldesters and those not fit enough to fight who would be the last line of defence if Jerry came over the White Cliffs of Dover.

It was headed up by an officious and self important bank manager Captain Mainwaring, his effeminate number two Wilson and a troop that conspire to do everything shambolically, to the chagrin of Mainwaring. It struck me that you seldom see comedy like this anymore. And for some reason Godfrey's "Good Evening" is the funniest moment of the scene.

BTW thanks to all of the new followers I gained from Mina's Resurrection blogfest thingy. I used to get a shed load of comments on Brits but it has tailed off in recent months. The Resurrection thingy was a timely reminder that I need to get off my backside and comment on other people's stuff more.