The long night ahead

It's that time of evening when I usually decide whether to stay up for an hour or two or leave it and go to bed. In 1992 I stayed up as John Major won the election the Conservatives should have (maybe wanted to have lost. I didn't stay up much past midnight in 1997, the result was obvious and depressing and my work was more regulated then. 2001 was a boring election, the result was obvious and I think I went to be not long after the polls closed. 2005 was the first campaign that Mrs NotaSheep really got involved, we sat up watching Newsnight almost every night and so in election night we stayed up until it was obvious that the great British people had made the wrong choice, again, and had rewarded Tony Blair with another full five year term... Since then I have become more politically active, whilst Mrs NotaSheep has become less so as her work has intensified.

So although at the moment Labour have won all three Sunderland (and environs) seats and the BBC are glorying in the exit polls showing a hung parliament, I think I will stay up for a while. I just couldn't bear it if Labour did lose and I missed Gordon Brown's totally graceless concession speech. And as for seeing a cabinet minister or two lose their seats - I must be there. So work can go hang tomorrow, I think it'll be a late one, although I will review the situation at 2am.