Having spent the last week barely eating or sleeping, I’m not sure I’m up to a detailed recounting on the strenuous campaign I was helping to fight in London. I was pleased that my work in the early hours of Thursday morning got a mention in the Guardian:

By 7am, activists had printed a new leaflet with flattering quotes about their candidate from the day’s Times.

I was hunched over a duplicating machine for a couple of hours in the middle of the night doing that. After a few hours’ sleep, I spent most of polling day in a small room with two computers and piles of paper. Then off to the count (for a disappointing result that really didn’t do the campaign justice) and finally back to HQ to watch the rest on TV.

Via Chris Lightfoot’s Estimation Quiz.

Your score is…

+66.9
That means that you’re…
better informed than 91% of people who’ve already taken the quiz
better informed than 96% of Labour supporters who’ve already taken the quiz
better informed than 85% of Conservative supporters who’ve already taken the quiz
better informed than 91% of Liberal Democrat supporters who’ve already taken the quiz

I went to see The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy film last night, which I enjoyed as a pleasant enough way to pass the time on a Thursday evening. I even laughed a few times.

If I’d never read the books (which I’ve read some of), heard the radio series (which I’ve heard some of) or seen the TV series (which I’ve seen all of), I would probably have enjoyed it more. I may well have thought "Gosh, this is an exciting and amusing new world I’m discovering." As it was, I didn’t.

Instead, I couldn’t help thinking "If only that was like it was in the TV series". I wanted Simon Jones instead of Martin Freeman, Valentine Dyall instead of Zoe Wanamaker and Richard Vernon instead of Bill Nighy. (I realise in two of those three cases that was somewhat unlikely.) I wanted more made of Deep Thought’s creation as a calculating machine and less of Zooey Deschanel.

There were plenty of things to applaud. The special effects were marvellous and were the one thing with which a big screen adaptation would always trump any other version. Bill Bailey and the League of Gentlemen were in it. The designs were terrific. There were cameos by theo original Arthur and the original Marvin. Joby Talbot’s music and the So Long and… song were good. The animations for The Book, and Stephen Fry’s voiceover, where great – so why did they virtually disappear from about halfway through?

I’m not sure what the point was, in the end. It felt like the film had been made because it was the only major medium left un-Hitchhikered. It takes the basic story to a new audience, I suppose, and enabled the said special effects. But despite not being one of those perverse Who fans who longs for wobbly sets, I felt myself hankering for the HHGTTG TV series.

On the way out of the cinema, we made up for the film by getting advanced tickets for Episode III.

For an alternative view: Gavin’s review.

I’m going to vote LibDem (obviously) but since I live in safe Labour seat with the SNP is second, it’s not going to affect who MP is.

What it will do is increase the LibDem’s vote share across the UK. Every vote like mine helps the argument for proportional representation. The BBC have a discussion thread on this very subject, which has lots of comments in favour of change, including one by me. (Via Make My Vote Count.)