There were several graphic alternatives, in fact.?Not just the prospect of higher interest rates and even higher unemployment, but the appalling statistic of ?120 million going on debt interest to build other people's schools and hospitals rather than our own schools and hospitals.

If youve got a car, dont miss the Painted Desert, which stretches eastward from Grand Canyon National Park to Petrified Forest National Park, mostly on Navajo territory. The Painted Desert lacks the canyons hold-your-breath drama, but its vivid colours and patterns are every bit as beautiful.

There are two major problems with this super-sophisticated tactical approach to election-winning: the first is that it is profoundly undemocratic, and the other is that it is wrong. I can just about understand how the tactic geeks, who think they have discovered the philosophers stone of electoral success, can spout this stuff. But for the life of me I cannot see how politicians in a democracy could fail to see how repugnant it is. What? The views and concerns of ninety-odd per cent of the population can be rubbished taken for granted, regarded as inconsequential, treated as dependable cannon fodder in the battle for office? No matter how clamorous or desperate they are, or by how many times they outnumber the potential swing voters, they must never be listened to or appeased. The wishes of the clear majority have to be sacrificed in the hopes of attracting a very small minority. I dont know about you, but this is not my idea of how democracy is supposed to work.

Lisa Dwan in Samuel Beckett's Not I (Finn Beales)

Graduate engineer / Modeller