I just re-read that sentence, and the implicit dullness of my life is frankly terrifying. Nevertheless, it's true.

For an ugly bird, turkey is such a high-maintenance course, with a relatively low yield of satisfaction. You have to saw the poor creature's neck off (which is gross); faff about squeezing sausagemeat out of sausages to mix with stuffing mix (life's too short for breadcrumbs) to gingerly poke it up the neck cavity and hopefully pin it in place; ram oranges and lemons up its butt crack; get butter all over your hands smothering it before layering strips of bacon over the top; then finally making some elaborate foil 'oven' over it, which then sticks up so high in your real oven that you struggle to fit anything else in there. All of this at shit o'clock in the morning when you should be in bed dreaming of reindeer and mince pies. And then you spend the next five hours frantically squirting its juices back onto it in terror of serving up a dry roast.

By contrast, the unassuming ham is elegant in simplicity. This year John was given a 4.5kg ham by work as part of a Christmas hamper. Not much of a windfall for a vegetarian, but I make it a rule to never look gift pork goods in the mouth. Since the ham is already cooked, all I had to do was whip the rind off it, score the fat into decorative diamonds punctuated with cloves, and slop on a quick glaze I rustled up in a blender in five minutes using a can of pineapple and few spoonfuls of mustard. Two hours later it looked gorgeous, smelt sublime, and promised a great deal on the tastebuds.

While the turkey turned out fine, it was a predictable pain in the arse to carve, and really not that exciting to taste. It was anodyne, it was magnolia... it was dull. Come on! For all those hours of effort, I want fireworks and a disco on my tongue - I want MARDI GRAS IN MY MOUTH!!

Which is what I got from ham, which I shall call Babe from here on... Easy to carve, only one bone, juicy slices that stay moist for days, and generally everything the dirty bird was not.

Wow. I think I've gushed enough. What else did we do? Drank lots, ate lots, watched some fun films (including Willow) and generally felt quite fat. Merry Christmas!

It was chilly in Sydney Town Hall on Tuesday, where the aircon breathed bleak midwinter on the carol concert. A huge improvement on the year I beat the air, sweating, with my hymnsheet at St Andrew's Cathedral on Xmas eve.

The concert began with a young girl singing an English translation of Suo Gan (which you might remember a young Christian Bale singing at the start of Empire of the Sun). Haunting and beautiful - until she fluffed something and fled the spotlight. The unruffled harpist, clearly a seasoned pro, plucked the strings of her great harp and filled the hiatus with a gentle cascade of notes and a serene smile.

We were luckier than we knew - the Town Hall's Grand Organ has been silent for a few years during renovations, until this week. Completed in 1890, it was the largest organ ever built. filling one whole end of the cavernous Centennial Hall, its fans of ivory-coloured pipes stretch from floor to lofty ceiling.

A festive mix of poetry, slightly contrived feel-good stories, and familiar carols, the concert made a refreshing change from the Anglican Festival of Nine (windy) Lessons and Carols that I'm used to. There was only a handful of audience participation songs, and only one I didn't know - an Australian carol about the North Wind. Now it makes sense to me that there should be local songs that are climate relevant, but there are certainly more joyous things to sing about in the Aussie summer than 'red dust over the town' and brown grass!

Not that there's any brown grass at the moment. And it's all dark now anyway. The only lights in the room are the twinklings on the Christmas tree and a few fairy sparkles elsewhere. It could almost be cold and dark winter outside... But enough blogging. I've got to leave some mince pies out and head to bed.

Merry Christmas!

I suppose it was a blessing in disguise that our maxitaxi to Stereosonic took a whopping 45 minutes and set us back $110 and disgorged us at Homebush after the hottest part of day. It was the first big music festival I'd been to since our outing to Creamfields in the UK in 2006. I remember that party was packed with drunken, slightly scummy folk, and sure enough this one was replete with bogans. The difference was that the bogans at Stereosonic were tanned, healthy looking, often quite attractive, brick shithouses. No complaints there...

Another difference at Stereosonic was the fascinating surplus of moustaches, it still being the month of Movember. I can't help but think that maybe this vindicates the appearance of that annual charity event on ThingsBogansLike.com (#190), which is sad, because I rather like seeing the city awash with 70s-style taches. Although in fairness - it doesn't suit everyone...

What also doesn't suit anyone is this bizarre dance style that we observed constantly, of guys performing some frenzied homage to Michael Flatley (Lord of the Dance), busting moves like 'convulsive chicken' meets 'berserker Riverdance'. I've just been looking on youtube and discovered 'shuffle' - now I feel like an out of touch old person.

The DJ line up at the event included such musical luminaries as Carl Cox, Sebastian Ingrosso, Calvin Harris, Benny Benassi, Tiesto, and a whole bunch of people I'd never heard of, and we flitted from stage to stage from three o'clock until I left at ten thirty. Tiesto's set at the end was an enormous crowd-pleaser and the arena was packed with waving arms streaked by brilliant green lasers and cheering bodies dazzled by lighting that made me think of jump gates from Babylon 5.

However if I'm completely honest, I thought the music was mostly pants. In fact my favourite musical moment du jour was when three top tunes from 2005 came on (Drop the pressure, I see girls, and Feel the vibe - in case you're interested), but it seems this was a CD interlude while some sound technicians tinkered with cables.

Nevertheless, I had a top day in the sunshine with mates, soaking up atmosphere and sun in equal measure, albeit frantically rubbing in SPF 30 with an air of almost Lady Macbeth-style OCD.

But we saw much to neutralise these apparitions. When (Chris) McGillivray and I descended sharply into Queenstown, it was after we'd flown over and through the most enormous mountains I'd ever seen. The view from our luxurious lakeside apartment was a gorgeous vista of cloud-kissed peaks rising over the water.

Every morning we rose bright and early. Sergio would drive us through the postcard-perfect valleys and we'd stop again and again with cameras in hand, until we finally made it to the snowcapped peak of the day. There, girded and accoutred, we scaled the mountain by chair-lift and flung ourselves down again with a perilous combination of graceful gliding, wild upright hurtling, and undignified arse-planing. At all times, the views from the summits and all the sheer way down were miles and miles of undulating countryside unrolling before us like some great rumpled, frosted tablecloth.

Between skiing days we'd planned some downtime - a couple of adventures to get up even closer to the dramatic scenery. Our first such trip was a five hour drive to the coast and the monumental Fox Glacier, a 13km river of ice that falls 2600m from its lofty source to the sea. Ascending noisily by helicopter, we alighted on the frosty surface and embarked on a two hour tour. Our Nepalese guide (with Kiwi twang) led us stamping across the ice in our cramponned boots, pausing to snap the unmistakable brilliant blues in the frequent crevasses.

Our third day of skiing was meant to be at Cardrona, but it turned out they had some septic tank issue (ew) and were closed all week. Instead, we drove the extra miles to Treble Cone - and what a winter playground it turned out to be! A long green run snaking all the way from summit to mountain foot, a host of challenging blue runs, and a secret valley of pristine, wind-free slopes that sadly went unbruised by my backside. Definitely the best skiing of the week!

Our second day-trip took us through the winding roads to famous Milford Sound, the mist-shrouded fjord that appears in every New Zealand brochure. Several stops along the way provided us with photo and tourist tat opportunities before our coach deposited us in the fine drizzle at the water's edge. We spent most of our two hour lunchtime cruise in the dry interior of the boat, looking out at the mountains and the rain, and the waterfalls and the rain, and the sea and the rain. I can see how the Sound could be magnificent, but sadly it wasn't that day.

We had one last tired day of skiing on Saturday. By this time, everyone but Sergio was pretty tired. While McGillivray had become best buddies with his rented snowboard under some expert tutelage, Sergio and Chris (McGillick) had taught me some new tricks on skis, and by the end of the week I felt almost proficient ;)

Finishing the day with views from the cable car gondola back over Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu, we returned home, rested, and readied ourselves for White Out - the closing party of NZ Gay Ski Week, which coincided fortuitously with the end of our holiday. It's always nice to finish with a bang! Although, despite our relatively early 3am finish, everyone looked decidedly post-fabulous as we packed up the next day, and Queenstown airport had more than its share of jaded homos as we boarded our flight.

Some of the other highlights from the trip:

• having a car with 'el cheapo' labelled brightly on the doors
• watching (heart in my mouth) as Sergio flew off the edge of the slope with arms and legs in the air (luckily into a drift 6m lower down, but out of sight)
• leading (like the blind leading the blind) McGillivray down a near-invisible blue slope by accident as the mists closed in
• McGillick: "Oh! I think I've dropped one of my poles!", and seeing it planted in the snow near the end of the incredibly long green run at Treble Cone
• the cheeky koa (birds) that came sniffing around the Milford Sound coach passengers for scraps of food
• sinking teeth into an enormous Cockadoodle Oink from Queenstown's Ferg Burger
• hot roast pork and hot roast beef sandwiches at Coronet Peak at lunchtime. Just what the ski instructor ordered.
• gagging on the incredible sweetness of the famous (in NZ) Lemon & Paeroa

Here in Australia, it's the election that's hotting up, but the issue of climate change has been kicked into the long grass. Liberal Opposition leader Tony Abbott famously described anthropogenic climate change as 'crap', but confronted with public concern has managed to scrape together a climate policy which he clearly doesn't believe in. New PM Julia Gillard has proposed some kind of cop-out 'citizens' assembly' to come up with ideas following the shelving of former PM Rudd's scheme for trading carbon credits in the face of parliament earlier this year.

As with many issues in this election campaign, there is little vision or leadership offered by either party on any but the most parochial of issues. Consequently voters are turning to the Green Party which may double its vote this year and hold the balance of power in the Senate.

Another cause that the Greens support is same-sex marriage; and while Labor and the Coalition have avoided the issue where possible, voters have questioned Gillard and Abbott directly on the issue.

No-one would expect a conservative party to champion social equality, and former priest-in-training Abbott isn't one to challenge stereotypes. But many expected more from Julia Gillard; she is an out of the closet atheist (gasp), childless (gasp), and has an unmarried (gasp) de-facto spouse. She is clearly not a traditionalist, but it's clear that she has no intention of letting same-sex marriage become a potential vote-losing point of difference between Labor and the Coalition - even though polls suggest 60% of Australians are totally down with the gays getting hitched.

Instead, Gillard and Abbott are falling over themselves to pander to John Howard-inspired ignorant marginal voters who believe Australia is under siege from asylum-seeking boat people.

It's polling day today, and I can already see facebook updates from all my friends who've been queuing in the cool sunshine to vote, or who are wading through the 80-odd parties for the Senate. By this time tomorrow, the election will be in the bag.

Election summary from the Guardian: Australian election is a farce with much at stake

We flew Virgin America overnight from SF and were feeling pretty grim by the time we rocked up at Hell's Kitchen and dragged our enormous cases up several flights of stairs to Shane's lofty pad. But fatigue couldn't keep us relentless tourists from the concrete paradise of NYC - after a brief naplet, John and I scaled the famous Rockefeller Building for some bird's eye views before enjoying some Kodak moments at Grand Central Station. By that point, my poor feet had given up, so I let John continue his urban peregrinations while Shane and I enjoyed some pre-dinner drinks.

Dinner was at Becco, just downstairs from Shane's place, and he knows the staff well - so we had top service as well as a great meal. Shane conveniently lives a couple of doors down from a gay bar too, so we sampled that and nearby Barrage before bed.

Friday was hot. Stinking hot. A great day to take refuge in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but not such a great day to walk there. While John strode bravely there, I scuttled like a beetle from shadow to shadow despite a good long spray of SPF50. We slurped up several thousand years of cultcha in a short time, from the amazing Temple of Dendur, uprooted from the Nile, to Greek and Roman busts, the stained glass and gilded relics of mediaeval Christendom. And then we had ice-cream in Central Park.

Our retail expedition to Soho was less successful, although I did bag myself a "fancy jersey" from H&M which I've already seen someone else wearing.

The evening's entertainments were a different story. Beers at Gym Bar, yummy Mexican nosh at nearby Rocking Horse, a short foray to Rockit @ Amalia which spurred us on to bigger and better things at the enduring Splash Bar, where we met up with Dan (also holidaying from Sydney), Eduardo (who I met on my first trip to NY), Eduardo's fiancé, Brian, and a trio of Mediterranean-looking gogo boys. Ok, we didn't meet them, but one of them kept bashing his bum against John's head, so I call that intimacy.

After such a monumental Saturday (which featured acapella performances from Brian at an impromptu after-party), Shane and I ditched our Sunday Fire Island plans. In the afternoon, John and I strolled down to enjoy the views from Battery Park before some final food and drinks with Shane next to the lightship Frying Pan at Pier 66, moored on the west side overlooking the Hudson, and there we watched the sun set on our last evening in Manhattan (sniff sniff).

With only a short half day left, we spent our bit of Sunday in Greenwich Village, wandering mainly, and only stopping briefly to admire the Lonely Planet-touted Ricky's Pharmacy, which sells suction cup footholds and grips for shower sex, among the usual selection of toiletries and various pharmaceutical items.

And that was it. New York fabulously over. We sweated our way over to JFK, endured the rigmarole of airport faff for the SIXTH time, before boarding our Finnair flight, staffed by hatchet-faced blonde automatons. It could have been worse. At least I had New Moon to while the hours away; it was mainly pecs, wolves, and adolescent drivel, but it somehow passed the time to Helsinki...

Photos on Facebook

After our bender in the Castro, we had a late start and went pretty much straight to nearby Dolores Park, where the grassy sward was overrun with gays and their picnic blankets, and there we sat, sipping Pimm's and enjoying the view of the city in the bright sunshine. But determined to do at least some sightseeing, John and I left Keau & Gavin and headed downtown for dinner - burgers overlooking Union Square followed by cocktails from the famous hundred martini menu at the Top of the Mark on Nob Hill.

Keau's fifty cent tour of San Francisco started earlyish - as soon as I could rouse John from his melatonin-induced stupor. Our first stop was CostCo - a wholesaler supermarket (?) where John and I were gobsmacked by the cheapness! We left with a lifetime supply of ibuprofen, razors, and some bargain protein powder before Keau's tour took us to enjoy the sights of the Embarcadero, the Ferry Building, Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower. If you're a Tales fan like me, you would have been enchanted by the Filbert Steps - an entire street of steep wooden stairs complete with tree-darkened, flower-starred gardens and cutesy wooden homes.

The last part of the tour took us over to Fisherman's Wharf and the herd of sunbathing sealions, ending with a zip down the famously crooked Lombard Street. Obviously, having travelled all the way to the northern hemisphere, you may find it amusing that we then went shopping in a Westfield mall and had late lunch in the foodhall there, where the server mocked my charming accent before handing me a salad that could have fed a small family.

No visit to California would be complete without some yummy Mexican food washed down with margaritas that could launch rockets. No surprises that dinner snowballed into a pub crawl with $3 Smirnoff Ices and a hangover in the morning.

After an obligatory Kodak moment at the Golden Gate Bridge, bright brick red against cloudless blue skies, we stopped for a typically gargantuan American breakfast at a Mel's diner before we began our road trip to Yosemite.

After a long and soporific drive (for us, not poor Keau in the driver's seat), we entered the park and soon came upon a crowd of visitors snapping a brown bear shambling lazily through the trees (scarily close by). That was pretty much our last glimpse of anything bigger than a chipmunk or squirrel (unless you count the roadkill skunk).

We spent the next twenty-four hours driving around the park, amazed by the beautiful, dramatic scenery. The main valley of Yosemite runs between two enormous cliff faces that rise up sharply from the forested floor, veiled in places by several fast-flowing waterfalls that gush heavily into the valley beneath, throwing out great clouds of spray. It was just such a cloud of spray that put our camera into a coma and John into a glum mood. Hot dogs were consumed, gift shops thoroughly browsed (thimble for Mum), and finally we dashed around the giant sequoia grove before racing back to San Francisco and the airport. We just about had time to catch our breath, freshen up, and pack our bags before Keau and Gavin dropped us back at the airport after four fabulous days. Thanks, guys!

Next stop, New York City.

Photos on Facebook

And here I am starting again at the end instead of the beginning...

Qantas teased us. Our check-in madam cheerily told us our plane had been changed and our flight delayed due to a mechanical issue, and in a second my A380 dream was dashed - only to be given new and exciting life once more at the departure gate with no explanation. I settled down with Valentine's Day and my doxylamine for a romcom plus snooze.

John's new Qantas Club membership got us some luxury lounging at LAX while we waited for our dowdy American Airlines connection to San Francisco, where Keau & Gavin were waiting to whisk us off to their gorgeous home a stone's throw from the Castro, Frisco's gayville.

Already refreshed by the showers at LAX, we were ready to drop our bags and head out to enjoy Saturday in the city. Keau had booked tickets for us to see a stage performance of two Golden Girls episodes - performed by drag queens (of course). Pretty funny, and all the more poignant given the recent demise of Blanche (although Rose appears to be all over tv still, twenty (?) years on!).

Disappointed by the lack of alcohol in the theatre, we descended on the Castro's strip to sample Harvey Milk's old stomping ground, and we hadn't gone far before we were confronted by a couple of proud old men strolling the streets. Proud and naked! Like a true provincial, I couldn't help but stare a little.

Beginning with QBar, 440 (formerly Daddy's), and Moby Dick, we finished our Saturday with a visit to a San Francisco icon. Anyone who's read Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" will remember The End Up, where Michael Tolliver won the jockey shorts contest. Imagine our horror surprise when we arrived to find a straight reggae night winding down! I'm quite sure we stayed longer than Michael would have.

Did you watch it? As usual, it's an unbelievable bright and gaudy festival. So many countries put forward their finest stars to Eurovision and they pull out all the stops. Quite the difference from the pathetic efforts we routinely offer. Let me begin my highlights with the UK's contemptible entry.

Josh Dubovie sang one of the most insipid pieces of crap I've ever heard, and I'm sure Pete Waterman must have had his tongue firmly in cheek when he named it, "That sounds good to me". I didn't have the pleasure (?) of watching the selection process, but surely this must have been the best of a truly dismal bunch, but even Madonna would have struggled to polish this turd of a song.

At one point it seemed that even our lyrical faeces would beat Ireland's returning heroine, Niamh Kavanagh, who won it for them in 1993. Niamh was robbed. She belted out a typical Eurovision power ballad and got very little in return. Swathed from neck to toe in purple, she was like twice her former self squeezed into a plum sleeping bag, packed so tightly I don't believe she could actually move. I suspect she was wheeled on and off by some Norwegian mechanical gadgetry.

Greece's lead singer, Georgios Alkaios (let's just call him Botoxhead from now on) is "32.... apparently" according to our SBS commentator. He has a smooth head that Elizabeth Taylor would kill for, and was leaping around in white with Hellenic boyband extras half his (real) age, yelling, "Opa!" over a stereotypically Grecian tune. Nevertheless, he came 11th and the UK was one of four countries who gave them douze points.

Serbia's singer had an interesting golden fringe down to his eyebrows and looked curiously androgynous. He bravely sang his pop ode in his mother tongue, presumably because if we'd known he was singing, "Belgrade, Belgrade, I'm so naughty...", it would have been impossible to take him seriously at all (and yet he beat us).

Belarus surprised us with a Bucks Fizz-style reveal at 2m20s through their rendition, as the three girls in the group (already showcasing what miracles you can achieve with a GHD and ten cans of hairspray) sprouted glittery butterfly wings. But not even this could prevent the song being the dullest in the final (but they still beat us).

Spain's entry was rudely interrupted by a stagecrasher, which livened up a very dull song no end. The cheeky invader was later arrested but the true punishment was inflicted upon the audience, which was forced to watch this latter day Leo Sayer and his band of sinister clowns perform the song again at the end. You guessed it - they beat us too.

One of my favourites to win was the Icelandic song, "Je ne sais quoi". Not only was it a pop/dance triumph (IMHO) that set my toes a-tapping, it was a win for larger ladies everywhere. Hera Bjork and her troupe of big girls proved you don't have to be a dark-eyed sylph in a size zero dress to be a pop starlet.

Probably my favourite to win was Romania, which surprisingly did quite well, considering my favour appears to be the kiss of death for Eurovision entries. Paul Seling & Ovi, a gorgeous eastern dark-eyed sylph (oh well) and her less stunning co-singer gave us a pumped-up duet on a double-ended perspex piano - it was eurofabulous! Douze fromage points alone for rhyming "fire" with "desire" and "taking us higher". Did I mention that the piano keys lit up red!? Eurovision GOLD!

So if you didn't already know (or care), Germany's Lena stole the show, 76 points in front of Turkey in second place. She eschewed her full allotment of crazy/distracting backing artists, appearing by herself in a simple dress, singing by herself a great song in her weirdly accented English. I didn't think it was an amazing song, but over the last few years some real tripe has come first, so this was a refreshing change.

Arguably the best bit of the whole show wasn't any of the contest entrants but the exceptionally imaginative interval act. Definitely booting Riverdance aside with a Michael Flatley-style kick, Norwegian rappers Madcon performed 'Glow' in the arena, and lo! Parts of the audience broke into dance, flashmob-stylee. From there, the cameras whisked us from place to place where flashmobbers were doing the identical dance in ten cities all over Europe, from Ljubljana to London, and then straight into people's Eurovision parties at home. You often get the feeling that Eurovision tries so hard to be impressive and succeeds in being quite lame, but this transcontinental flashmob was so NOW and strangely heartwarming that we judged it a terrific success. If you haven't seen it yet, do it now.

It took me a while to settle in at Amnesia, but I'm happy and comfortable now and this office has been the birthplace of some of my best (and best-looking) work, which I am deservedly proud of. Our premises scream 'creative', which also means they are grungy - and unfortunately there are cockroaches in the kitchen (because some of my colleagues are domestically inhibited) - but all that is about to change. We are moving! From Darlinghurst gayville, we are moving to Walsh Bay, into a heritage listed building under the Bridge. Everyone who has seen our new offices (which belong to our new parent company, Publicis Groupe) has gushed about how schmick they are. This is wonderful news to outweigh the ending of my Australian dream: that I can stroll to work every morning in the sunshine.

I am now confronted by the ogre that is Sydney's dismal public transport system. There are (inevitably unreliable) buses that will get me close-ish to the office, but this will add commuting and waiting time to my day and upset my absurdly important gym routine. The only credible alternative is to take to the streets like some student (gasp) or inveterate greeny on a bicycle.

Before you all hammer me in Facebook comments, I don't really look down my nose at cyclists... But cycling in Sydney is a different beast to pedalling in Britain. Australia is a new country with spacious cities, and is in some ways a land of the motor car. If you live outside the centre, you need one. Unfortunately, it seems motorists here hate cyclists - and cyclists hate them back, turning every morning commute into another battle in a long-running guerilla war. Motorists cut up cyclists and give them no space, cyclists flout road rules, run lights, and take up rush hour lanes cycling in pairs. It makes London's streets seem positively civilised. Which makes me a tad reluctant to dip my foot in...

Thankfully, Clover Moore, our controversial city mayor, has begun heartlessly ripping out parking spaces willy nilly to provide a new cycle network from the suburbs to the city centre. Joy of joys, I shall be able to peacefully pedal most of the way to the new office while my motorist neighbours gnash their teeth trying to park outside their own homes.

How on earth could this happen? Why on earth aren't Labour and the Lib Dems forming my dreamteam progressive coalition? If you believe the Lib Dems, it's because Labour wasn't seriously interested in a coalition whose majority would rest on a knife-edge; they didn't put forward decent compromises; they were happier to sit back and let the Libs and Tories form a government forced to make unpopular decisions, and sail back into government in the next election, creaming off the leftier Lib Dem voters into the bargain. If you believe Labour, it's the Lib Dems who weren't being serious - they were always keener on the Tory offer and demanded impossible, uncosted spending; they preferred a coalition with a healthy majority.

I don't really know which side to believe, although I'm sure there's truth to each side. We did see some prominent Labour MPs lining up to criticise a coalition, but Gordon Brown's resignation as PM as a sweetener seems to have been made in good faith...

But is a coalition with the Tories better than leaving them to try to wing it by themselves? On the one hand, coalition allows the Lib Dems to actually achieve some of their manifesto promises, gain government experience, and restrain some of the more ludicrous Tory policies. As far as electoral reform goes, fixed term parliaments are in, a referendum on AV will go ahead, and the Lords will become elected by PR. AV is a bit of a wooden spoon for the Lib Dems, but it would have given them an extra ten seats this time around.

On the other hand, Clegg's party is damaged by association with the Tories in the eyes of many of its supporters and activists, and will be damaged by being party to savage £6bn spending cuts this year. Their outlook for the next election is grim.

Cameron gets to keep his inheritance tax rebate for the rich (the Libs get to abstain), there's a review of Trident, the non-EU immigration cap is in, and nuclear power stations get the go-ahead, which I do actually agree with.

However, I have no doubt that the lowest income voters are the biggest losers of May 2010, whatever Cameron and Clegg tell us, especially with George Osborne in the Treasury. It will be a great shame if it turns out that Labour scuppered the progressive coalition - if the poor get smashed under this government, it won't hurt Labour MPs' wallets but it will be a huge advantage to them in the next election campaign.

Either way, it's an interesting time in British politics, and I'll be watching closely before deciding if the Lib Dems have made a huge mistake.

Until this game-changer, everyone assumed that the pendulum would swing back from red to blue as it has done for the last sixty years. As is often the case, the Opposition hasn't won support so much as the Government has lost it, and David Cameron and co. are wearing smug expressions of entitlement; as the only alternative on offer they feel it's their turn next... until Cleggmania.

The Liberal Democrats' entry into the game as real contenders, potentially leapfrogging Labour to second place in the share of the vote, has resulted in two things. First, the possibility that neither Brown nor Cameron will be able to form a majority government, forcing one of them to battle on as leader of a minority government, or to enter a coalition with Clegg. As kingmakers, the Lib Dems would inevitably demand their long-held goal of proportional representation (PR) as the price of their cooperation. Which brings me neatly to my second point, that the electoral system we currently use (first-past-the-post or FPTP), has been exposed as grossly unfair. It always has been unfair, but it's now finally front page news because Labour could win more MPs than any other party while still coming last in the actual number of votes. Such a result would quite rightly provoke outrage.

The Liberals/Lib Dems have been banging on about this for decades, probably because they've been on the short end of FPTP since 1915; as far back as 1917 PR missed its chance by just 7 votes in the Commons, and the Tory Lords scuppered it in 1931. In 1983, just 2% behind Labour in votes, the SDP/Alliance had 183 seats fewer. Our system is unrepresentative! Surely we should be governed by the party most of us wanted? But no government has had 50% of our votes since 1950, and so we are perpetually governed by a party that most of us voted against.

In fact, if you live in a pretty safe seat, as most people do, you'll be forgiven for thinking your vote is a wasted one. The election is fought and won in marginals. The electorate know this - turnout declines in safe seats. Even in marginals you might be forced to vote not for the party you really want, but against the party you really don't want - tactical voting. Your real preference doesn't count.

Proponents of FPTP argue that the system gives the most popular party a workable majority to form a strong government, but this is patently not always the case because we are looking at the possibility of a hung parliament now, and we've had them in the past. Britain is the only country in Europe to use this system, and even in the UK we only use it for Westminster - not for English regions, for Scotland or Wales, for European elections, for London... not even the political parties themselves in their own elections!

FPTP-lovers tell us that PR leads to coalition governments which are unstable (such as in Italy or France), but this is really a reflection on the system used. Germany, arguably Europe's most prosperous nation, has been ruled by coalitions almost continuously since the war. Another argument is that coalitions lead to manifesto promises being bargained away and broken; but in 2005, 65% of voters rejected Labour's agenda, but they still got it - that seems less fair to me.

A coalition of parties does force 'horse-trading' of policies, but it forces parties to negotiate and work together to form legislation, which is a bit more dignified than the Punch & Judy partisan style of politics we're used to in the Commons.

The Conservatives don't adore FPTP so much in this election since it threatens to leave them with too few seats to form a majority government, but generally they are huge fans. Why is that? Because they know that the majority of Brits vote for progressive parties like Labour, the Lib Dems, or the nationalists, and this for me is the clincher: the threat of PR for them is the very real possibility of never forming a government again. Ever.

The Lib Dems are currently the only party that wholeheartedly endorses PR; Gordon Brown's deathbed conversion to a watered-down version of PR is a last ditch attempt to woo Lib Dem voters to Labour and prevent a Tory government. But - in the event of a hung parliament and Labour (albeit undeservedly) winning enough seats to form a majority coalition with Clegg & co, there will be a once in a lifetime opportunity to deliver us fair representation in parliament.

Unfortunately, the only poll that counts is the one that happens tomorrow, and Cleggmania may turn out to be nothing more than newspaper column inches, with undecided voters turning from Labour to the Tories instead of the Lib Dems. I just read how proud David Cameron is of what the Conservatives have 'achieved' in Hammersmith & Fulham and it made me simultaneously sick to the stomach and furious. The thought of this selfish style of government being rolled out across the UK is frankly terrifying, so I hope you will use your vote, if you have one, by voting tactically one last time in the hope that everyone's vote will count in the future.