The Census Problem
By Jed and Alun
Sat, 12 Nov 2016
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6 comments
One morning I was woken early by an official-sounding knocking on my back door. I quickly dressed and rushed downstairs, to find two official-looking men in suits, both obviously mainlanders.
“Can I help you?” I asked, making pointless small talk in the manner that mainlanders enjoy so much.
“Are you Mr Jed Wood?” asked the first man. I was about to answer in the affirmative, when the second man interrupted.
“Or are you Mrs Elsie Scroggins? Or perhaps you’re canon Archibald Strang?”
“I’m Jed Wood,” I said. “There is no Archibald Strang here.”
“Oh eally?” said the first official. That’s interesting.”
“Very interesting,” agreed the second man. Clearly their threshold for ‘interesting’ was different from mine, perhaps they were friends of Stephen Fry.
“So you’re telling me,” the first official continued, “That Bobby Davro doesn’t live here? Nor Danny Dyer.”
“No, Danny Dyer does not live here,” I said. “Who are you, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“You might know me, actually,” said the first official. “I’m Jack Hackbucket.”
“And I’m Marcus Gains,” said the second official. “Though you probably knew that already.”
“No,” I said, “I’ve never met either of you before.”
“That’s interesting,” the first official said, again a seemingly unmerited statement. “Because according to the census return you completed, I live here, on Happy Island.”
“So do I,” added the second official. “We must be neighbours.”
“Oh,” I said, “You’re from the census.”
“Yes. We’re from the census. We have a few queries we’d like to raise with you about your census return.”
“Just for clarification,” the second man said, “Could you confirm who lives here on Happy Island.
“Just me, Jed Wood, and my neighbour Alun Davies. There is nobody else.”
“I see. Only that’s slightly different from your census return, according to which there are over 22,483 billion people living on the island.”
“That does seem an error,” I agreed.
“Have you any idea how this error came about?” the first official said.
“I was using a friend’s computer to complete the census. I mailmerged Alun and my details from a spreadsheet. I must have somehow manage to merge some other names at the same time.”
What I didn’t say, because mainlanders can be funny about these things, was that the friend whose computer I was using was Death. Alun’s been seeing a lot of Death’s PA, and because I am at heart a social person, I’ve spent a lot of time in Death’s domain.
“Oh, that explains it.” The first official said. “You’ve just mailmerged a spreadsheet with 22,483 billion names on it. Including our names, Danny Dyer’s and Bobby Davro’s.”
“The only thing is,” the second official said, “It is actually impossible to mailmerge spreadsheet data from a computer onto the main census database. We have safeguards in place, it stops problems, such as, say, someone accidentally adding 22,483 billion erroneous names onto the census.”
I was afraid that the officials were going to take days, or even weeks, to sort the problem out, but happily Death chose that moment to appear.
“I MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP,” he said. “IT WAS MY COMPUTER JED WAS USING. JED SEEMS TO HAVE MAIL MERGED THE CENSUS RETURN WITH MY DATABASE.”
“Oh," said the first official. “I see.”
“I’M AFRAID MY DATA SYSTEM IS ALL-POWERFUL AND OVERRODE YOUR SAFEGUARDS. DEATH IS ALL POWERFUL YOU SEE.”
“I do see,” the official agreed. “I’m perfectly satisfied with the explanation and feel we can leave Happy Island.” He started heading towards the door. Or, more accurately, running towards the door.
However, the second official was less keen to leave. “The 22,483 billion names,” the second official said. “How many of them are real?”
“THEY ARE ALL REAL. JED WAS USING MY DATABASE OF EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER DIED, OR WHO EVER WILL DIE.”
“My name’s on the list. Could you tell me when …”
“A SECOND’S TIME.”
“I’m about to die?” the official said, horrified.
“MY MISTAKE,” Death said, “I THOUGHT YOU MEANT WHEN WILL YOU LEAVE. ‘NOW’ IS THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION. UNLESS YOU WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR FIRST QUESTION.”
“No,” I’m good,” the official said, “I’m leaving now,” he shouted behind him from 50 yards down the path.
“Thank you,” I said to Death, but he too had gone.
At least I managed to sort that problem out without involving Alun, I thought to myself. This is going to be one of the least complicated stories I’ve ever written.
xxx
One morning, a few months after these events, I was woken by a frantic knocking on my back door. I quickly dressed and rushed downstairs, where I found Alun in an agitated mood.
“It’s the electoral commission, Jed,” he said, “They’ve just announced the distribution of seats for the forthcoming election.”
“You’ve woken me at 6.15 in the morning to tell me about the latest election commission boundary decision? Don’t you ever think I might want a lie-in.”
“This is important Jed. Happy Island’s been given all but one of the 368 seats in the mainland parliament.”
“That’s crazy,” I said. “There are only the two of us here. How can two people decide the entire election?”
“It’s because of your rigged census, Jed.”
“But that was sorted.”
“It’s sorted now, but the electoral boundaries are based on population at the time the census was taken. As we officially outnumber the mainland by 22,483 billion we’ve been given the majority of the seats.”
“Well, at least we’ll get to decide the outcome of the next election. That can only be a good thing.”
“Yes Jed, but you’re forgetting Clause 243 of the Electoral Locality Act 2015.”
Alun was right, I’d completely forgotten Clause 243, though I had recently revised Clauses 17 through to 242 in case they came up in the pub quiz (see the Pub Quiz Problem). “Remind me,” I said.
“Clause 243 states that all parliamentary representatives must live in the constituency they represent.”
“You mean …”
“Yes Jed, we’re going to have 367 politicians living on our island, not to mention their researchers, SPADs and general hangers on.”
“That’s terrible,” I said. “The only consolation is that the election isn’t for another six months.”
However, that same afternoon, when we walked down to meet the afternoon boat, we were surprised to see it crammed full of people.
“I wonder where they’re going,” I said. Ours is not a popular archipelago. Really Popular Island once boasted three visitors on the same weekend, but they turned out to be sealions.
“There must be a festival on Glastonbury Island, Jed. I hear the Banjolele Boys are playing this year, they’re very popular.”
Alun was wrong. The entire crowd disembarked at Happy Island.
“Is this Happy Island?” asked a man in a clown suit.
“Yes,” I said, “But the clown school closed decades ago,” (see The Clown School Problem).
“I’m not here for clown school,” he said, “I’m here to run my parliamentary campaign. I’m the leader of the Oddball Party.”
“There are quite a few clowns getting off the boat,” I said. “Are they all with your party?”
“No,” he said angrily, they’re all with my rivals, "The Eccentric Party, the Quirky Jerks, the Party for Unusual People, the Completely Hatstand Party and the Official Loonies”.
“Is there really a need for six separate loony parties?” I asked.
“Do you know nothing about mainland politics? The electorate’s turned completely loony," (see the Donald Trump Problem).
Unfortunately, it was around this time that somebody worked out that Alun and I were the two voters, and consequently the two most important people in politics. We were besieged by a swarm of politicians, desperate for our vote.
“Vote for me, I’ll slash taxes, increase spending and reduce the deficit,” said one man in a suit.
“But that’s impossible,” I said. “You can only increase spending by borrowing money or raising taxes.”
“You’re not supposed to know that,” the politician said. “We rely on voters being completely stupid and believing anything we say.”
“Vote for me instead,” another politician said, “We’ll increase spending and reduce the deficit BY cutting taxes.”
“That’s the same impossible promise, only ordered in a slightly different manner. You’re all as bad as each other.”
“You’re supposed to think we’re different. Look, we’ve got different colour ties, we must be really, really different from each other.”
“It’s no wonder the loonies are winning all the votes,” I said. “Does anyone actually fall for this crap?”
“Not any more,” the politician confessed, despondently. "They prefer the clowns now."
Alas, our cynicism didn’t deter the politicians. Some of them even tried to show they cared by referring to us by name. “Which one are you, Jeb or Ellen?” I was asked, on at least 53 occasions.
“We’re the only party with the interests of Hippo Island at heart,” I was told on at least 50 others.
“What are we going to do?” I asked Alun, when we finally managed to escape the political mob.
“There’s only one thing we can do Jed, that’s not vote."
“Not vote. How will that help?”
“No-one would win the Happy Island seats. That would mean that there are no politicians here.”
“But that would leave no politicians to run the country.”
“No Jed, it would mean one politician to run the country, which is more than enough.”
We hid for the next six months until the election had passed (for full details see The Hiding For Six Months Problem). On election day we went to the polls early and spoilt our ballots. The result was no votes for any of the candidates, though this didn’t stop there being 487 recounts.
Of course, as soon as the 367 seats were declared no results, by-elections were called, but luckily the by-elections would be based on an updated census result, meaning that we lost all of our seats.
The politicians all returned to the mainland and life on Happy Island returned to normal levels of lunacy.
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Comments
As plausible as anything else
Permalink Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on
As plausible as anything else I've heard this week!
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Critiques and Feedback =(^,.,^)=
forgot the . in Mr. Jed Wood (2nd speech)
forgot the . in Mrs. Elsie Scroggins (3rd speech)
double spaced between 2nd and 3rd speech
lowercase "really" in 5th speech
forgot ,", in 5th speech
, instead of . after "Yes, were from the census...
"That does seem 'like' an error"
"No, I'm good," instead of "No," I'm good,"
xxx
One morning',' I was woken...
6:15 instead of 6.15
forgot ,", when the clown says "they're all with my rivals..."
remove " from 'said one man in a suite.'
forgot ,", in "... that's not vote."
Really thought it was interesting. XD
This pretty much sums up how a lot of politics really are. They all promise things they can't give and the citizens believe it.
11/10 for the comedy and reality of the writing, =(^,.,^)=
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I didn't know that about the
I didn't know that about the Mr. and Mrs. so thanks for the info. XD
Also, you removed the r in really by accident. :p
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Lol. The tone and speech
Permalink Submitted by Deliberately Ev... on
Lol. The tone and speech remind me of the book "Catch 22".
The beat of your heart is the mellifluent rhythm to my soul.
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