Election 'fever' has now been cured in Sunderland
Well, that was fun. The general election is over and we herald a new era of whatever it is that needs heralding.
Personally I thought the campaigns of all concerned were thoroughly entertaining. True, they taught us little about policies, but that's hardly the point of a campaign now is it.
Other than bringing us its highly predictable result, it will probably be remembered as the campaign where one major party didn't want to say much about the next five years, while the other didn't like mentioning the last 14.
The Conservatives started badly, then somehow managed to deteriorate. Rishi Sunak announced the July 4 election on May 22. This was the same day as the Bruce Springsteen concert in Sunderland.
Mr Springsteen is generally perceived to have performed considerably better in heavy rain than Mr Sunak, who later had a highly successful sojourn to Normandy to take his mind off things.
Yet their main message was clearly delivered. Keir Starmer will eat your children, then nick their pocket money.
Meanwhile Labour bigwigs, mindful of the adage that oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them, spoke extensively about... stuff; but with minimal references to anyone called Corbyn or Abbott.
Labour weren't obsessively detailed with their plans. They didn't want to spoil the surprise, but we'll find out eventually.
The Lib Dems' campaign was, er, somewhat unorthodox. Party leader Ed Davey was out there: badly windsurfing, bungee jumping, juggling alligators or whatever, followed afterwards by the assertion that there's a serious side to all this you know.
If that wasn't a vote winner, we don't know what was.
Reform, as they're known this time, suffered late drawbacks when candidates withdrew after experiencing the incredible last-minute epiphany that the party contains racists.
No problem. Their leader said "immigrants", "wokerati" and "the establishment" a lot, so job done; other than to point out that calling him Mr Far-right was neither fair nor funny.
The Greens, imagining that impending environmental catastrophe was somehow important to the electorate, harped on about it. But they'd never win, so who cares?
We hope you enjoyed the show, because it'll be back soon enough.