IT is amazing how soon we have managed to forget that only last week the country was buzzing with the general election and its aftermath.

Soon after the closing of the polls at 10pm on Thursday, I had not even had chance to sit down and enjoy a meal than the first result was flashed on the TV screen from Sunderland.

The local government staff there had counted over 20,000 votes in 40 minutes. At this rate I felt I was in danger of missing the excitement at the sports centre in High Wycombe, as the anticipated votes were likely to be around 50,000.

I had been given a ringside seat at the count, so to speak, and therefore managed to clock in at the sports centre before midnight.

Unfortunately, the Wycombe result did not arrive until after 3am on Friday, by which time most spectators at the count had run out of people they had not conversed with.

Most of the time, it would seem to my untutored eyes, was not actually spent in counting the votes but in separating the parliamentary and county council election ballot papers.

Surely, it would not have been an impossible task to have used separate ballot boxes for the parliamentary and county ballot papers in order to keep the two separate from the beginning.

This would have saved a lot of time and given people a chance to either hit the bed at a reasonable hour or enjoy all the pundits foaming at the mouth on TV. I only hope the lesson has been learnt for the future.

THE Muslim community of High Wycombe celebrated Eid Milad-Ul-Nabbi, the birthday of Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) by taking a procession through the streets of High Wycombe on Sunday.

The well attended procession was led by brightly decorated open vehicles carrying people, who kept up the singing of 'Naats' in praise of God Almighty and his prophet throughout, started just before noon from the Jubilee Road Mosque and arrived back in two hours, having stopped for a while in the High Street and outside Wycombe Hospital to pray for the speedy recovery and general well being of the patients in the hospital.

The procession was addressed for a few minutes in Jubilee Road after its return by the members of the Mosque Committee and Sahibzada Ghulam Jeelani, the Imam at the Jubilee Road Jamia Mosque, who led a small prayer for the well being of the community and thanked participants, Wycombe District Council and Thames Valley Police.

The rest of the programme was conducted in the mosque after the 'Zhur' prayers and there were recitations of passages from the Holy Quran by schoolchildren.