How ironic it was that my introduction to this campaign about the disengagement of the British youth from politics came through the medium of Facebook, which has become so synonymous with the stereotypical bored, unproductive and apathetic teenagers of Britain. My friend Xandria, who volunteers for the Ideas Foundation, had appealed for anyone born on May 7^th 1992 to make them self known to her, and I happened to be one of the 1766 people in the UK born on exactly that date. At that stage, I was still unaware of what would be involved, but in a whirlwind few days starting on Friday, less than a week before the General Election on May 6^th, I had been introduced to Robin and his team at Engine, who proceeded to explain to me their interest in getting young Brits to use their right to vote by drawing attention to the frustration of those who would just be missing out (in my case by 13 hours). After having my photo taken (which would later be used for the billboards put up around London) at the HQ of Engine at Great Portland Street, I was whisked off to the site of one of these billboards at Vauxhall Cross, where I was informally interviewed and further photographed by Robin and his team of volunteers, but not before Robin had nearly managed to encourage a packed tube carriage at rush hour to sing a premature ‘Happy Birthday’ to me and Isobel. It’s bizarre to see my photo up around London on such enormous billboards (for one, I never realised I had so many freckles), and as a result I was woken by a text from an undoubtedly ‘merry’ friend asking if he was going mad by seeing a blown-up portrait of me at 2am at Camden Lock. But it’s really been an exciting experience to suddenly have this opportunity, and I’d thoroughly encourage anyone else born on May 7^th 1992 to join this website, get involved in the discussions, and thereby hopefully encourage those who do have a vote on 6^th May to use it. My only concern is what graffiti’s being plastered on those billboards right now…

Daniel