Now I’ve spotted this neat little feature on Blogger whereby you can email a posting in. That’s it. Anyway, it takes a few days before the posting appears – and you’re best sending as Pure Text rather than HTML – but still: lovely.

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for presents to buy me, try the blackspot sneaker at Adbusters.org. And if you need to convert UK sizes to US check out this site.

I’ve just finished reading a great book by Jeremy Paxman (of all people) called The Political Animal. Quite a depressing book about the career of a politician and how they have to keep their own beliefs and principles quiet in order to make any advancement.

In it he mentions Transparency International (http://www.transparency.org/), an organisation which monitors corruption in governments around the world.

The good news is that the British govt comes quite high (scroll down) – 11th in fact where 145th (Haiti and Bangladesh) is bottom. America is joint 17th with Belgium and Ireland so it seems the land of the free is Finland. Good news for brown bears and wolverines, then.

So, my arse is well and truly in gear. Thanks to the blog James And The Blue Cat (listed on today’s Guardian Newsblog) I’m doing what I should have done a long long time ago and started blogging.

It’s not that that blog was particularly inspiring or anything as far as epiphanies go, but it was the Right Place at the Right Time (ie. it was a dull Friday morning with that rare thing – no impending deadlines. I was at the bottom of my To Do list and getting to things like “speak to a human being” and this seemed a much more interesting thing to do).

Now you’d think the fact that my whole career for the past five years has been centred around multimedia – working in it, reporting on it, teaching it – would have meant I got here a long time ago. Yes, it’s embarrassing. So I’ve changed the posting date to say 1999.

Now, I must go speak to a human being…