And Another Thing...

Snow has returned to Angoulême, though I imagine it won't linger for as long as people would like, but still. I'm actually intruiged to see whether the French are any better at dealing with snow than we are in the UK - will there be mass disruption or does life just carry on as per? On verra...

I watched a debate the other day between Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair in Toronto: it was really weird seeing Blair back on a stage speaking in exactly the same way, making the same unnecessary hand gestures and talking the same old bollocks as he did as PM. Yet I still felt strangely nostalgic watching the now-very-grey Tony do his thing - I never particularly supported Blairite politics, but for some reason there was this lingering feeling of solidarity between me and this much-maligned former politician...I can't really explain it. On another note, what a difference a week makes for Hitch. Whereas he looked well, sharp and fresh against Bill Dembski, the cancer certainly looked like it was winning in Toronto - here's hoping it was just a bad day and that his recovery is forthcoming.

I'm certainly more of a Times man than a Guardian man, but I will certainly dabble in the latter when the situation requires it (Charlie Brooker helps, it must be said). What does amuse me now is that the Guardian were so vocal about their support for the Lib Dems before the election and are now, quite rightly and understandably, castigating the Lib Dem section of the coalition for going back on all their promises. They have the right to feel aggrieved by Clegg and co, given his stance on tuition fees before May, but one wonders how they could have possibly supported anyone other than the Lib Dems prior to the election - they simply had nowhere to go. Being a centre-left paper means that they often attempt to take the moral high ground on certain issues, but aligning themselves with Labour would have been highly impractical, leaving them with no real alternative other than Nick, Vince et al. Their anger is therefore justified, but not altogether surprising - they indeed could certainly be accused of a lack of foresight.

Being without internet on the weekends mean that all sporting results come as a massive surprise to me on Monday afternoon when I can once again check up on them. No more so than the Gabba test - I was expecting nothing short of an England second-innings collapse followed by a strong media backlash...so imagine my surprise on Monday to discover what had really happened, given my last update had been at the end of the third day! This is England we're talking about, right? I'm still sceptical about our chances, and don't think we're as good as people are saying just yet, but for the first time I'm actually daring to hope, albeit with everything crossed.

Charlie x