The Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in his article on the potential for a Russian agricultural resurgence to address global famine, rightly draws attention to the fact that

these reserves of idle soil are alone enough to meet the entire global need of 30m extra hectares over the next decade.

And indeed there are British farmers already getting in on the action.

Props to Ambrose, though, not just for the article, but for managing to find himself an analyst named Kingsmill.

Interesting missive received through my ‘contact’ page the other day:

Dear James,

I understand from one of your posts that “Thanks to Google Reader, I have all of Civil Serf’s posts from some point in December onward”

I found myself in the same position as Civil Serf and was hoping that you know exactly what happened to her. Was she disciplined? What was the outcome? Has any light been shed on the whole civil servant blogging issue?

Would also be grateful if you could provide me with some of her posts to use as examples in my case.

Kind regards,

There was a name at the bottom, but I’ve edited it out for obvious reasons. Let’s call him / her (for it was an ambiguous name) Bob.

I sent what I thought was quite a helpful (if a little sceptical) reply to ‘Bob’:

Bob,

Sorry to hear of your troubles.

At this stage, and please forgive me for being blunt, I have a suspicion you might be a journalist on a fishing expedition – there’s been a lot of interest in the Civil Serf story. But, assuming you’re not, I’d be interested to hear some more background, although I’m not sure I can be of any real assistance.

Best

James

Haven’t heard back from him / her.

So was I too suspicious?

BBC NEWS | Edinburgh buskers ‘to pipe down’: “Bagpipers on Edinburgh’s historic Royal Mile have been told they will be arrested if they continue to play.”

Whatever next?

(thanks to Dave Henniker for the image)

Engadget brings us some niftly liveblogging from WWDC, including shots of some of the slides to which Steve treated the MacFaithful.

Here, for example, are the seventy countries – in red – where the brand-new, 3G iPhone (with GPS) will be available later this year.

Spot the big green one?

Guido’s been leading the charge against Caroline Spelman MP.

Others are defending, of course, and a few are managing to remain objective and see the wider picture. I particularly like this conclusion, from Beau Bo d’Or:

What do I believe ? A cock-up on the Spelman front but not dishonest.
However, the excuses and explanations seem totally dishonest.
The hypocrisy shown on the blogs, claims of conspiracy and the predictable whining about the BBC is pathetic.

Not so easy to stir up a baying mob as it used to be, eh, Paul?

Why Obama Won – 10 reasons, by Justin Webb

Love number 10:

Axelrod wrote the script. David Axelrod was an adviser to The West Wing and helped mould the character (Matt Santos) who succeeded Jed Bartlett. He based him on Obama and now Obama seems based on Santos. But either way, it was written… And it has come to pass…

It’s going to be an interesting election.

… it is now.

The Champions’ League final, that is.

I know I don’t normally talk about work on this blog, but I thought I’d point out our Moscow Football Diary on the FCO Website. There’s some photos on the Flickr channel, too.

From Theo, via Mark Scott