shhhhhh.

(no change there, then)

My friends and former colleagues over at H&K have just published their ‘What would the first 100 days of a Cameron government look like?‘

The answer, of course, contains more questions and precious few predictions. Nobody knows what’s going to happen in March, May or whenever, or what the outcome will look like.

But I do know one thing: It’s going to be an interesting year.

PS No ‘New Year resolutions’ – they don’t work. No fanfare, no apology. Just a note to self: must get back to blogging.

Let’s all give a big blogosphere welcome for … Andrew Fairburn!

On their new blog at reputationspotlight.wordpress.com, Regester Larkin are looking at some interesting reputation management issues. My friend and former H&K colleague Andrew Fairburn (who’s always reminded me of Tiff Needell, although I’m not sure he knows that) is doing much of the writing. This is great to see; many of my better postings on my old H&K blog started off as office banter with Andrew.

I shall watch with interest. Particularly like yesterday’s Nuclear post.

So the PM says the web will be

as essential to our future prosperity in the 21st Century as roads, bridges, trains and electricity were in the 20th.

And he’s probably right.

Thought, though: In the digital age, will we need special task forces to engage with the minority who don’t have broadband?

Discuss.

A quick question on all this piracy that’s been in the news (and everywhere else) lately.

Did the frequency of such attacks suddenly spike? Or have they been doing it for ages and the world’s media have only just noticed? And if the latter, where/when was the tipping point?

Yes, it’s that election today. I’ll be off to the Election Night Party at the US Embassy in just under 24 hours.

In the meantime, some links to amuse and / or take your mind off the waiting.

Solve the Italian Job cliffhanger once and for all – RSC puts up a prize for the best entry. C’mon, we know they got away with it.

What’s wrong with Neil’s new MacBook?

Cool, we made Sky’s caption competition. You’d all have got better photos if you’d backed off like I asked …

See Obama, Hook Up! h/t Wonkette. Really?

Large Hadron Colliderscope – h/t Theo

President Medvedev and I share the same taste in hardware – according to TUAW

… and finally, some Plinkety Palin (and McCain), via Tim Ireland. Brilliant.

PS not entirely sure what happened to the ‘Scouting for Girls’ post – it was there, and then it wasn’t, and now it’s back again. Odd.

I’ve already written something for Blog Action Day over at my FCO blog. But I feel should give it a go here too.

I hadn’t given much thought to what I was going to write. In fact, I’ve just written and deleted a thoroughly depressing draft looking at progress – or not – at feeding the world in the very nearly 24 years since Band Aid first asked us to do exactly that.

I found myself sitting on my comfy sofa in my warm flat, with my laptop that costs more than however-many-percent of the world make in a year, asking myself what the point of Blog Action Day really was. Am I really going to tell my kids in years to come (or tomorrow) that yes, Daddy helped end poverty and injustice – by blogging about it?

Then I decided to check out some of the other posts, from 11,509 sites and counting, who’ve contributed.

If you read one of them, please check out this from David Griner.

David has created a team at Kiva called ‘Social Media for Change’. Kiva, if you haven’t heard of it (I had, vaguely, but never done anything about it), lets you lend – interest free – to entrepreneurs in the developing world.

I like the idea – if you’re becoming disillusioned with top-down development, give bottom-up microfinance a go.

I especially like the mission statement David has written for the Lending Team:

We are bloggers, Twitterers, lifestreamers, networkers, podcasters and more. Some of us do it for money, others for fun. What connects us is our interest in being connected — and maybe helping change the world for the better in the process.

I’m in. And I will badger relentlessly my social media friends to come on board too. Maybe Blog Action Day can change something after all.

Here‘s the link.

Here it is again, in case you missed it.

It’s here, people.

PS it’s Global Handwashing Day, too.

… if you live on an uninhabited island in the middle of the Bering Strait, anyway.

Found this on FP Passport: a webcam on the (US) island of Little Diomede, which points at the (Russian) island of Big Diomede, or Ratmanov Island.

On a clear day the view’s rather good, too.

Slate helpfully points out that, thanks to the International Date Line, this webcam really does show you the future. Cool.

Off to France for a week – light blogging ahead.

Lloyds is pants – but at least they rescued HBOS.

Man calls 911 over improperly prepared sandwich – Life imitates Python’s ‘good job I didn’t tell him about the dirty knife …’

10 reasons to stop calling yourself a blogger – David Armano talks more sense. Me? I’m not a blogger, I’m a person who happens to blog. I’d add a number 11, though. Mainstream media – and particularly the 24-hour news channels – talk about “bloggers” as if they’re this weird new kind of semi-journalist from Mars. It’s started to irk me.

Lord Norton on the concerning (or not) lack of public interest in our political processes – well it worries me, anyway.

Secret vodka pipeline into Estonia – you couldn’t make this up.

Dad-o-Matic – Dads blogging. Definitely one for my Google reader.

After last week’s Charlie and Lola-esque interview comes this joint “Sarah” / “Hillary” broadcast, from Saturday Night Live:

Say what you like about the US election, it’s anything but boring. And there are countries where you just couldn’t get away with comedy like this.

H/T LA Times, via Redtape