…but I’m posting it anyway:

Austria

Government coalition gets only 7 seats out of 18.

(centre right ÖVP loses 1 but keeps 6; far right FPÖ loses 3 of its 4, down to 1).

Leading opposition party, centre left SPÖ, holds 7.

Greens hold 2

Surprise: Hans-Peter Martin, dissident MEP who rowed with his colleagues over expenses, wins 2 seats as leader of an independent faction.

Belgium

Government coalition (liberals plus socialists) wins 13 seats out of 24. (previously 13 out of 25)

Christian Democrat opposition does best in Flanders, Socialist govt partner best in Wallonia – each gains an MEP, as does far right Vlaams Blok.

Greens lose 3 of 5 seats; small radical Flemish Volksunie which won 2 in 1999 has disappeared.

Cyprus (new member state)

Govt coalition wins 3 out of 6 seats.

President’s party (anti-peace plan, liberals) won 1 seat

PM’s party (communist, neutral leaning anti on peace plan) won 2 seats

Main opposition (centre right, pro-peace plan) won 2 seats

Splinter from opposition (centre right, anti-peace plan) won 1 seat

Czech Republic (new member state)

Govt (socialist/centre right coalition) wins only 6 of 24 seats!

Ex-PM Vaclav Klaus (centre right) party won 8.

5 Communists, 5 independents.

Denmark

Government wins only 4 seats out of 14 – 3 for liberals (down from 5), 1 for centre right.

Opposition socialists gain 2 to win 5. Four smaller parties keep one seat each.

Surprise: Anti-EU party the June Movement loses 2 of its 3 seats.

Estonia (new member state)

Main government party Res Publica has won no seats! Junior (liberal) coalition partner won 1 out of 6.

Opposition socialists unexpectedly won 3. Two smaller opposition parties won 1.

Finland

Government parties (Centre, Social Dems, Swedish liberals) won 8 of 14 seats.

Largest govt and opposition parties consolidated their positions; smaller anti-EU parties lost out.

France

Dismal performance of centre-right government which won only 17 of 78 seats.

Socialists won 33; Greens 4; Communists 3; other centre-right factions 12; far-right National Front 9.

Two anti-system parties (the Hunting and Fishing party and the Workers Struggle) lost all their seats.

Germany

Dismal performance of main centre-left government party which won only 23 of 99 seats. But Green coalition partners almost doubled their share from 7 to 13.

Centre-right opposition also slipped back (from 53 to 49) because liberals crossed threshold and won 7. So did ex-Communists.

Greece

Recently elected centre-right government won 11 of 24 seats.

Opposition Socialists won 9; Communists 2; other left 1; far right 1.

Hungary (new member state)

Govt coalition won 11 of 24 seats (9 for socialists, 2 for liberals)

Centre-right opposition won 12, far right 1.

Italy

Centre-right government parties won only 30 of 78 seats (Berlusconi 17; Alleanza Nazionale 10; Lega Nord 3).

Centre-left Ulivo coalition won 27.

Lots of little parties including our own Emma Bonino, down from 6 seats to 2.

Ireland

Main government party wins only 4 of 13 seats. (Smaller coalition partner wins none.)

Main opposition Fine Gael (centre right) and Labour consolidate with 4 and 2.

Greens lose both their seats, Sinn Fein gains one.

One sitting independent loses her seat, 2 new independents win.

Latvia (new member state)

Government parties win only 1 seat out of 9!!!

Centre and right win 7; Russian-speakers’ party wins 1.

Lithuania (new member state)

Main centre left government party wins only 2 seats out of 13.

Newly established Labour Party (populist) wins 5.

Election coincided with first round of presidential election, which gave ex-pres Adamkus a lead.

Luxembourg

Government parties win 5 out of 6 seats (again).

But Christian Democrats manage a seismic shift by taking a seat off their socialist coalition partners. They now have 3; socialists, liberals and greens 1 each.

Malta (new member state)

Governing Nationalist Party wins 2 of 5 seats with 41%

Opposition Labour Party takes 3 of five seats with 48%. Liberals get 10% but not enough for a seat (best third-party result in Malta for 35 years)

Netherlands

Govt wins 12 of 27 seats (previously 17 of 31).

Gains by opposition Labour Party, far-left Socialist party.

Surprise: “whistle-blower” Paul van Buitenen wins 2 seats.

Poland (new member state)

Dismal turnout of only 21%.

Govt to win 6 seats out of 54.

Centre-left opposition tops the poll with 17. Right-wing opposition parties have 28 between them. Geremek wins 3.

Portugal

Centre right govt wins 9 seats of 24.

Main opposition socialists win 12; Greens 2; communists 1.

Slovakia (new member state)

17% turnout – the lowest anywhere.

Four-party centre right govt coalition wins 8 seats of 14. Remaining 6 divide evenly between populist ex-PM Meciar and centre-left opposition.

Slovenia (new member state)

Centrist govt wins 4 seats of 7; centre-right opposition wins 3.

Spain

Recently elected centre-left govt wins 25 of 54 seats.

Centre-right opposition wins 23; regionalists 3; Communists 2; small centre-right party 1.

Sweden

Centre-left govt parties and supporters win 8 seats of 19 (down slightly)

Centre-right opposition parties also win 8 (down a bit more)

Anti-EU “June movement” comes from nowhere to win 3 seats.

United Kingdom

Dismal result for ruling Labour party with only 19 of 78 seats. Opposition Conservatives won only 27.

Surprise: Anti-EU UK Independence Party likely to come third in votes, but level with Liberal Democrats on 12 seats.

Also 2 Greens, 3 nationalists (2 Scots 1 Welsh), 3 from Northern Ireland (probably including 1 Sinn Fein)

Well, here I am in the European Parliament building; the world´s press, and various aspirant politicians, are swirling around me: I’ve already congratulated two Dutch MEP friends (Joost Lagendijk, re-elected for the Greens, and Sophie in’t Veld, newly elected liberal), and various other semi-celebrities in the obscure field of European politics are circulating. And I’ve found a free internet terminal in a quiet corner as well.

Looks like the early predictions of UKIP winning 18 seats are rather exaggerated. My bet would be that the final GB vote shares are Con 26%; Lab 20%; Lib Dems 16%; UKIP 12%; Greens 6%. That is still a doubling of the UKIP vote, and probably 6 or 7 seats, but not the 18 that Sky News were predicting.

Interesting also to see the anti-system candidates – van Buitenen in the Netherlands, Martin in Austria – win two seats each.

Watching the Slovenian and Hungarian results to see who of my contacts there gets elected… but I think I may call it a day and go home to bed now; I have to work in the morning.

I’ve done some research, spurred by querying my remark that at 60, Annemie Neyts was considered too old to be in the Belgian government.

Belgium has 21 ministers (at national level; there’s also regional and other positions to fill, but I haven’t counted them).

8 are women; their average year of birth is 1965 (range from 1958 to 1975).
13 are men; their average year of birth is 1958 (range from 1947 to 1973).

I did the same tally for the U.S. cabinet. The average year of birth is 1943, four years before the oldest of the current Belgian ministers (foreign minister Louis Michel) was born.

However – interestingly – the three women in the cabinet are the youngest, second youngest and fourth youngest cabinet members. Their average year of birth is 1952 (still older than every Belgian minister except Louis Michel); the average year of birth of the 15 men is 1941. (Oldest – 1931; youngest – 1954)

It had never occurred to me before that female government ministers might be on average younger than male ones. I don’t have time to check other countries right now, but I wonder if this is a general pattern? What could explain it?

I think I can cope with this!

So, went and voted this morning, for Annemie Neyts after all, since the gossip is that she is considered too old (at 60!) for national office and so she probably will take up her seat in the European Parliament this time (I was most annoyed when she became a minister instead of an MEP last time). Also there was a young woman from Leuven on the Liberals’ supplementary list so I gave her a vote too. Fun electronic voting; there doesn’t seem to have been an issue here about the security of the system (which may just mean that the Belgians are slower than the Irish to catch onto this problem).

Seems that here in Flanders, the evil Vlaams Blok is up by about the same amount as the Liberals are down. The Greens have won back most but not all of the votes they lost last year. The Christian Democrats (who are boring centrists here) have regained their historical position as largest single party, with the Socialists probably in second place (though Liberals and Blok not far behind if at all).

In Ireland the disappointing headline from the local election results is that Sinn Fein have almost trebled their vote. They still have less than 10%; the gains came directly from Fianna Fail. Fine Gael and Labour appear, incredibly, to have held their ground. PDs and Greens bubbling in the lower reaches, fortunately not quite off the scale. The election in Northern Ireland will be counted tomorrow.

I heard from a friend that the European Parliament is planning a big multimedia presentation this evening from 2230. According to their website they have had everything set up since this morning, so I think I’ll actually head down there for about 2200. Doubt if I’ll see any readers of this journal there though!

From . This one is not a sneaky adds-entries-to-your-journal thing.

Nicholas, you possess an interesting balance of hemispheric and sensory characteristics, with a slight right-brain dominance and a slight preference for visual processing.

Since neither of these is completely centered, you lack the indecision and second-guessing associated with other patterns. You have a distinct preference for creativity and intuition with seemingly sufficient verbal skills to be able to translate in any meaningful way to yourself and others.

You tend to see things in “wholes” without surrendering the ability to attend to details. You can give them sufficient notice to be able to utitlize and incorporate them as part of an overall pattern.

In the same way, while you are active and process information simultaneously, you demonstrate a capacity for sequencing as well as reflection which allows for some “inner dialogue.”

All in all, you are likely to be quite content with yourself and your style although at times it will not necessarily be appreciated by others. You have sufficient confidence to not second-guess yourself, but rather to use your critical faculties in a way that enhances, rather than limits, your creativity.

You can learn in either mode although far more efficiently within the visual mode. It is likely that in listening to conversations or lecture materials you simultaneously translate into pictures which enhance and elaborate on the meaning.

It is most likely that you will gravitate towards those endeavors which are predominantly visual but include some logic or structuring. You may either work particularly hard at cultivating your auditory skills or risk “missing out” on being able to efficiently process what you learn. Your own intuitive skills will at times interfere with your capacity to listen to others, which is something else you may need to take into account.

Well, I don’t really think of myself as particularly visual; but apart from that it is flattering enough that I can accept it!

Test link is http://www.mindmedia.com/brainworks/profiler

If you click on this you get a new entry in your livejournal with the title “interesting…” and the text “this is really interesting”. I wouldn’t bother unless you want your livejournal cluttered with entries written by other people. It seem to be stupid but not malicious. See here for further details. I did actually change my own password but consensus seems to be that that is not necessary.

Minor flurry of activity in Moscow yesterday, trying to head off a particular problem in the Caucasus before it arises. We’ll see.

Home again. Long wait at Mosocow airport, with bizarre combination of images of Reagan’s funeral from CNN with the sound turned off and a Queen album playing loudly in the background. Read Thom de Waal’s book on the plane.

Bridget seemed genuinely pleased to see me when she woke up (too early) this morning, which is nice. Looking forward to weekend.

Well, it’s my first time in Moscow, indeed my first time in Russia, so a brief note on my impressions is in order.

First, the journey was pretty hellish. I was carrying a massive suitcase belonging to who is moving back here on Sunday (see his latest entry for scandalous comments on Belgian landlords and on unwanted visitors at work, including electronic ones). We’ll miss him and his sense of humour in Brussels. At least I will be somewhat less heavily laden on the way back.

The flight took off at 2340 Brussels time (early) and landed at 0500 Moscow time. There is a two hour time difference so in fact it was only three hours in the air. Time to read the Lindskold biography of Zelazny (see previous entry) but not really to sleep.

I was picked up and brought to the office which has a guest bedroom. Three hours sleep before first meeting. First meeting was very good and lasted two hours instead of one; and was sufficiently interesting to be worth the price of the ticket (I hope tomorrow’s meetings will compensate adequately for cost of visa and of lost sleep).

Back to office for some more rest, then a few hours work at computer, then time for a little sight-seeing. The important bits of Moscow are very close together. Our office is round the corner from the Duma (parliament), which itself is opposite one wall of the Kremlin, and the Lubianka (KGB) and President’s office are not that much further away.

Red Square is closed because of a public holiday at the weekend. A local contact commented (actually not to me but to a policeman guarding Red Square, who sniggered in response): “I’d be a lot more impressed by these Independence Day celebrations if they told me who we were celebrating independence from.”

Moscow looks surprisingly prosperous. I had a good look round the GUM department store and the surrounding shopping arcades – full of people, full of consumer items, things being bought and sold. No real sense of grinding poverty; I didn’t feel I stood out in my raincoat (bought from Tesco’s in Prague last month). Our pub lunch cost about what it would have done in Brussels.

We had dinner in a vaguely Lebanese restaurant (reviewed here). I’ve had more exciting Lebanese food, but there was a wonderful georgian wine to go with it. (Also loads of people were smoking resin from hookahs which gave the whole thing a more exotic air.)

Then a brief car tour of the university quarter (glorious building, built by forced labour of German prisoners post-1945) and the White House, famously shelled by Yeltsin in 1993 (the weekend we got married), and other bits of Moscow by night. Anyway, time for bed now.

Just had a note from Amazon to the effect that A Feast for Crows, vol 4 of the superb Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, is not going to be published this month after all, but next March instead.

And hunting around the net it seems pretty clear that there was never a real June 2004 date anyway; all fantasy on Amazon’s part, alas.

Oh well.

4) Roger Zelazny by Jane Lindskold

There’s quite a back-story to this literary biography. It was written in 1990-92; published in 1993; in 1994 the author moved to New Mexico to live with Zelazny; but he was already ill and died in 1995 (on 14 June, almost exactly 9 years ago).

Zelazny’s always been a favourite author of mine, and part of the attraction of reading this, and also Theodore Krulik’s earlier literary biography, published in 1986, which I read last year is simply the fun of sharing an enthusiasm with the author. Lindskold’s is very definitely the better book. She throws aside all attempts at literary theory and basically identifies the main influences on Zelazny, with examples from all his published works, including some I had forgotten and, to my surprise, one or two I hadn’t known about and must now try and get hold of.

An aside on the literary analysis of sf. When it’s done well, as by John Clute and most of his co-authors in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction or indeed by and most of her collaborators in Reading the Vampire Slayer, I find it very much worth reading. I can’t understand people like the Amazon reviewer who wrote of Clute’s “pseudo-academic gibberish designed to appease Harold Bloom and his cronies which keeps you flipping back to the glossary as his burdensome tome clefts large cavities in your thighs” – especially since this was in a review of the woeful Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. But when it’s done badly, as with Krulik’s volume on Zelazny and I’m afraid one or two of the essays in the books mentioned above (and in Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature) then it’s just embarrassing. There are deep and meaningful things to be said about science fiction, but not everyone is equipped to say them and I think it’s to Lindskold’s credit that she went for a more biographical than theoretical approach to her subject.

When I read a book like this I want the pieces to fit together in my mind better than they did before – and her description of Zelazny’s attraction to the visual arts, to particular well-loved places, and to poetry, and the way that this worked out in his fiction, did make a lot of sense to me. I also want one or two insights that I hadn’t spotted before, and she duly supplied them by pointing out how several of Zelazny’s stories echo the Faust legend, and also how the descent into hell is also revisited several times. She even managed to make me feel I should reread the second Chronicles of Amber again, pointing out various things that rather redeem the five volumes (which I have always tended to feel are rather inferior in comparison with the first five).

She also makes a good defence of Zelazny’s treatment of women characters, which shifts from cliche and stereotype in his early work to a rather more mature approach later on. Though I have to say that the pneumatic busts on the women in Gray Morrow’s contribution to The Illustrated Roger Zelazny (1978) are a throwback to the earlier period. She gives Krulik’s earlier biography credit for spotting the psychological reverberations throughout his writing of a 1964 car crash in which Zelazny’s then fiancee was badly injured (notably He Who Shapes/The Dream Master, first published the following year).

The one gaping hole in her analysis is any treatment of religion as such. Sure, there is lots and lots about the mythologies of different cultures, which of course were used with verve in Zelazny’s early masterpieces (Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness, …And Call Me Conrad/This Immortal), but somehow these seem to be treated as literary images rather than actual belief systems. We are told that Zelazny’s family was Polish (well, obviously) and Irish. But the word “Catholic” doesn’t appear in the book. I’d be very unsurprised to discover that Zelazny was not a believer in any organised religion (though he certainly seems to have found considerable spiritual value in the martial arts). However Lindskold’s failure to ask the question (or perhaps to record the answer) weakens the book and particularly weakens her extended analysis of Zelazny’s hero-figures.

Finally, a couple of personal reflections. Lindskold was obviously more than a little in love with the subject of her book at the time of writing, and valiantly tries to defend him against the oft-made charge that he wrote a lot of potboilers for commercial reasons. She’s not 100% successful in this. As I said above, she does rehabilitate the second Amber series for me a little bit, but it’s absolutely clear that Zelazny’s heart was in his short fiction, not just because it won more awards, but from the obvious fact that it is much better (the pre-1968 novels, and perhaps the high points of the Amber series, apart). Does this demonstrate a slightly cynical approach to his readership? Well, he explained it to himself in terms of his obligations to his family. I can’t really judge, but Lindskold, having raised the issue, didn’t really settle it for me.

My other reflection is more positive. Apparently Zelazny actually set himself a reading programme, specifically to fill in gaps in his knowledge; he would always have an sf book, a history book, a biography or autobiography, and a non-sf novel at least on the go. My own approach to book buying tends to be based on impulse with occasional bursts of order (see posts about Hugo and other awards). But it could actually be rather cool to try and plan it a bit more, especially in terms of filling out embarrassing gaps in my knowledge of Great Literature. About this time last year I read Paddy Ashdown’s diaries, and decided to take up his habit of writing a memo to myself every six months of what I hope to achieve in the next six months. From what I’ve been posting to livejournal I now have a fairly good record of my own reading habits, and it should be fairly easy to add this as well. Well, it’s worth a try anyway.

My grandmother’s uncle (hence my great-great-uncle) was attorney-general of the USA. His predecessor‘s great-uncle was Napoleon Bonaparte.

So, despite certain hassles from management, I find myself for the first time since I started this job with no reports stuck on my desk.

It’s been a long old haul. I inherited two awful draft reports from my predecessor when I took over in May 2002: one on corruption in Macedonia, which I eventually got out that August, and one on pan-Albanian nationalism, which finally got out in February this year. By then I had amassed another two difficult ones, on Azerbaijan and on Moldova; Azerbaijan was published last month, and Moldova I finally pushed onto the next stage yesterday.

My biggest problem with this job is that I feel I’m not very good at – and I know I’m not very enthusiastic about – one of my main responsibilities: editing other people’s 30-50 page reports. I’ve come to realise that my preferred length for my own writing is between that of my better blog entries, say 700 words, and the 8,000 words that I can do for a major article. The more 2,000 word pieces I can do, the happier I am. And what I really enjoy is the pieces for my websites, on sf and elections.

If I were in a self-flagellating mood, I would worry about the fact that I don’t actually have any reports on my desk right now – the Bosnia one has been delayed to (I suspect) past the point where we can make a real contribution; the next Kosovo one hasn’t been started; I have a hand-waving guarantee about something on Georgia by the end of this month, and something on Armenia at the end of next; and the Macedonia one – first draft – is due in only next week.

But in fact I’m just relieved. I’m also somewhat relieved by the fact that apparently I have very few meetings scheduled for my trip to Moscow tomorrow and Friday. It will give me a chance to draw breath, catch up, etc.

But my plane takes off in two hours, and I must go and pack.

Despite the heat, and the excitement of the transit of Venus, I managed to get the Moldova paper off my desk yesterday. Yee-hah! Off to Moscow this evening.

When I did the political compass thing, I ended up a fair way down the libertarian axis, but only slightly left of centre, which bothered me a bit (I mean, that I wasn’t more left-wing). Now I’ve found an American-oriented “political spectrum” quiz, and the results are rather different:

Where do you fall on the liberal – conservative political spectrum? (United States)
brought to you by Quizilla

Whoo, didn’t take ’em long:

Ronald Reagan, Party Animal: The man who taught Republicans to be irresponsible, by Tim Noah

What Reagan Got Wrong: Liberty is not the absence of government, by William Saletan

Not Even a Hedgehog: The stupidity of Ronald Reagan, by Christopher Hitchens

The last of these is, of course, much the most entertaining:

I only saw him once up close, which happened to be when he got a question he didn’t like. Was it true that his staff in the 1980 debates had stolen President Carter’s briefing book? (They had.) The famously genial grin turned into a rictus of senile fury: I was looking at a cruel and stupid lizard. His reply was that maybe his staff had, and maybe they hadn’t, but what about the leak of the Pentagon Papers? Thus, a secret theft of presidential documents was equated with the public disclosure of needful information.

Well, I put together my massive dossier for the European Parliament job today, and sent it off to the applications centre in Luxembourg by registered mail. Apart from the application form itself, an extra 13 pages; two with my publications and earlier job history, four degree certificates, my current job contract, latest pay slip, last payslip from previous job and photocopies of both passports. We’ll see what happens.

Meantime a Moldovan on-line political science journal has very kindly put me on their advisory board, which is very nice of them, though I have to make sure it’s OK with my employers. And another small academic centre in the Balkans has offered to make me a Fellow, which I suppose will look OK on the CV for when the time comes. And a colleague has persuaded his father, who is a professor of Brecht studies in Utah, to invite me to Salt Lake City to give a lecture in the autumn. That is very cool indeed.

I had to cancel going to a conference about Moldova in the Hague today to stay in Brussels and try and finish the long-postponed Moldova report. Didn’t get as far as I would have liked, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Basically trying to tweak the text so that it doesn’t offend liberal Russians but does offend conservatives. Not easy. I’m going to Moscow on Thrusday and Friday and will no doubt find out more there…

I have a web page analysing the influence of facial hair on the result of US Presidential elections.

I’m glad to see that someone else has done the same research for height and baldness.

In the last twelve elections the shorter candidate has won the popular vote only twice (1972, Nixon beat McGovern; 1976, Carter beat Ford). Bush jr is shorter than Gore but of course also got fewer votes.

There have been only six bald presidents; only five were elected (Ford was not); only one (Eisenhower) was re-elected (running against similarly bald Adlai Stevenson on both occasions); three bald presidents (Adams senior and junior, and Van Buren) were kicked out after their first term, and one (Garfield) was assassinated after only a few months in the job. Of course to complete the picture we’d need to know more about the losing candidates. And wigs.

A response to ‘s post about Reagan:

Oddly enough, Lyndon Johnson’s death is one of the first political events I can remember… (his wife is still alive, though)

I’m sure the coverage will be just as great and respectful upon the deaths of Presidents Ford, Carter and Bush.

I wouldn’t bet on it. Reagan was president for almost as long as the three of them put together. He was also the only one of them to get re-elected. When the time comes for Ford and/or Carter, their presidencies will be much further in the past than Reagan’s; it will be a case of “minor 1970s historical figure is no longer alive”, along the lines that we can expect in Europe for Helmut Schmidt or Edward Heath or James Callaghan. (I suspect most people think the latter three are all dead already, if they think about it at all.)

I have my doubts about the respect that will be shown to Clinton upon his death.

A lot will depend on what he does with the rest of his life. He will have outlived a lot of his critics; he is the youngest ex-president since Theodore Roosevelt. I’ve been looking at my presidential longevity statistics. What’s striking is that most of those who became ex-Presidents at a relatively young age then didn’t live very much longer; Polk, Arthur, Coolidge, Grant, T Roosevelt all dead within ten years. Those who were long-lived often turned out to be evil mavericks like Fillmore and Tyler. But there are a few exceptions, like Taft, or indeed Cleveland who was in his day the youngest ex-president thus far, and he found himself back in office at the following election.

I did not reveal my own feelings because I felt it important to show solidarity in a foreign country.

Funny; when I was that age (which would have been at the same time as you were that age!) I never met any Americans in Europe who admitted to having voted for Reagan. But of course in Western Europe it was a different matter from the Soviet Union.

3) Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The first paper book I’ve read this month (the other two were electronic). This was Anne’s big find from the BBC Big Read. (I’ve read four or five other books off the list that I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise; the two unexpected pleasures so far were Holes by Louis Sachar and I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.) About Rebecca, I wrote a year ago:

Would have been in the category of “19th century girly books I never felt like reading” except that it is a twentieth century book! But given my experience with Pride and Prejudice, I may have to try it and see.

Well, I did try and see, and I did enjoy it. I almost gave up halfway through, as the first half of the book was so relentlessly depressing, and I spotted what was going to happen at the fancy dress ball miles in advance. But then the twist almost in the next chapter took me completely by surprise, and so did the final twist at the end.

A heavily spoiler-ridden preface in my Virago edition by Sally Beauman (author of the “sequel”, Rebecca’s Tale) claims that du Maurier manages to avoid slipping into too much melodrama, a large claim that I can’t completely agree with. She also makes the inevitable comparison with Jane Eyre. Self-effacing orphan heroine tring to cope – check. Dominant husband with dark secret about his first wife – check. Embarrassing party – check. House burns down – check. Actually the nameless narrator of Rebecca is a much less interesting character than Jane Eyre, who at least stood up for herself now and then.

However; good book; enjoyed it; might look out for more of the same.

OK, the baby has finally settled to sleep, I’m going to bed.

Hah. Ronald Reagan’s died. Now, if Gerald Ford can only make it to November 2006, he’ll beat Reagan’s record (93 years, 4 months) as the oldest President ever.

If Ford survives to November 2007, he’ll beat his old boss Richard Nixon’s record as the man to have lived longest (33 years, 3 months) after being Vice-President.

And if he makes it to September 2008, he’ll pass Herbert Hoover’s record as the man to have lived longest (31 years, 8 months) after being President.

He’ll still have two otherwise unremarkable ex-Vice-Presidents to outlive at that point, one of whom almost made it to his 99th birthday. Though Ford, who despite his reputation for clumsiness was probably the most athletic President ever, may well make it that far as well.

Many many years ago, about 1992, I happened to drop by the Mansion House in Dublin at the tail end of a book fair. I spotted a battered-looking pair of books on a stall, looked at them long enough to realise that it as an 18th century edition of Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars, bargained the price down from £70 to £50 (those were pre-euro days), and have been carting them around with me from house to house ever since.

So I was rather surprised when I tried pricing it on ADDALL and discovered that a Swedish vendor is selling the same 1736 edition for 7,500 kronor, or just over $1000.

Very exciting, until I realised that their copy is in almost mint condition (covers are “Contemporary full vellum with gilt spine and yellow labels, boards with gilt monograms, marbled edges”) and has clearly been well looked after in the last 270 years. Alas, the condition that my copy is in (covers battered, not gilt, not monogrammed, and in fact detached, though still present) probably means I got a fair price at best. AbeBooks doesn’t seem to have my particular edition, but does have three older ones for less than £60, all of which sound like they are in much better shape (if less heavily annotated) than mine.

So I think I’ll hang onto it for now. I’ve used it only once, for my note on the assassination of the emperor Domitian

Discovered that there is a site where you can predict the results of the European elections in England + Scotland + Wales:

http://anthonywells.typepad.com/anthony_wells/2004/05/european_electi.html

Goes well with my Northern Ireland contest and Ciaran Quinn’s for the Republic.

2) Down and Out In The Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

Another book that I read electronically, thanks to the author’s policy of making it freely available via a Creative Commons Licence. Actually this led to the single most irritating thing about the book, as I had to waste time and precious battery power on my Palm Pilot scrolling past the pages of literati endorsements and even more past the terms of the licence itself.

After that, I found this a really readable book. Julius, our narrator, lives in the Bitchun Society, a not-too-distant future where everyone has everything they physically need, and everyone periodically backs up their personalities for reloading into clones in case of accidental death. There is however an economy in “Whuffie”, or respect, given to you by others when you do something they like. And everyone (at least everyone in the book) is producing stuff of cultural value in an effort to gain Whuffie.

The Magic Kingdom of the title is Disney World, and the plot revolves around the attempts of Julius and his friends to preserve their beloved Haunted Mansion from the evil Debra, who wants to remake it as she has already fiendishly remade the Hall of the Presidents. Described like that, one’s immediate reaction is, “Why care?” But Doctorow does manage to communicate his intense passion for Disney World in such a way that it doesn’t in the end seem silly (in a society where entertainment and culture are the most tradable commodities) and in fact you do care. The plot is satisfying, there aren’t too many info-dump rants about how great it is now compared with the Twentieth Century, and all is resolved, though not necessarily happily for everyone.

But I did end up wondering what was happening in the rest of the world all the time. Stuff seems to be happening in China and in space, but I’d be very interested to see the effects of such a society on the less well organised part of our world. (One character is Chinese; another may be of Indian origin, but the rest sound just American or Canadian.) The Magic Kingdom is a special place, but it doesn’t tell us much about what is going on elsewhere.

I’m well aware that this particular administrative procedure – which you, by the way, inflicted on us – is a real pain in the ass; so why did you tell one of my staff two weeks ago that I wasn’t doing it properly, and not tell me? And when you arranged to come to Brussels next week to sort it out, why didn’t you make sure that it was on a day when I actually planned to be here too?

Very much based on EU issues, compares your answers with the seven European political groupings:

http://www.votematch.net/index.htm

For me it came out at ELDR (the liberals) first, then EPP (christian democrats) then PES (social democrats) then Greens. Then I got negative ratings for the GUE (far left) UEN (right) and EDD (Eurosceptics).

I also did the same thing for the Flemish parties, voting on Flemish issues, at De Standaard’s website, and it gave me quite different results – recommending I should vote for the Socialist/Spirit coalition.

Well, it’s a European election. Plus I know one of the candidates on the Flemish liberal list. So even though they are far more economically right wing than me, they’re sound enough on the European issues which the election is supposedly about, so I’ll vote for the VLD.

But I’ll try and cast my personal vote for a candidate who is running for the European parliament only. Last time I voted for someone who become a minister rather than take up her seat. This time the prime minister is the lead candidate on the VLD list, and there’s no chance of him resigning to become a mere MEP (though he may get better offers than that). So I’ll do a bit more research…

Entertaining:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/ginmar/271447.html

Remember the NATO job that I heard about, pondered, and eventually applied for? My friend who was also applying for it just called to tell me that he’d made the shortlist (unlike me) but crashed and burned at the interview stage, and someone else has been appointed. Since I’d gone off the idea anyway I’m not too devastated. In the meantime something else has come up. And in any case I still have Plan A.