With the entire blogosphere exploding with joy, it seems slightly redundant to say anything other than “Hurrah!” about the US Election – although it’s nice to see my innate cynicism proved wrong, it was great to wake up to find out the successor to George W. Bush is (a) not a Republican and (b) actually seems to have a brain, and of course it’s satisfying to see the Republicans being shown the door after the mess they’ve made over the last nine years. These are politicians we’re talking about, so it’ll be educational to see how much actual change happens (Anyone who remembers the euphoria surrounding the New Labour landslide all those years ago will also remember how that all ended up), but I’m a little more optimistic about the state of the world than I was, and it was great to wake up to some genuinely good news (even if my sleep last night was appalling, and I was wide awake at about 4am).

The only other election-related moment was where I was pondering the whole aspect of there still being plenty of people in the US who might not be jumping through hoops at the idea of a black President, and was having West Wing S1 finale flashbacks – when I suddenly realised that the reason the actress Elizabeth Moss who plays Peggy in the superlative Mad Men has always looked so damned familiar is that she also played Bartlett’s teenage daughter Zoe in The West Wing. Somehow, at a time when it’s easy for me to get depressed about personal issues, this odd bit of succesful remembrance cheered me up no end. Life is officially strange…