Another week...

...and nearly time for another Prime Minister. I nearly missed it, what with my homepages problem, and trying to make sense of the news (to me) that the closest living relative of the hippopotamus isn't, as I'd always thought, the pig, but the whale.

So, a new PM (almost). He hasn't quite captured the public imagination yet, but it's early days, and he follows in a long tradition of uninspiring British PMs. Think of Sir Alec Douglas-Home and the like. I don't quite see why how he got his reputation for prudence, though. In 2003, when asked how much, as Chancellor, he was prepared to spend on Iraq, he replied: "As much as it takes". Well, that'll be about £7 billion so far then; how prudent is that?

[Just had to break off for this week's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. Very funny, as ever. Humph: "I've just noticed I came out with odd socks on... they're shaped like underpants."]

Is there something of the hippo about Gordon? How graceful is he under-water? I was in Ethiopia once, with my family, on a trip to see some hippos. The young boys who were (for want of a better word) guiding us, tried to provide us with more exciting views of the hippos, which were peacefully submerged, by throwing stones at them. I imagine that, in similar circumstances, Gordon Brown could get very angry. So I'll leave him alone... for now.

There's a new song in the sidebar. It's a live version of Blossom by Ryan Adams, recorded at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center.