You're a beautiful woman probably...

Q: How many ears has Mr Spock? A: Three. A left ear, a right ear and a Final Front Ear... Q: How many ears has Davy Crockett? A: Three. A left ear, a right ear and a Wild Front Ear... These cheesy cracks (I won't dignify them with the title jokes ) were inspired by a song that I can't get out of my head. It goes "Sa-rah - Sarah Palin. Queen of the Wild Frontier" to the tune of "Davy Crockett". We're told we haven't seen the last of Palin, and that she'll be back. In days when the world is less and less stable, and we're all faced with annihilation in a variety of ways, this is not a comforting thought. Surely the US electorate must be starting to realise that being religious, photogenic and a supporter of "the right to bear arms" are unbelievably feeble qualifications for people looking to run their country.

The fact that fireworks are going off this evening seems fitting - as if to celebrate that the US electorate has finally had the good sense to vote in a President with some intelligence and who - unlike "Dubya" - isn't promoting a foreign policy based on the world view of a 10-year old child. Following the very dubious election result in 2000 and his record of wilful ignorance and incompetence over the subsequent four years, it was astonishing to me (and, I think, many in the UK) that Dubya was clearly voted into power for a second term. Fighting terrorists who were happy to take their own lives using bombs and missiles? Yes, that was always going to work. And by invading a country with which they had no clear connection? Good thinking. The most depressing part of the saga was the enthusiasm with which Tony Blair followed the USA into the disaster of the Iraq War - making him, in his foreign policy, the biggest let-down in UK politics of my lifetime. The number of innoce...