Sarah Poyntz lives in the Burren in Co. Clare (one of the most magical places on earth IMHO) and is one of the contributors to the Guardian‘s Country Diary. She’s been in France on holiday and this is part of her latest Diary entry.

We were walking by the river below the forest when suddenly there was a whirr and between two trees flew a rocket of colour; turquoise, green, blue, orange – a kingfisher – a poem in flight. Down it dived, the stiletto-like beak pronging a small fish and, seemingly all in one movement, up it shot and away.

A squirrel, a kingfisher and a white and orange cat named Chibi. Some years ago we regularly took care of Chibi to let our French gîte owners off for their holiday. Then they sold up and moved, but we met them for restaurant lunches. This year we visited their new home. Suddenly a door was pushed open and there was Chibi. She walked towards us, meowing loudly, looking up at us and purring. She remembered us, remaining curled up at our feet throughout the visit and brought to mind a medieval monk copying from Virgil and writing a poem about his cat in the margins: “I and Pangur Ban my cat, / ‘Tis a like task we are at: / Hunting mice is his delight, / Hunting words I sit all night …”

He’s set up a Transition Site called Change.gov. Not much on it yet — but the link to the Transition Directory brings up some fascinating info. It’s a much more open process than anything that happens in the UK.

… in 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution began as forces led by Lenin overthrew the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky.

Remember the photograph of the teenage Bill Clinton shaking hands with JFK?

Extraordinary story on CNN.com by George Wallace’s daughter.

MONTGOMERY, Alabama (CNN) — I heard a car door slam behind me and turned to see an elderly but spry woman heading my way.

The night before, a gang of vandals had swept through the cemetery desecrating graves, crushing headstones and stealing funereal objects.

My parents’ graves, situated on a wind-swept hill overlooking the cemetery, had not been spared. A large marble urn that stood between two granite columns had been pried loose and spirited away, leaving faded silk flowers strewn on the ground.

I was holding a bouquet of them in my arms when the woman walked up and gave me a crushing hug. “Honey,” she said, “you don’t know me, but when I saw you standing up here on this hill, I knew that you must be one of the girls and I couldn’t help myself but to drive up here and let you know how much me and my whole family loved both of your parents. They were real special people.”

Read it — it’s got a lovely twist in the tail.

Thanks to James Miller for the link.

You want to see what an authentic fruitcake looks like? Look no further. Melanie Phillips fits the bill perfectly. Here she is frothing about the election:

America has voted for change, apparently. Change from what, precisely? From Bush? But in the second term, Bush stopped being Bush. His foreign policy lurched from paralysis to appeasement (redeemed only by the strategic genius of Gen Petraeus – and what price Petraeus now?) As Frank Gaffney wrote in the Washington Times yesterday, Bush’s Treasury is about to open the way for sharia law to be imposed upon America’s banking system. And it was a Democrat-controlled Congress that helped provoke the sub-prime lending crisis that triggered the current financial meltdown.

What this election tells us is that America voted for change because America is in the process of changing – not just demographically by becoming less white and more diverse, but as the result of a culture war in which western civilisation is losing out to a far-left agenda which has become mainstream, teaching American children to despise the founding values of their country and hijacking discourse by the minority power-grab of victim-culture.

Hmmm… Wonder what she smokes.

Thanks to Sean for spotting this in the wild.

It’s been an extraordinary day. I’ve been awake since 6am, and although I’ve been busy there hasn’t been a moment when the presidential election has been out of my thoughts. This really is a hinge of history. The hopes of countless millions of people — in the US and across the world — rest on what happens in the voting booths of the US today. Of all the elections I can remember, the only two that come close in significance are the presidential election of 1960 when JFK won by a whisker, and the British General Election of 1997 when the stranglehold of Tory rule was finally broken. I have vivid memories of both contests.

In 1960 I was a precocious 14-year-old living in rural Ireland. Our household was strictly non-political, there was no television, and the radio news service was pretty rackety. But Kennedy’s run for president was big news because he was (a) Catholic and (b) Irish. (We didn’t know about his loathsome old man then. But we knew that his election would represent a radical break with the past. And on that count at least we were right.)

In 1997 I walked to the village hall near where we live in the UK and voted after dropping the kids at school. It was a glorious early summer day, and as I walked back I remember marvelling at the thought that all over the country millions of people were making the same fateful imprints on their ballot papers. And I remember feeling thankful that I lived in a democracy, however imperfect.

Elections like the one taking place today — which are about very stark choices — highlight how strange and intractable values are. I’ve been shocked to find that some people whom I have hitherto regard as civilised and intelligent are vociferous McCain supporters. I’m reminded of something Ken Tynan said many years ago after he’d been to see John Osborne’s groundbreaking play Look Back in Anger. “I doubt”, he wrote in the Observer, “if I could love anyone who did not wish to see Look Back in Anger.” I have similar feelings about McCain/Palin enthusiasts.

I’ve been awestruck by the passion and commitment that the US election has generated on the Obama side. A good friend of mine has been working for the campaign as a volunteer for ages. This week she flew from her home in Seattle to Cincinatti in Ohio. Here’s an excerpt from an email she sent the other day:

For the first three days, most of our canvassers were volunteers who had come from out of town to help. A delightful couple from Los Angeles, a Senate staffer from DC, a carload of 50 year old women from Kentucky. Pam, my wonderful and unflappable co-worker from San Antonio, and I canvassed with them and still had plenty of time to tally our results and report data to our Field Organizer. That all changed on Saturday. Packet pandemonium! Was 23BB still out? Who took 23N-1? We forgot to get his cell phone number! How do I record the data for Pass 2 when it looks just like Pass 1? We learned a lot. My Field Organizer (25 and tireless) told me Election Day reporting would have to be better. Words to that effect.

Today we are putting door hangers on all the doors on our walk lists. No knocking, no talking. Each door hanger has the precinct polling place printed on it. The challenge of the day will be to make sure the walk packet for 23H gets the right bundle of door hangers. A and E [my friend’s daughters] got here late Saturday afternoon. They’ve decided I need a personal assistant and they’re right. I’ll take two. How lucky I am.

I got out for an hour or so of canvassing yesterday afternoon. It was summer with red and gold trees. These kids were playing football in the street. They followed me on their bikes, telling me where the doorbell was, who lived where. They asked for Obama buttons. There are none left. They said they talk about the election in school. They asked me if I work for Obama. I said I do. But really, I’m working for them.

And she attached this picture:

Impossible to imagine a British politician or party generating this kind of commitment. More’s the pity.

I’ve just read an extraordinary blog post. This is how it begins:

I have a confession to make.

I did not vote for Barack Obama today.

I’ve openly supported Obama since March. But I didn’t vote for him today.

Read it in full. It’s not what you think.

Thanks to Nicci and Sean for finding it.

I’m astonished by the vox pops that journalists are doing in the US as they interview ‘undecided’ voters. Time and time again one hears people whining about Obama that they “don’t really know anything about him”. On what planet have these people been living for the past year? I know that most voters aren’t terribly interested in politics, but this is ludicrous. Does it mean that they can’t think of a respectable way of explaining why they’re not going to vote for a black candidate?