Have a read of this brilliant article in today’s Guardian about a new cultural initiative involving Gordon Brown and Carla Bruni. I sort of wish Brown would do something so daring… Pity it’s not on the Number 10 website. I also realise that I may have inadvertently written an April Fools joke by speculating that a former tsar will be President of the European Council in a post over at whodoicall.eu – problem is that I wrote it yesterday, and as far as I can tell at least the candidacy is serious (if not the prospects I suspect).

(P.S. I’m in a tiny village in France with just a modem to connect to the internet, so no images etc. in my posts today or tomorrow)