back in black (not so much bitter as cynical)

I got back to NZ on Friday night, after an unscheduled delay in Melbourne (which involved five different queues and thus no shoe shopping). As you may be able to tell from the time stamp, I'm having some trouble adjusting to changing 11 time zones in less than a week. I'd be a total wreck if it wasn't for a three day stop over in Bangkok (three words: hot, muggy, traffic).

Anyway, after my break, from blogging and my normal life, I'm feeling much refreshed. A new lease on blogging has come over me, as those who caught my mainly short and infrequent posts during the last three months may have worked out. I've decided to avoid the blogs that depress and frustrate me, for the most part, and be a bit more positive in my writing. One of the themes I'd like to explore is the future for the NZ Left, which Idiot/Savant, Jordan and I had a bit of a post conversation about some time ago (for some of my past posts on this, scroll down to the bottom of my 2005 best of index). I'm going to revamp the look of the blog a bit too, and the blogroll, although I don't anticipate any major template changes just now.

I'll also be writing some travel posts, to add to Bye Bye Birdie (the tale of my compulsory detention in a Greek hospital), Quaint European Customs - Eurovision (hopefully self-explanatory) and Reasons Not to Envy (why travelling isn't always so aceburger). If anyone has any particular requests please email or post in comments below.

I would appreciate it though if readers (if there are any left) could check out my request for their top three political (or political blogging) events since 27th March and comment or post accordingly (if they haven't already), so that I can have a bit of a catch-up. Having to rely on the Herald Online, and even that very sporadically, has left me somewhat out of the loop.

Cheerio,
span