No geek
is an island

The post is a high-profile and challenging one suitable for someone at a senior level in the public or private sectors with proven leadership and administrative skills. The ability to work in a complex political environment, and experience in the area of security, are essential.

So says the job ad in theguardian seeking a replacement for Sir Michael Willcocks, who retires next April. The job will be a scaled-down version of the current role, according to the Telegraph, retaining ceremonial duties - and, judging by the job ad, security responsibilities - but passing the running of the Lords to a new director general.

Still, a senior civil service salary and the chance to dress up in tights and wave a big staff around aren’t to be sniffed at.

• Wishing I had CNN. Will be looking forward to seeing the holograms online. #
• Sorry, Jeremy, but your county examples in each state are worthless. #
• @secretlondon 10pm here, not 9. #
• John McCain may regret taking potential voters to an election day rally #
• Aw, the Obama cowboy on ITV is so sweet! #
• @markpack I know, but not going to go online this evening. #
• @qwghlm Online or on Freeview? #
• Time for curry. Fox saying Ohio for Obama… #
• @qwghlm ITV and NBC have called O for O #
• @giagia That would be great. How likely is it? #
• John Suchet is so much better than Dimbledore. #
• Champagne popped! Caution to the wind. This champagne is from when there was last a Democrat in the White House. #
• http://twitpic.com/k2w2 - Champagne! #
• @alexfoster @jamesgraham Makes a change from ping pong balls I suppose. #
• “The networks are about to declare Barack Obama the next president.” I love America’s version of democracy #
• Yes we can! #
• Dick Dastardly and Penelope Pitbull aren’t due to speak until 5am so I might go to bed and shed a happy tear. McCain has conceded. #
• Oh no, they’re going to speak now. Excellent. #
• Well-pitched concession speech from McCain. Wondering whether to hang on for the Big O. #
• As you’d expect by now, lovely speech by President-Elect Barack Obama. 76 days to go. #
• @ruskin147 TV was fine for the main event, but keeping track of Senate and House races involves foraging around online. #
• @edtrelinski I see the senate race was called for Landrieu. Congratulations! #
• OK, US election’s done. What’s next? #
• @flashboy @qwghlm I might not book my trip to Jersey just yet. #
• I don’t believe anything strange will happen when they switch on the LHC for the first time tomorrow. #
• RT @FakeSarahPalin: And that’s a wrap. Please read my goodbye letter and pass it around: http://jottit.com/83hkf/ . Thanks for the lols. #
• Discovering I’ve got two accounts on meetup.com. Oops. #
• Wrote some new material this evening. Will revisit it next week to decide if it’s actually remotely funny. #

• Amused that my phone is playing me ELO’s “Calling America” today… #
• @RyanAlexander See http://tinyurl.com/6brpss for tags #
• @edtrelinski Good luck today! #
• @flashboy I’ve just explained to someone chiding me for using my phone in the 90-minute meeting I was in that I’d've missed it if I hadn’t. #
• @bobbyllew Just think how young you’ll feel if McCain wins… #
• I have just seen a TARDIS coffin on the news. I am as gobsmacked as I was when I heard of the theme tune being played at a funeral. #
• @lynncorrigan I had some of that last week. Was surprisingly nice! #
• Watching Flight of the Conchords while waiting impatiently for election news. #
• @edent Washington D.C. the 51st? #
• @alexfoster Saw Tina C in Edinburgh. Very good fun. I asked her about the credit crunch… #
• Dimbleby: “Now to ‘patronise’ means to ‘talk down to’…” #
• Vine: “To demonstrate the electoral college, I’ve made this lovely electoral collage.” (Sorry.) #
• @Suw Exit polls? #
• Rupert Murdoch doesn’t want Obama to win. If there weren’t already enough reasons to support him… #
• ITV coverage amazingly looks like it might be more entertaining. #

• Jubilee Line severe delays. Great start to the week. #
• Eating my overpriced Upper Crust roll more slowly. Don’t want to be “that bloke who choked on a sausage on the Strand”. #
• @qwghlm I’m nearly always warm at work thanks to the scarily large amount of heat my laptop pumps out. #
• Debating who should be Doctor Who with work colleagues over lunch. #
• Loving the email I’ve just received: “We’ve had much discussion following your email… You are right” That’s what I like to hear #
• @wilw Was surprised to be told by a colleague that it’s a peculiarly geeky concern and she likes not losing web pages when clicking a link. #
• I can haz Dead Set DVD? Yay! #
• Alerted by Jonathan Calder’s Liberal England blog, I’ll be watching the Jake Thackray programme on BBC2 at 11.20 tonight. #
• @snapesbabe @stephmog My poor blog isn’t even on Wikio. #
• @snapesbabe Nah. Several work ones just got added and they emailed to tell us. Not sure I care enough to bother #
• @snapesbabe In that case I’m helping by not being on it #

• Watching London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon talk transport on The Politics Show. Caroline’s been helping me with TfL tech issues. #
• The Observer comes today with a “free” Women Magazine and a “free” Film Magazine. If you pay the cover price, you also get pages 4-18 free. #
• Ooh, this episode of The X-Files is co-written by Stephen King. #
• @Paul_Cornell Fantastic news! #

• Unlocked all the 50cc levels on Mario Kart Wii. Obviously a productive use of my morning. #
• Deciding where to see Quantum of Solace, thanks to Lewisham’s dearth of cinemas. Leaning towards the O2. Will watch Casino Royale DVD first. #
• My video about the US elections is now up on Lib Dem Voice: http://tinyurl.com/5c78tw #
• Man of simple pleasures that I am, it amuses me that I’m waiting to watch a Bond film inside a Bond film location. #
• Sony phone ad says “Capture the action” while showing clips of QoS. Later Daniel Craig asks us not to record the film. Make up your minds! #
• Also had to close my eyes during the several ads featuring clips from the film. They’re spoilers! Don’t show them before the film! #
• Anyway, enjoyed Quantum of Solace but didn’t think it was as good as Casino Royale. Story meandered all over the place. #
• @nimbos Yeah, Maria’s dad plays the second most incompetent agent in the whole Bond series. #
• @Alfie Full version is on E4 tonight. I’m in the zombie crowd running to the gates #
• Bedtime. Ate so much junk today. Have a nice pork joint to roast for a more balanced diet tomorrow. #

• Michael Lyons OK on Today at coping with John Humphreys’ usual position of “The BBC should only broadcast what John Humphreys likes.” #
• Reasons I should be allowed to ignore emails #94: the content is in Comic Sans MS. #
• @paulbradshaw There’s @mysociety… #
• @stephmog Dear lord, that should be a sackable offence. #
• Mmm… phenethylamine. #
• @secretlondon There are a many nice curry places in the London Borough of Lewisham … #
• @Alfie Wasn’t that the calendar change in 1752, or was there a different set of riots in the 17th century? #
• @HelenDuffett Supplied by the Candidates’ Office today. #
• Waiting for a process to finish so I can go home and have fish and chips. #
• Dead Set Final part Wondering if my top corpse acting will have made it in. #
• So YouTube reduced their maximum video length to 10 mins and I
  hadn’t noticed. Which is a pain as I’ve made one nearly 17 minutes long. #

• Urgh. Coughing and spluttering. Great start to the day. #
• Headache too now. Lying in bed listening to Mobbler and feeling sorry for myself. #
• @Alfie Hi! Enjoyed traipsing around London - thanks for coming up with that. #
• Catching up with Twitter after hours off. @snapesbabe Thanks. @GavinWhenman Git. #
• @flashboy Did you not see Strange? #
• @flashboy I now see you have. Wonder whether quitting Coupling would have got him a black mark with the Moff. #
• @MarsPhoenix So long, and thanks for all the tweets. #
• @GavinWhenman Russell Brand probably cut them off. For a laugh, you know. #
• Just watched a very dark episode of One Foot in the Grave. Now cooking for Dead Set. #
• Just fleetingly appeared in Dead Set #
• @alexfoster Yeah, and running down the hill earlier on. #
• @LloydDavis Mine used to go to on but now goes to no. Unfortunately got gives gmt #

• Hacking cough. Hurts, but has broken into Sarah Palin’s email. (Sorry.) #
• @anniemole Sorry! I may now have to rewatch Death Line - as I’m going to insist on calling it - to see if my opinion’s changed. #
• @DrPep Just wish it wasn’t US-only #
• The Radio 2 storm has been cooked up by the tabloids with the single aim of achieving the headline “Ross and Brand get the Sachs”. #
• @secretlondon Oh yes. (Not that I’ve actually read about it anywhere but the BBC news site.) #
• I am in love with Mobbler: http://code.google.com/p/mobbler/ Scrobbling from my N95 FTW. #
• Coding is powered this afternoon by last.fm’s 007 Radio station. #
• Aha! Big Bang Theory on E4. Two eps, then Dead Set. Excellent. #
• Don’t care that Russell Brand’s resigned from the BBC. Do care that David Tennant’s leaving Doctor Who. #

• Blimey, it’s cold out. Fun video evening with Mr @nimbos. Homemade popcorn - nice. #
• @anniemole Creep is a lot like Death Line, but much preferred the latter. #
• @PBizzle Hear hear. Glad the BBC has apologised but should have known better in the first place. #
• Grr to the blogger who posted a massive Spooks spoiler at the beginning of a post. How should spoiler etiquette work in the days of iPlayer? #
• Akismet Stats on my blog shows a mahoosive increase in spam in the last week or so, peaking in nearly 7,000 in one day. #
• Grrr. Bad data, dirty data, in your bed! #
• Voicemail of the day: the succinct “Oh Jesus Christ.” #
• @doctorvee What @qwghlm said. #
• @nimbos Metal detector arches at London Bridge? Grr. Although if I was carrying a knife, I’d now know to go to Charing Cross #
• @giagia Anything can get 10,000 complaints to OFCOM if the popular press decide to demand it… #
• @anniemole I really did, although it’s a long time since I’ve seen either. Mind the doors! #
• @secretlondon 24 hours later London Bridge clock is still wrong. Wonder if I should tell someone . #
• Damn, Dead Set over already for tonight. Weird seeing locations I walked round. #
• For those wondering about meteorological conditions in south east London: it’s snowing. A bit. Don’t send the St Bernard just yet. #

• Surprise of morning train on time offset by delays on @jubileeline. Train to Charing Cross it is then. #
• Apparently our toilet poltergeist has returned. #
• Headlines on BBC News: “Global shares continue to slide” and “UK beer sales continue to slide”. Won’t somebody think of the breweries? #
• Wondering if the credit crunch has lead to an increase in annoying sales calls. #
• Easing myself back into object-oriented PHP. #
• @nimbos Oh great #
• Code works. For some very slow values of works. #
• London Bridge clock says 8pm. GMT FAIL. #
• “Face like a Manchester morgue” - 10 points to Charlie Brooker for the zombie film ref! #

• Watching one of my bits of software being thrown by the switch to GMT. #
• Phew. For a minute there I thought we were out of gravy granules. #
• More fifth season X-Files. Fancy some Wii action after. #
• @markpack Excellent, thanks #
• Watching Stephen King’s It. #
• @nimbos The similarity is quite notable #
• @wherenext Think I may have to give up before my brain melts. Have sent in my best shot so far. #