Obama got inaugurated

This seems like as good a time as any to revive this blog from the dead. A proper update and explanation of absence will come in due course, but for now, there appears to be a comment-worthy event happening out in the Federal Triangle of Washington D.C.

Following the inauguration of Barack Obama as US president on the BBC News Channel is at points like trying to identify a cheese from its grated pack. Every link back to Lezo at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre seems to localise the context of the Obama-becoming-president story to an account of the shifting horizons and feelings of those who share his skin colour. Very frustrating, but one doesn't expect the BBC to put forward a group of knowledgeable men and women with varied perspectives to discuss the event. Of course, this would alienate all manner of minutely analysed demographics, of course of course. The BBC still adopts the Mark Penn school of understanding your audience over the David Axelrod school.

Back to Lezo: ''So Hannah, what difference do you think Barack Obama's inauguration is going to have on ethnic minorities here in the UK?" Am I alone in suspecting the BBC to be run by narrowband idiots? And they think that declining trust in our national broadcaster has to do with the manipulation of quiz show phone-ins or comedians offending the Daily Mail's puritanical sensibilities.

Sigh.

To the action.....

17:03 So the swearing in involves three mistakes on the part of the Chief Justice, a man not known to approve of Obama's hiking up the level of discourse in American politics over the previous 2-4 years. Will you execute the Office, faithfully? he asks. Faithfully intoning downwards, as if to patronise the little kid, to spook him on his big day. Are you sure you're up to this, black man? Obama, as if we could expect anything else, didn't rise to it one bit.

17:05 Here we go 'rising tides ... still waters ... gathering clouds ... raging storms' sweep me away, Barack!

17:11 I am sick with nerves.

17:12 Obama, leisure is pronounced 'e' not 'ee'. Really, Leo? Yes. Sorry about that. It's okay.

17:26 Dear America, Lets brave the icy currents. Yours sincerely, Barack.