Election night

11.50 GMT -- sitting, killing time watching reruns of SNL's Palin (what on earth possessed McCain to do the QVC stunt?).... V Heavy polling in VA according to locals on the ground.... waiting  for first results to come through ....  Jeremy Vine playing with his graph again... we have to wait for 6.00 for Alaska ..don't think can stay up for that and still make it to my nine o'clock tomorrow...

11.57 -- three minutes to go - to something... .. JV running through obscure counties... David D trying to explain how networks forecast the results...claim that exit polls have Dem bias... laying off blame on ABC as BBC's affiliate.

midnight .. bonfire night in England... -- KY to McC; VT to BO....now cut to filler about Martin Luther King and I had better do some exercises....or revert to watching Tina Fey.  Bizarre to think that BO was born six years before the Supreme Court struck down miscegenation laws. 12.10 more discussion on race.... Dem win VA Senate.  does that mean BO will win VA?  Eric reckons that would be very good news for him - and he is a politics professor.  Short tutorial now on separation of powers.  Cheney's ex press sec already discussing BO's first 100 days. and now we have Ricky Gervais from New York.  They wouldn't do this in the UK.

1.00 am -- PA to Obama -- allegedly...  so we finally have a result that appears to matter..  MC chances "pretty darn minimal"...and Jed Bartlett's NH has stayed blue...BO now ahead.... chancs of goign to bed at some point looking better...IL to BO -- and DC finally gets to matter.....  plus MA...  and DL...suddenly 67 votes ,,,  but TN to Mc.  Results in now... but so far BO has not taken any Bush states.

1.15 -- Liddy Dole out in NC -- Kathy will be pleased....  saying how much NC has changed ... Raleigh Durham just described as starbucks belt....

1.45 and while I was asleep the popular vote projection which Beeb pundit said could only go in ob direction has just narrowed down fto 50+50 -- that can't be true..better stay awake.

1.50 -- VA seems to have disappeared off the political map... no mention for a couple of hours...

2.05 -- final news that Fox has called OH for BO... finally a state might change from 2004....GA gone to McC - despite the fact that BC won it in 1992....they are saying v close ... DD has finally said that White House ha sliped form Republican grasp -- might be bedtime.

2.35 -- debating whether am going to go to bed or wait up for FL.... getting quite dopey now.

2.40 -- Simon Schama trying to get DavidD to call the election for Obama...Ben Wildavsky - my token republican friend - has told me its all over from McC with PA and OH gone... I think I am going to sign off.... but can't get as excited as I did over Bill C.... I wonder whether I would have done if Hillary had been running...