The latest Brian and Antoine Election Watch podcast – our sixth, would you believe? - is up here.  You can track all the previous ones by rootling around here.

Doing these podcasts has been a learning experience, and one of the things I’ve learned only today – see Charles Pooter’s comment on the immediately previous posting – is that they apparently aren’t really podcasts.  Still some rss-ing and iPod whatnottery to be done before they evolve to that stage.  At present, says Charles, all they really are is mp3 files.  Well, okay, you have to start things going before you really know what you are about.  I do, anyway.

Another thing that has become clear is that Antoine and I are going to have to ration ourselves to fewer topics.  If all Antoine was doing was telling us about the latest news on the election front worldwide, then he could have as many topics as he liked.  But I want these things to be a conversation.  I want to chip in with questions and comments, and I want Antoine to get the chance to reply to my questions and comments, with further relevant facts and observations, thus proving what a very well informed person he is.  So, for instance, this time - in connection with Thailand, Spain and Nepal, all of which are more or less democratic monarchies - we found ourselves ruminating on the interesting role that Kings sometimes play in defending or advancing the cause of democracy, which, historically, is not how one usually thinks of Kings.  And all this in connection with circumstances which Antoine only intended to comment upon for a few seconds.  Because of that and other tangential chit-chat the conversation this time stretched out to nearly 45 minutes.  If these things are to be nearer to 30 minutes, as I think they should be, that will mean cutting down on the number of topics.  Antoine has his instructions, and if he shows up next week with six headings, two will be removed.

Meanwhile, because this one is so long, and because all of these podcasts/mp3s should really have something similar attached to them, here is a breakdown of what (roughly) we talked about this time, and (more exactly) when:

0 mins 0 secs – 1 min 0 secs: introductory remarks
1 min 0 secs – 11 mins 40 secs: UK
11 mins 40 secs – 17 mins 20 secs: Peru
17 mins 20 secs – 19 mins 30 secs: Singapore
19 mins 30 secs – 23 mins 10 secs: Thailand (the monarchy stuff, see above)
23 mins 10 secs – 34 mins 35 secs: USA (Ohio)
34 mins 35 secs – 43 mins 10 secs: France
43 mins 10 secs - 43 mins 35 secs: concluding remarks