I was interviewed by CBS’s London bureau (ooh, don’t you just love that? “London bureau”) last week, over a coffee in Soho. It was apparently for their Sunday morning show called, erm, Sunday Morning – and, well, I guess it just never really hit me that that’s a Proper Television Show. You know, like, beamed into people’s homes across America, and everything.

Anyway, turns out that it is – and I was just on it, part of a segment on how people around the world are feeling about Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Apparently.

Because I didn’t see it.

Partly because, as I say, it hadn’t really occurred to me that it would actually be on TV; and partly because I was too excited about the possibility of seeing both Chris Matthews and Meet The Press on a Real Actual Television that K and I have been sitting here watching MSNBC, not CBS, this morning.

Here’s the show’s main page on the CBS website; and here’s a link to this Sunday’s show, where presumably there will be a video of it posted at some point. I and my wonky British teeth will be in the ‘World Is Watching’ segment. *Gulp*.

*Update* Here’s a link to a piece about that segment. I am “Briton Andrea Mann”!

All of the photos above were taken by Callie Shell. As was this one, which I just love, but which didn’t make it into TIME’s gallery:

You can see more of Shell’s brilliant photographs from the campaign trail here (note: keep clicking ‘Show more images’). In fact, it’s better than the TIME gallery because the pictures are larger, and include fascinating insights from Shell. There are also no supreeemely irritating ads.

(With Michelle’s mother, watching the results come in)

Mind you, I do think it’s legitimate to raise this new Sarah Palin attack. Because it’s an attack on me. Oh, and you. For reading me.

That’s right: Sarah Palin has attacked blogging. As surely as night follows day (except in Alaska, where night follows night), Palin is now criticising not just the “filter” of the mainstream media but the filter of the blogosphere, too.

According to Sarah, bloggers sit in their parents’ basements (or presumably just the one basement, if their parents aren’t divorced), “wearing their pyjamas and blogging some kind of gossip or lie”:

Well, I’ve got news for you, Sarah: I don’t live with my parents any more. And they never owned a basement in the first place. I will, however, admit to the “pyjamas” part. I regard it as one of the perks of the job (who wouldn’t work in their pyjamas if they could?) – and guess what, Sarah? Sometimes I blog in my pyjamas from my bed. Put that in your moose chilli and smoke it!

Ahem.

But on that point about blogs versus the “real” media: as Rachel Maddow jokingly notes, who’s to say that those who write in their pyjamas are to be taken less seriously than those who write in suits? (And what if you sit at home writing your blog in a suit?) Unsurprisingly for a blogger, I think that while the blogosphere is clearly not exactly equivalent to the mainstream media (any Tom, Dick or Harry can set up a blog. Not any Tom, Dick or Harry can get a job on the New York Times), it should absolutely be considered alongside such media as an important news source.

Indeed, if this year’s election proved anything, it’s how valuable blogging has become in the provision of news and information for an electorate which has previously been forced to rely on the corporate-owned, politically motivated likes of Fox News. The internet and its resulting independent news websites and blogs have shown that the public no longer has to depend on the old media – and the government – for information. Bush and co. only giving you their version of the Iraq war? Don’t worry – you can watch Al Jazeera online. Sarah Palin denying something? No matter – someone, somewhere will have posted the footage proving she said it. Busy British person who hasn’t got the time to sift through all the current news stories about the American election? No problem – England For Obama has done the work for you.

Like I say: if Sarah Palin attacks you, you must be doing something right. And if politicians are begging for mercy, you must be doing something really right. Here’s to Arianna Huffington, Markos Moulitsas, Jed Lewison, AKMuckraker, Andrew Sullivan, Bob Cesca, the blogosphere and all who sail in her. Huzzah!

And now I’m off to get dressed.

The initial emotion that I felt on Tuesday night, when the CNN graphic appeared announcing that the 44th President of the United States would be Barack Obama, may have dissipated somewhat.

Mainly because that emotion was ‘a sudden and overwhelming outflow of joy and relief manifested by spontaneously bursting into tears’.

But I have still shed tears since then, as I’ve seen more footage of President-elect Obama and Vice-president elect Biden (and heard commentators referring to them to as such). As it’s begun to sink in exactly what this means, both for America and for the world.

I have written many posts here giving reasons why I support Barack Obama, and why I felt America (and the world) had so much to gain if he and Joe Biden won, and so much to lose if John McCain and Sarah Palin did. But I’m writing this to sum up why this election result is so important; and why here, over in little ol’ England, I care about it. Why I have sat here writing 10 posts a day for the past few months; why I have lost sleep and drunk too much coffee and been refreshing The Huffington Post’s homepage every 30 minutes. In short: why this has mattered.

Firstly, I should probably make it clear that this election has mattered to me primarily as a citizen of the world, not as a Brit. I wanted this result not because I care so much about America’s effect on my own country’s foreign or economic policy (although I know, of course – especially with a brother in the military – just how strong that effect is), but because of the American government’s effect on its own people; and on the people in the countries that it chooses to go to war with (when it’s not going to war on a noun).

And secondly, I’ve not been sitting up ’til the wee hours simply because I dislike George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, the neocons and everything they have done. Don’t get me wrong: I have watched, slack-jawed, the destruction of so many things by the Bush administration that I have shouted and railed and professed my undying love for Keith Olbermann.

But the reason I made the move from railing about Bush and the Republicans to friends around dinner tables to actually wanting to do something about them (Bush and the Republicans, that is, not my friends)? The reason I wanted to actually show support and help build momentum for a candidate, to spread news and information? The reason I wanted to get involved (to the extent that a young British woman sitting in a flat in south-east London can ‘get involved’ in any American election)?

Well, that reason was singular.

Barack Obama.

Like most people, I’m sure, it was Barack’s speeches and way with words that first captured my attention. I came to him relatively late (during the primary battles with Hillary Clinton), and, like most people, I was unsure as to whether his was simply empty rhetoric. Whether it was, as Clinton claimed, ‘change you can Xerox’. (Although obviously in Britain, we’d say ‘change you can photocopy’ – look out for that one in David Cameron’s next speech.)

But the more I started to learn about Barack Obama – watch him, listen to him, read his books, learn about his life and work so far – the more it became apparent that he isn’t just an exceptional orator. He’s an exceptional man.

And likewise, the more I learned about the Joe Biden, the more I liked him. Although actually: with Joe, it was love pretty much instantly. Watched footage of his primary debate, read about his work in the Senate, read about his family – boom. I was gone.

So there you had it: a double whammy. The double whammy not just of great presidential and vice-presidential candidates; but the double whammy of wanting the Republicans out so badly, and being handed, on a plate, this gift of a man to do it.

This gift of a man who is incredibly smart and incredibly talented. This gift of a man who could have become a rich lawyer, but who spent his adult life helping those less fortunate than himself. This gift of a man who is a realist but also an optimist, with vision and focus. This gift of a man who believes in people’s inherent goodness and their ability to bring about change.

And it’s exactly these characteristics and values – shared to a great extent by Joe Biden – that shape Barack Obama’s world view, and as a result his political priorities and policies.

As a result: we are about to have an American president who believes that we are our brother’s keeper. A president who believes in war as a last resort. A president who understands that global warming is man-made, and wants to do something about it. A president who believes in a woman’s right to choose. A president who values science and intellectualism. A president who thinks that the health care system should be on the side of the people, not the insurance companies. A president who doesn’t think that the economy should primarily reward the rich. A president who doesn’t believe he’s on a mission from God. A president whose relationship with his super-smart wife is openly loving, and a match of (near ) equals. A president who truly seems to have sought office for the right reasons; for whom the presidency is a logical means to an end, and not just an end in itself.

A president who is human, yet brilliant – and who inspires not just because of this brilliance, but also because of how he has chosen to lead his life, which in turns makes the rest of us want to be better and do better. A president who is, at long last, a true role model.

And his race? Well, of course that is important, too. Obama’s presidency is healing in way that is unimaginable. After the pain and suffering of slavery, the struggles of the civil rights movement and the attacks of 9/11, the election of a black president with a Muslim name will be healing – both in America and across the world – in an incalculable, unconscious way that could, in fact, probably have been achieved no other way. Just imagine: there may be white people in America who now, when seeing a young black man, instead of subconsciously thinking: “He’s about to rob me” will think: “He looks like my President”.  That shift is phenomenal – and I have no doubt at all that this single act, this single amazing, historical act, will do incredible things for race relations in America.

But regardless of whether he is black or white, this is what remains: Barack Obama is an exceptional man. Barack Obama is a good man.

I know he’s not perfect. I know his presidency won’t be perfect. But above those things, I know this: that I like waking up in a world where a good, exceptional man is President-elect of the United States.

We need contributors to post news stories and links/write opinion pieces/generally help to keep England For Obama full of the latest news and commentary. I’m afraid you won’t get paid, but you will get the knowledge that you tried to make the world a better place before you had your breakfast.

So if you’re an Obama supporter living in England (or are English living in America) and know a bit about blogging software, please contact us here. If you’re a McCain-loving, Belgium-dwelling technophobe, it’s probably not for you.