I used to quite like Blackpool. Before I realised that the curse of the political activist is to spend much of your life in the Winter Gardens, I actually visited the town of my own free will, on one of those drunken post-A-level excursions. It was fantastic - my pitful salary from stacking shelves in the library went about three times further than it did in south London, which bought a lot of tequila slammers.

But the last few years has seen that early enthusiasm diminish somewhat. The Winter Gardens is a magnificent venue, but one that really needs dim light and an absence of students / Lib Dems / Tories / Blairites to be appreciated to the fullest. And Blackpool itself is horrible: there’s nowhere to get anything decent to eat, and the first decent coffee shop opened just eight weeks ago, (yes it’s a Starbucks and no, I’m not telling you where it is - it was pleasingly queue-free throughout Lib Dem conference and I want it still to be when I have to suffer the T*ries the week after next). Two up sides: taxis and gin is cheap.

This was my first Lib Dem conference. A couple of Oxford councillors and one failed candidate thought the world was turning on its head when they saw me: thankfully I soon restored their equilibrium. I managed to avoid meeting Mr Harris, though it was a close run thing.

One thing I noticed about Lib Dems is how they all seem to like orange things - vast numbers of orange scarves, ties and t-shirts were in evidence. Not a good colour for most complexions, especially when combined with the faltering light of a Lancashire evening.

Off to Brighton tomorrow. Apparently we’re meeting for drinks. See you there.

Not having blogged for a couple of days, I should really write about the leaked evaluation of Sure Start, and how it proves nothing, but Dan’s done that comprehensively. (And while you’re there, you might want to ask just why his alter-ego is Don Paskini…)

Or maybe I should write about the splash on today’s Daily Mail frontpage, “Labour’s tax on the family“, based (surprise surprise) on another report from the marriage-fetishists of Civitas. (Is it me, or do they publish the same report two or three times a year?)

But I’m not going to, because today was the first proper day of autumn, the first day I was glad of my season-bridging fleece. Stepping out onto the street, there was a snap in the air, that little shock that chills the end of your nose and makes you march smartly to the bus stop. I love slipping out onto the fourth floor balcony above Cornmarket Street and enjoying a private view of Oxford’s skyline that no tourists ever see - looking towards the Radcliffe Camera in the twilight, with the dome illuminated in last rays of amber light and the flags on top of the colleges strained at their poles. Autumn is when I first fell in love with Oxford, and every autumn I’m reminded of it.

And seven years after it became home, I still love it here. Last night, at a friend’s 28th birthday dinner, there was a young woman who’s been here two-and-a-half months after finishing university in Liverpool, and hates it. And I suppose I understand why: it’s not really the place to be if you life is about bars and clubs, and of course, a place is nothing without the right people. But, having said that, I doubt many people are lucky enough to have a journey to work quite like mine, passing a historic village, the track where Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile, a monastery and probably seven or eight listed buildings in twenty minutes, to work in a small city with a thriving local politics and activist community, great arts scene and a real mix of people jostling together in a city centre built before the advent of poured concrete.

I love my job. No, really. But it means having to go to Conservative and LibDem conferences as well as Labour conference. So if there are any other refugees attending, I’ll see you at Absolutely Equal and the NUT fish and chip supper, always reliable haunts of stormtossed Labour people who work for NGOs.

And if you fancy meeting the blogger in the flesh during Labour, I’ll be at stall 43 in the Brighton Centre for much of the week.

Of course, all this eating of free food at the expense of big business, trade unions and think tanks comes at a cost, and not just on the waistline. No reliable blogging for a bit, then. Seeya.

Dan and I were recently discussing Living History, Hillary Clinton’s autobiography, and we both concluded that it was her sanitised pitch for the top job, cleaned up to be palatable to Middle America. Certainly, my impression was that she’d overplayed the whole Goldwater Girl thing. It would appear that David from Oxblog agrees:

One thing I can say with a fair degree of confidence is that Hillary certainly doesn’t want anyone to think of her as a liberal now days. In the first three hundred pages of the book, she never uses the ‘l’-word to describe herself, her husband or any of their policies. If you look in the index, there are no entries for ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’ or anything similar.

In contrast, there are a good number of entries for ‘conservative’ and an extraordinary number of entries for ‘right wing’, which is Hillary’s preferred way of describing her opponents. I find this contrast especially interesting since Hillary herself was once a passionate Republican. More than just a rank-and-file voter, Hillary was a self-described Goldwater Girl and president of the Wellesley College Young Republicans.

Then, within the space of just over a year, Hillary travelled all the way across the political spectrum to become a left-wing Democrat who went up to New Hampshire “to stuff envelopes and walk precints” for Gene McCarthy. This dramatic evolution should have provided Hillary-as-author with the perfect vehicle for describing why she is Democrat and what the party stands for.

Instead, Hillary provides a one-paragraph explanation. In college, she started reading the New York Times, “much to [her] father’s consternation”. In addition, her political science professors pushed her to “examine [her] own preconceptions just when current events provided more than enough material”.

At minimum, this account is certainly plausible. Hillary certain wasn’t the first young Republican converted by liberal professors and a liberal newspaper. But the real question is how. What are the arguments and ideas that Hillary found so persuasive? If she herself was converted, shouldn’t she now be able to serve as a winning evangelist?

I thought I’d do a normblog-style roundup of the blogosphere’s thoughts on the new format.

Qwghlm is first:

The early verdict then? It’s all right. Content-wise, not too much has changed on the first issue - no doubt once they’ve had a few weeks to get it out right, they will start thinking more about how to fully exploit the new format. Colour on every page means not only the opportunity for better photos, but also diagrams, infographics etc. This could mean the rise of overbearing, Independent-style pages, with lots of different text sizes, containing hyperbole over the useful content of the story on inside-page stories, but I really hope they don’t go that way.

DoctorVee, in a detailed post, which I think sums up my unease about and navigational dificulties with the G2:

The next most important thing (for me anyway) is the G2 section. It’s so dinky — I like its size; I think it should suit G2. The problem is, it doesn’t seem to. The G2 is clearly struggling with some things at the moment. While I do like the Short Cuts section being on pages 2 and 3, and the G2 graphic is a great idea (the back page is also good), after that it all seems to go wrong.

Why put it there?At first, for instance, I couldn’t tell whose column I was reading. That’s because the writer’s name is written on its side. Between columns two and three. Again, just why? I’m all for weirdy design and stuff, but I can’t see the reason for this. Having it on its side is fine, but why not before the first column? Of course, if the design stays like this in the long-run I’ll get used to it no bother, but this just seems to be needlessly weird.

You have to do a lot of turning either your head or the paper to the side when reading the G2. An old favourite, ‘Review of Reviews’, for instance is on its side. It tells you to cut it out. I don’t see anybody doing that. Style is on its side aswell, and to be honest I can see why they need to do this. But that’s why I think G2 is struggling with its new size.

Finally, city of sound - a long post with a lot to take in, but worth persevering with:

But perhaps there is another radical goal which the paper could take on without pursuing the tabloids or glossies; an alternative redesign conspicuous by its absence: that is to create a new aesthetic, architecture and interaction design solution to match the “authoritative and intelligent” format that Porter describes the ‘Berliner’ as, and that editor Rusbringer seems to want to lead the main section of the paper after - a “more measured”, progressive liberal news and comment voice on a global scale. If that was the goal, perhaps The Guardian has not nailed its colours to the mast enough. In this sense, the redesign feels caught somewhat between the celeb-fuelled world of the weekly glossies and the clean, stately repose of the European newspaper.

So, I thought rather than tossing off quick post this morning after the excitement of handing over my 95p to the guy in the newsagent, ready with my 5p change for the daily purchase of the Oxford Mail and the Guardian, I’d wait and try the paper out the way I normally would - G2 and supplement on the way to work, start the main paper on the way home, comment with coffee in front of Channel 4 news (still a luxury, Channel 4, even after a year back in England, purely because it’s not S4C).

Things I liked:
- the front page - undeniably stylish, and very different. Interesting use of space, too. I wonder if there will always be some sort of comment on the front?
- the palette - dark blue, orange, green, unexpected colours in unexpected places, not just in the photos
- five pages of comment! (oddly retitled as “comment and debate” rather than “comment and analysis”). At the end of the day, this is why I buy the Guardian. Hatters was on form today, Bunting pretty barking (but then using Frank Furedi as a source for anything discredits any argument, as far as I’m concerned)
- a letters page called “letters and emails” - hurrah, recognition that pens are for Christmas cards and meetings and shopping lists and little else
- the promise of a “response” column on the letters page, for newsmakers to come back on recent stories
- obituaries of ordinary people, submitted by readers
- a tiny G2 - perfect for reading on the bus
- the weekly graphic - today on the upcoming arms fair
- the been there section on the Travel website - it won’t surprise you to learn that I’ve been adding Philadelphia haunts

Things I’m not sure about:
- the size. Main news is clearly better than a broadsheet, but I wasn’t expecting the specialist sections to get bigger and thus become *more* inconvenient than their previous incarnation. Having said that, the Media does seem to have more of an identity when it’s not bundled in with the G2.
- the much-vaunted centrespread photo. Today’s was about the riots in Belfast, and was a good ten or fifteen pages removed from the stories about the issue. I can clearly see the value in doing something special with those colour presses and that centre page - but maybe it would be better for the striking photos of interesting stories whose value is the visual, perhaps accompanied by a nib?
- aside from the size, the G2. Maybe because it was substandard edition today - I mean, another interview with Oona King about life after Parliament? And another slightly-sceptical retrospective on Live8? - but I couldn’t get a handle on where I was in the section. And the new columnists are not appealing; I was excited to see a Germaine Greer column, but she was writing about steel, for some reasons. Opening it up to a page of shorts rather than the cover story was a jolt, but I daresay I’ll get used to it. Couldn’t find the telly at first, either.
- sport, daily. Waste of good paper. And the only useful use for it - keeping sport out of the news pages (cos it’s not) - won’t even apply tomorrow, because some cricketers have won something, apparently.

Jo’s back tomorrow. I think she’ll like it, once she’s got over her irritation at anything she likes changing, ever, and the jet lag of a six hour flight from Tel Aviv.

Anyone else got an opinion?

Feel like I need to post more about tomorrow’s launch of the Guardian Berliner in order to hold on to my front page (fifth result, no less) in Google.com for “Guardian Berliner”, especially as it seems to be the main method by which people are finding me at the moment.

It’s worth reading Victor Keegan’s blog about the making of the first edition of the new paper, not least for more information about the changes. I’ve just learned that there will be a daily leader column entitled “in praise of”, and that tomorrow’s will be about the Proms.

But, on the crucial matter of the font, there’s bad news. The editor lets us know that “bold black sans serif headlines will have made way for a more restrained serif headline font.” Now I’m apprehensive…

Only the Guardian would have an entire article about the font used:

Almost every other British newspaper still bases its design on one serif and one sans serif font.

Instead, Barnes and Schwartz built a “family” with 96 members, ranging from a classic Egyptian to a sans serif italic, and at numerous different weights. Even the £ signs and other special characters were redesigned. Headlines will range in size from 20 to 60 points - there are 72pts to the inch - but will tend to be smaller than at present. After weeks of discussion, the design team settled on an 8pt body font for news pages - as now - with slightly wider vertical spacing, at 9.5pt. It soaks up words, but remains legible.

Looking at the font in the advert on this page and masthead on this page, the thing that leaps out at me is the archaic-looking lower case “g”, shaped like a figure 8. It just seems an odd decision, especially as that “g” is so important to the new brand.

Skuds is apprehensive about the size more than the font: he’d like it to be smaller.

I think there’s an interesting point about the move to a more “European” format, to do with the Guardian’s longstanding tradition of trying to look across the Channel for inspiration rather than across the Atlantic.

If you’d like to see what the new front page will look like, there’s an image at Wikipedia, and a pdf on the Guardian’s own site.

UPDATE: just found an interesting article about the change at the Press Gazette.

Coming back to the internet after two days offline has meant that I’ve had a lot of catching up to do. Here are two posts that made me think:

Mind the Gap directed me to this post, by an American called Julius, about being poor. Some of the points are ridiculous, some are suprising, some are just plain incomprehensible to UK reader, but all are about the powerlessness of poverty. This one sticks with me: “Being poor is having to live with choices you didn’t know you made when you were 14 years old.”

Small Town Scribbles remembers sightseeing on September 10th, 2001:

The top floor was like a small shopping mall. It had room for a restaurant, a cinema, a gift shop, a pub. Looking through the glass walls to the outside, the view gave a similar feeling from that experienced whilst looking at the ground from a flying aeroplane. You could see for miles.

We walked the parameter and took our clues of what we were looking at from the written guides placed around the sides. We put a dime in a machine and it flattened the coin out and printed “I Love NY” on it. [..] I went to the Rest Room. We had a drink. We bought gifts for family; some mugs and a box of chocolates with the logo On Top Of The World on them. My husband had a pleasant chat with the women serving at the Gift Shop till. He remembers that conversation to this day.

Abortion is illegal in Pakistan unless performed to save a woman’s life. [...]

According to a study (2002-2004), `Unwanted Pregnancy and Post-abortion Complications in Pakistan,’ conducted by the Population Council of Pakistan, the estimated national abortion rate is 29 per 1,000 women in the reproductive age-group.

For comparison, the UK rate is 17.8 per thousand women.

As abortion is illegal, safe abortion services are rarely available to women, who are forced to visit illegal clinics run by traditional birth attendants (TBAs) or midwives, says the study. [...]

According to the study, 23 per cent of the women who resort to unsafe abortions by unskilled health providers (since most reputed doctors and hospitals will not offer abortion facilities) are later hospitalised for complications.

It’s worth reading the full article here. (via Feministe)

As we move further away in time, surely it’s more important than ever that we remember the victims of the Holoaust, and redouble our resolve that it doesn’t ever happen again.

This year’s act of remembrance for all the victims of the Holocaust sticks in my mind: young people grouped on the steps of the Clarendon Building in Oxford in the gathering darkness of a January night, quietly reading out, not together or in unison but in their own time and at their own pace, the names of those who died from a particular village in Poland, sometimes five or ten names together with the same surname.

Jo’s in Israel at the moment; today she’s visiting Yad Vashem, the memorial to the Jewish victims in Jerusalem.

Also today, we learn that an advisory group to the Prime Minister is calling on him to ditch the day, as it is “offensive to Muslims”.

I was glad to see that it wasn’t just me that smelt the unmistakeable whiff of anti-semitism in this.