The unusual short film competition with board games which I was at two weeks ago was fantastic fun. Again, Mark has a bit to say about it. There’s also loads on the Really Restrictive Shorts blog which I wrote some of. Click the “1, 2, 3, 4… next… last…” links right at the bottom of the page to see more. There are photos and videos and so on.

Also today, there’s a good description of mySociety in the Guardian. That’s the, also unusual, charity that I work for. Given we’re anarchically structured, Tom Steinberg clearly can’t be my boss. Instead you could think of him as the person the rest of us delegate fundraising, client management and making sure the accounts balance to. I missed it, but they put me in the week before last talking about PledgeBank.

Cambridge is sunny today, and the snow has just melted from the roofs. Enjoy your this next precious year, wherever you are!

I’m in Wales, helping out at a most unusual short film competition, with boardgames. I can’t do better than my flatmate Mark at explaining it, so if you want to know what we’re doing read his post on the subject.

Also since writing here last, I’ve spent a while in North America. New York ate all my money. I found the Statue of Liberty surprisingly moving – it’s original purpose, representing real freedom, is important to remember. Toronto was fantastic. I stayed with Martin Crawford, who knows the extensive and fun live music scene like the back of his hand. The food in Toronto is amazing, and the layout of streets with busy tram-field, small shop, main roads, and quiet cross streets of wooden houses all different. Canada really is the best bits of Europe and best bits of America mixed together in one country. I was quite surprised.

Then I went to Georgia, the one in the Caucases between Russia and Turkey. This was initially on work, a project to do with Georgian Parliamentary informatioon. It’s a very harsh place to travel in December. I went to Stalin’s birthplace, Gori, and to Borjomi where a mineral water comes from (the one the Russians have recently banned import of). Georgia was (roughly) the second country to become Christian, and it has its own orthodox Church. There were gorgeous, and sometimes very remote, old churches. It’s also a very European seeming country. Despite its poverty, it felt familiar in the way that only European countries do.

Enough for now, I think I have to write a blog post about the board games we had this evening for the Really Restrictive Shorts website…