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Meanwhile, Barack Obama has this morning been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. This has, predictably enough, caused half of the world’s population to complain that he does not deserve it. The Nobel people think otherwise;

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the Norwegian committee said in a statement.

“His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”

Personally, I’m half of the mind that this accolade for Obama does seem a little premature considering that he hasn’t actually done anything much, but then again it occurs to me that him not doing anything much is a vast improvement over George Bush when he did anything at all.

So in my humble opinion Barack Obama deserves the prize just for not being George Bush, if nothing else.

There’s a curious news situation going on here in Europe today.

All of the news sources of any significance, including the BBC, are running headline near-saturation coverage on the death of Edward Kennedy in the United States.

Yet, aside from some Irish, I have not met or heard of one single European today who cares, other than perhaps in a kind of “An old guy died? That’s a shame, but it happens…” way. That’s the way I feel too. Sure we have heard of his name, but that’s really all.

The European press have clearly now realised this as they are starting to try to make us think that we should care, but we still don’t as the best they can do is stuff like this;

Anchor; “So tell us why he was such an important figure”.

American being interviewed: “Well, he was extremely important, he was family of JFK, for example, and he was almost like a president himself”.

That’s just not going to do it for Europeans. We don’t know the guy, and never did.

So, maybe we can have some other news now that doesn’t assume that we are all Americans? Because we’re not, you know.

I was earlier reading an article on the BBC news website regarding the shortage of hire cars at European holiday destinations;

Holidaymakers in parts of the UK and Europe are facing bigger bills for hire cars – or risk not getting one at all – due to a shortage of vehicles.

I think that it is worth pointing out that this shortage of hire cars also applies very much to the Algarve, as there are plenty of stories such as these being heard locally.

There have also been cases of people arriving at Faro airport to begin their holiday, with a hire car pre-booked, only to find on arrival that there are in fact no cars available for them regardless of the pre-booking.

Worse, there does not appear to be any solution for those affected as the shortage of cars applies to all of the hire car companies.

If you have pre-booked a hire car for your holiday in the Algarve, you should check – repeatedly if possible – by telephone that a car really will be waiting for you.

If you are planning to spend time in the Algarve and have not pre-booked your hire car, be aware that your chances of finding one available are extremely low.

Gotta love all those 134,000 opportunists, profiteers and dreamers out there.

Michael Jackson had that many close personal friends?

I think not.

A spokesman for the coroner’s office said Jackson had taken “some prescription medication“.

Some?

Right.