We awoke this morning in our flat in Parliament Court to the first day of winter. Snow flakes were drifting past the window and there was a sprinkling of snow on he roof tops. But by the time we had breakfasted it seemed like the last day of summer.

The sun was blazing directly above the Royal Free Hospital, which surely must be one of the ugliest buildins in London. This morning it was in shadow, a dark grey untidy cube. Folks around here say that the best view of the Royal Free is from the inside looking out, where you can see Hampstead Heath to the north and a panoramic view of Westminster and the City to south.

Looking the other way from our flat across the railway line you can see the roof of the Emirates Stadium, where Manchester City were trouncing Arsenal 3-Nil yesterday. I am too far away to hear the crowd. But inside my head yesterday I did hear the Molineux roar; the Wolves were at home to Blackpool. They won 2-Nil giving them a six point lead at the top of the Championship. If they go on like this they will be playing at the Emirates Stadium next season and hopefully outplaying the Gunners whose current team is rubbish compared to the teams chosen and managed by the Wolves Billy Wright in the days when i still followed football every week.

Now that Barack Obama has won the election I can say, without any fear that my blog might damage his chances, that deep within the heart of Barack Obama there lurks the spirit of the British romantic poets, whose hopes were dashed by the leaders who took power after the French Revolution, and who lived to mourn the fall of France to the new imperialist, Napoleon Bonaparte.

In my view, Obama is a true revolutionary, imbued with the spirit of the founding fathers of the US, who sailed away from England to create their own Utopia. But American independence from the British crown was won after a bitter war of independence, when the Generals, including George Washington, ousted the Brits by firepower.

Obama, by contrast, came to power via the ballot box, and with no allegations so far of vote rigging. So his victory is a triumpth for democracy. And, note, that far from executing his opponents, he is offering them a place in his government, which takes power shortly after my 75th birthday in January.

So I write tonight full of hope, for myself, for my children and, above all, for my grandchildren. Which does not mean that I underestimate the difficulties he faces, including the recession, which I am now convinced is going to be the worst since the 1930s. I don’t want to speculate just who he will have in his cabinet, whether Hillary Clinton will be Secretary of State and whether John McCain, might be enlisted as an ally.

The point is that it is now clear that Obama is going to a different President than any President in history. Not another Jack Kennedy, nor a black Bill Clinton, not even a twenty-first century version of Franklin D Roosevelt. But his own man, an unusual mixture of romantic poet, Harvard egg-head, political organiser.

So I am full of hope. But dismayed. Because although I have repeatedly said that this is the most important US election of my life-time, I have not written a blog since 5 November. And that blog was full of mistakes which I have not had time to correct.

Problem is that a lot has been happening in my own life, which has required my full attention, and damaged my ability to blog.

I have been seeking to follow my own dream of 2006, buying a bungalow by the seaside and a flat in town. The bungalow was bought in August 2007, but there were no flats available we could afford, so I have been renting a second floor flat, whereas I need to pause to catch my breath at first floor level.

The good news is that we found a ground floor flat we liked and could afford in early September. It should have been easy and quick. But thanks to legal complications, which my lawyer had to investigate and minor calamities while the decorators were doing their job once we had taken possession, we did not actualy move in til last Saturday. And we had to leave at dawn on Monday morning to meet commitments is Dorset, where I am now.

The decorators stopped work on their second day, because the loo had flooded. This was because the plumbers who fitted the new bathroom of my vendor, just over two years ago, had fitted the wrong innards. Which I did not know for sure, until my own plumber made it right in less than two hours on Saturday, while the removal men were putting our possessions from our rented flat into their van.

But I was already incapacitated, because in hurrying to meet the plumber I had slipped on wet leaves and ‘dislocated my little finger’. The duty doctor at Royal Free accident and emergency, injected my and attempted to pull it straight. When that did not work, he called in his boss man, who turned over my hands, and told me that I had Dupuytren’s Contrature, which was indentified by Baron Dupuytren in 1831. He thought it was caused by too many years of holding on to the reins of his horse.

Now, 177 years later, the doctors are sure that this was not the cause, but they have no idea what the actual cause is. Pictures, and more thoughts on this in a later blog.

The Royal Free man said that I should go to to my doctor and get him to get me an appointment with a consultant surgeon who would operate to repair my hands. I saw my doctor in Dorset yesterday, who confirmed the diagnosis, but said that I need not have an operation, unless my crooked little finger and the bumps on my hands prevented me doing what I needed to do.

Which they don’t. Which is why I am able to write this blog.

And why I am able to get back to thinking about Obama’s election and what it means to the world. Not tonight.

But over dinner my wife passed across the table the picture below of three pregnant ladies, who all happen to be friends of my eldest daughter’s. And the picture was taken on Hampstead Heath about 200 yards from my new flat.

The products of those pregnancies are now growing up. And thanks to the election of Obama, I am hopeful that they will be able to grow up and enjoy the ‘country in the town’ which is Hampstead Heath.

And be inspired by the poetry of the romantics - Keat’s Ode to a Nightingale was written two hundred yards away. And the prose of George Orwell, some of which was written in the Prompt Corner cafe, two hundred yards in the opposite direction.

God Bless America. And all those Americans, including Obama, who still strive to make a better world than the one we inhabit.

America and the world wakes up this morning to learn that the American dream has at last become a reality. In his six minute acceptance speech, that was both modest and sober yet demontrated beyond all doubt that hi eloquence comes from within, not from the speech writers.Barack Hussein Obama,

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer,” he said.

“It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

The result was never in doubt as the night unfolded but by around 4 AM GMT it becaame clear that the majority was almost as huge of that won by Bill Clinton in his second term, with 338 electoral college votes cast for Obama against just 155 votes for John McCain. The eight-year reign of George W Bush has ended. Although Bush remains in charge of the White House until 20 January 2009, from this day on he wil consult wiith Obama when any major problems arise.

The result brought tears to the eyes of the Rev Jesse Jackson, the veteran black politician, who himself bid to win the Presidency. Like Obama, Jackson was inspired by the dream of Martin Luther king who lit the fires of the civil rights movement with his ‘I have a dream’ speech in 1963. The news that there will be an Afro-American in the White House is a tonic for black people everywhere. The turn-out at the polls was an all-time record for an American election. Obama’s eloquence, combined with the brilliance of his organisation and the $5 billion he was able to raise brought out the black vote. Many black votes voted for the first time in their lifetime.

But in his acceptance speech Obama re-iterated that although he is black, Democrat, liberal and left-wing, that he wants to form something like a government of national unity.

‘We are, and always will be, the United States of America”

In the last few weeks Obama has been helped by the financial crisis. We shall never know whether Obama would have won, in the melt-down had not occurred, if George W Bush, had not had to back-track on his free market beliefs and pump billions of Goverment money into the economy and near-nationalise leading banks. But the crisis gave Obama his chance to kill the negative campaigning that attempted to brand him a man of insufficient experience to be entrusted with the world’s top job. The team of Hilary Clinton, in the Democratic primaries, and some of the Republicans in John McCain’s team, played on fears that Obama was not to be trusted with nuclear button.

During the campaign there were also repeated attempts to play on the racial prejudice, which undoubedly exist in the minds and hearts of some American. Early in the campaign there was a concerted attempt to cast Obama as a black revolutinary, by using the words of his long-time pastor, Jerimiah Wright. The Murdoch-owned Fox Television repeatedly used his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, to imply that he sympathesied with Musliim terrorists.

Rupert Murdoch himself appeared on US television last night to voice his continued fears about Obama’s leftyness. But his papers in London were already being printed with hugely positive headlines. The Sun proclaimed:

One giant leap for mankind

The headline writers of The Times called it a ‘New World’. Their first leader could not have been more positive. Here is the opening:

Barack Obama fulfills the dream

Forty years after the murder of Martin Luther King the United States has elected an African American president. It is a moment to savour

The election of Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan goatherd, as the 44th President of the United States of America is a moment to savour, proof that the promise of a better day, expressed in prose that rises like poetry, can still carry an electorate. The margin of victory was emphatic and, whatever else follows, today the world changed. The cheers of the exultant crowd in Grant Park, Chicago will find their echo across the free world.

This is not to belittle the Republican candidate John McCain. We knew from his life that he is a brave man. We know from his campaign that he is a good man. But, from today, a black child born in America will look on his nation with greater pride because he will feel that the highest office in the land is open to him. The American nation will replenish the confidence that it has lately lost. In the eyes of the world, the slate will be clean and the pretext, always spurious, for anti-Americanism has been removed. On his very first day, and without doing a thing, Barack Obama has brought America together and brought America closer to the world.

And here is the conclusion:

But the achievements, the arguments, the what-ifs, the fear of disappointment: these are not for now. The essential point about President Barack Obama is the privilege of being able to write this sentence. A black man has been elected to the highest office of the most powerful country of the world and, to borrow one of his own phrases, a righteous wind is at his back.

Whether Obama will actually be able to do enough to save the world from a major recession. But this far the stock markets are giving him the thumbs up. Wall Street rose 4 per cent on election day as the predictions were showing a clear Obama victory. Asian markets rose by about 5 per cent this morning after his victory was confirmed.

…….in the most important US election in my lifetime.

But most of the British press has it’s priorities all wrong.

The Guaridan is leading tonight on the Congo. The Times is urging its readres to starve the fat cats of TV like Jonathan Ross. The Daily  Telegraph is finding a glimmer of hope for John McCain in the US election. The Daily Mail is splashing on what a man called Hamilton is doing for people who still think that the future of the world rests with people who can dirve their motor cars faster than anyone else. Irrespective of what they may do to global warming or adding to the toll of people killed on the roads.

More shamefully, The Daily Mirror, is also splashing on Lewis Hamilton. As if their working class readership was interested in nothing but sport. As those Mirror readers are so dumb that they do not connect the troubles they are now facing with the credit crunch, the melt-down and the behaviiour of the banks building societies and credit card companies they deal with.

But, for those who care about journalism this evening’s news is not all bad.

The Financial Times leads with the news that it will take a miracle for McCain to reverse the commanding lead that Barack Obama has taken in the minds of American voters.

Not many of the British working classes read the Financial Times. But what it is saying today is of much more importance to their daily lives than the so-called popular papers are telling them.

Have just checked.

The Sun and the Daily Express are also leading on Lewis Hamilton.

None of the publishers and editors of these papers would think there is anything wrong with this. The working classes are interested in sport. Just like the middle classes and the upper classes. But they know where to find the sports pages.

In today’s crisis, the working classes want to know about the national and international politics even more than the better off. Because they are suffering more.

They all know someone who has got in trouble because they cannot afford their mortgage payments, urged on them by the banks, behaving in the way they have been encouraged to behave by Margaret Thatcher and George W Bush.

They know that who gets the White House and who governs in Downing Street is much more important to their survival than the exploits of Lewis Hamilton.

It is not at all surprising that the Rupert Murdoch’s of this world should peddle sport and sex to the working classes, who are foder to buy his satellite dishes and movies to take their minds off their troubles.

But the really depressing thing is that The Independent, which was created to provide an alternative, has all too obviously given up. It to spashes this evening on Lewis Hamilton. It was started by a bunch of journalists, led by Andreas Whittam Smith, who was a high minded churchly man who believed in decent journalism, ethics and truth. The majority owner is now Tony O’Reilly, who has, and is spending millions of the money he has made from his busines activities to support these ideals.

He is wasting his money.

The Independent is no longer leading the pack. It is shilly shallying between its own idiosyncratic splashes and pandering, as tonight, to the lowest of the low popular newspaper criteria established by Northcliffe’s Daily Mail in Britain.

In the current crisis, all of us want to know, what our political leaeder are going to about the banks and other financial institutions who have led us into this crisis.

Like the Halifax Builidng Society, to which the working classes have entrusted their savings. Now surviving thanks to government bail-outs.

That’s why this US election is important to all Brits. That’s what should be on the front pages.

Despite the meltdown and the continuing credit crunch the London property market has not ground to halt. I can tell you on first hand evidence. Because on Friday, around 5 PM we completed on the purchase of a London flat to replace the flat we have been renting since April of last year. So all readers of The Daily Novel should know that I have put my money where my mouth is.

What we are facing at present is a crisis of confidence. This has been evident to me over the past few weeks, when I have had to deal with all sorts of advice that we should NOT buy this flat. So although what I have to say in this post is typical journalistic anecdotal evidence, it does reflect the crisis of confidence that is deterring thousands of people who are wanting to move home.

What has changed during the last few weeks is not the reality situation, it is the public perception of it. But I have not had time to blog about this, because my time has been consumed in meeting the objections to my own modest purchase.

So  this blog is just about one UK property purchaser, wanting to buy a flat in a 1930s block on the bottom side of Hampstead on Parliament Hill. Because we have lived around this area for many years, we, and our friends, know several people who live in this block, mostly very happily. And, I know, that it brings me nearest to the house in which John Keates wrote ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, which i read when i was a teenager in Wolverhampton in the heart of the Black Country.

It was a very nice place to live in Keates’ time when the the eighteenth century was coming to terms with the realities of the nineteenth century, when the beacons on Parliament Hill were ready to be lit when Napoleon invaded. It is still a very nice place to live in 2008. Not least because Hampstead Heath is now actually bigger than it was in Keates’ time. And is a mixture of lawns and woodland that beats Hyde Park into a cocked hat.

Nevertheless, i was besieged by advice from my advisers with reasons why I should NOT buy this flat now.

But first, i should report what the estate agent said.

This flat was an Art Deco development with panoramic views over London. True, because although we are on the ground floor, we can see, as Janet noticed when we first went there, that you can acually see the Obelisk.

What I noticed when we first visited is that looming much larger in the near view is the Royal Free Hospital, which is one of the ugliiest modern buildings in the whole of Lonodn. (Although it’s medical care is far above average in the NHS.).

But the avalanche of negative comment I got from the professionals when we put in our offer did not mention the ugliness of the Royal Free, looming large in the foreground of our ‘panoramic’ views over London.

It came from other objections.

First, my surveyor, who told me over the telephone, it is a brick box near an electricity sub-station. To interpret. Our new flat does not have the high ceilings of the Victorian house we lived in around here for 39 years. And, the electricity sub-station, while not a healthy risk, might deter some purchasers.

Next my lawyer, who informed me, along with many queries about the complicated long lease, that my intended property was adjacent to the North London Railway, which might well deter some purchasers. He was quite right, but there are also some people like myself, and, Michael Palin, who actually like living near to railway lines.

The Palin’s and us bought our first small houses around here in 1967 in Oak Village. Michael is still there, having coped with the expansion of his family and his increasing riches, by buying two adjoining houses in Oak Villiage. We moved in 1976 a few hundred yards to a bigger Victorian house on the other side of the Mansfield Road.

But my point is, that my lawyer is quite right to point out that some people will absolutely not want to live by a railway. But, it is equally true, that some people like it!

Finally, my financial adviser told me that i should consider the advantages of going on renting. His advice, I think, was sound. If i wait a year or two, it is likely that I could buy a flat like this more cheaply.

So I don’t think that we have made the best possible property investment by buying our new flat.

But buying a flat or a house in much more than property investment. It is buying a home.

We took possession yesterday in the worst possible conditions. It was pouring with rain. You could barely see the Royal Free Hospital, let alone the Obelisk.

So we had lunch at the Magala pub just down the road. Since we had driven up from Dorset to collect the keys, I wanted to order the full Enlish breakfast. The disk they provided was the 2008 equivalent. I protested, because i could not find the bacon.

But I was wrong. Because, as was pointed out to me, it was there. Not rashers of bacon, but tiny bits smaller than the old English farthing.

But, one of the reasons that I was happy with our new flat, is that I first visited the Magdala, in 1959, when i had a bedsit nearby. It did not serve any food in those days, but it had a healthy custom because, alllegly it had in the wall, a bullet fired from the gun of Ruth Ellis who was the last woman hanged in Britain for murder.

This was a fake. Although, Ruth Ellis did indeed shoot her lover outside the Magdala, the then-pub management faked the bullet hole. And for many years the media substantiated the myth.

But it was in 1959, and still is today, decent pub.

Which is perhaps one of the reasons that I have ignored all the nay-sayers who advised me to think again before i bought this flat.

So to bring this blog back from the personal to the political.

The current crisis requies not only than governments stake their money.

It requires that everyone who can afford it should spend.

Not listen to all the advice that tells them that if they hold off they can buy more chealyl than today.