Obamania 2: Eurotrip

First of all, two albums by two of my favourite artists came out today - Two Suns by Bat For Lashes, and It's Blitz! by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I waltzed down to my local record shop today in order to buy them, and paying no heed to my painstakingly constructed and colour-coded revision timetable, stuck them on repeat and haven't taken them off since. They're amazing, they're beautiful, buy them and love them.


Obama's on the continent! Hurrah! Along with his awe-inspiring wife, Obama has spent the last week touring Europe, being nice to Muslims and thinking he's Conan O'Brien. I was just as excited as you when I saw him in the president-mobile last week pulling up outside Downing Street and making me realise how dull my head of state was.

And that's just the thing. With the hugely high voter turn-out at the last polls, especially in the 18-35 demographic, people have been banging on about how Obama has politicized young people and made the next generations far more turned on than the current one. It is undoubtedly true that November's election captured the hearts and minds of pretty much the entire western world, and it is highly likely that the youth of the US will feel a far stronger bond with politics after it. But it may actually have the opposite effect on much of the rest of the world's youth. Just surveying the current leaders of the UK political parties, I feel about as politcized as a walrus with a sore tusk. In America, you vote for one person who roughly correlates with the manifesto of the group he represents - in the UK, you vote for the party, specifically the MP who represents your region of around 70,000 people. The system across the pond is far more personal, intimate and ultimately more rewarding, especially considering the fact that you're essentially voting for the next most-important-person-in-the-world. What may happen is that young people, not just in Britain but across the world, may actually become embittered and disappointed by the fact that none of their own politicians or parties measure up to the visceral, exuberant thrust of Barack Obama, leading to a generation disinterested in politics. Perhaps it's just youthful ennui, but I for one have absolutely no desire to vote for any of the major parties in the next election, especially when they appear so out of touch (or desperately misjudged) with me and my contemporaries.

I moan too much. Beg me to stop.

xxX