Obama

I come home tonight oddly unsettled. Not because I have just seen Daniel Craig's second go as the moody, brutal, muscular kick-ass Bond - which is not terrible, but is a second or third rate Bourne film. And not because I walked back through Peckham.

No, I sit here a few hours from the polls closing on the East Coast, hoping but wary. I know all indications are for Obama in a cake-walk, but there is this horrible nagging feeling that something (such as, I don't know, racism) is going to go wrong. In the past few days, I have become a surrogate pundit for friends here, as the real American, asked to give my take on which way it's going to go, and also to explain the intricacies of the electoral college, why the Cuban vote matters in Miami, etc. I've found that I can lie outrageously and most people will believe me: "In the event of an electoral college tie, it will be settled by a game of horseshoes between the candidates. That's how James K Polk beat Henry Clay in 1844."

The headlines repeated on almost every outlet about this being "an historic election" are starting to grate. Well, aren't the all, for Christ sakes? I'd prefer a the more honest: "Hey, A Black Guy Might be President!"

It'll be a long night. Fingers crossed.