October 19

Took a day trip to DC on my own. It's odd. America is in the middle of its most vital presidential election in a lifetime and DC - it's capital - is strangely serene. There are no campaign ads on TV and radio because DC is not a state and therefore carries no electoral college votes. That's not to say people don't care. I overheard half a dozen conversations about the election - most of it refreshingly in-depth and enlightened. Eager beaver politicos fill the city's Starbucks, discussing actual issues rather than the gossip and character-politics which fascinate most people the world over.

Everyone's talking about Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama. Powell has had an axe to grind over his Republican Party for years so I suppose this was his chance to stick it to them good. Bush used to lock him out of meetings apparently. He's widly respected amongst right-wingers so his endorsement carries some real weight.

Someone emailed me asking about the number of McCain signs in Virginia in comparison to the number of Obama signs displayed in people's backyards. In the areas I've been to I'd give the nod to McCain. There seem to be slightly more of them on highways and outside big country houses. However, as someone pointed out to me the other day: all it takes is one decent-sized block of appartments in an urban area (80 per cent of whom will certainly vote Democrat) to cancel out 20 countryside ranches. So signs don't tell you much.

I found a shop in DC selling political memorabilia. It was the size of someone's living room and was piled high with crap. It was empty apart from me, the owner and another customer and as I fought the urge to buy a "Palin Power" t-shirt I listened to their conversation. It was a weird, arch-conservative style talk, at once condescending to "normal people" while simultaneously claiming to somehow speak for them. The customer was instantly recognisable to anyone from England as a "young conservative". Trousers pulled up to armpits, nasal voice accompanied by generous sprays of saliva, comedy nerd glasses. You get the point. He had armfulls of McCain-Palin stuff and he was putting an order in for "All the new Reagan stuff". This non-partisan stuff is getting hard.

I know this is an obvious point but the people walking around DC's more upbeat neighbourhoods like Georgetown are so utterly different from those in the flea market. It's two countries. Two American tribes, split roughly across voting lines. Heartlanders and metropols. They have nothing to say to each other. They can barely tolerate each other. How can a country like this agree on anything at all? In two weeks they will all be united under a new president that 50 per cent of them hate.

Also - great news! My scarified torso is really healing up! You would never know I had been eaten alive by (what I assume were) mutant spiders. I almost look... human. Almost.