The centre cannot hold?

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
William Butler Yates

A couple of word of mouth phenomena that loomed in the last few days

Firstly Daniel Hannan (Daniel who...?) the Tory MEP speech in Strasburg attacking Gordon Brown. It wasnt even covered by UK TV, but then blew up on YouTube - he's currently on their front page of most viewed videos. I actually came to see it via a link on a Twitter feed and passed it on to a mate who advises the Tory party who had never even heard of it either. By yesterday it was all over the American media, very timely for GB's trip over there.



Secondly the looming London protests for instance the climatecamp. It's really got people chatting. There is not so much online (blogs, twitter and facebook pages are hardly private) but there is a lot of buzz, even among the people you meet at business meetings. Reading around the blogs all sorts of tricksterish details jump out; that people wont necessarily find out the real climate camp venue until texting soon before - and the 'Four Horsemen' march - representing four crises in one symbolic demonstration.

Two complete extremes, one to the right and one to what used to be called the left. It's shaping up to be - who knows what? - but there is very little sense that the cosy consensus or the official media view of reality that always supported it) is holding. It is now part of a much broader discourse, thanks in part of course to new media.

The feeling around all of this is electric. It's a crowd feeling. The same feelings that were circulating around the Obama election/inauguration. Not a comfortable time to be 'in power' though.