Today, I am mostly being a drinks expert.

Meanwhile, Mark Chapman has been refused parole after a "review of records". Clearly they didn’t review any of John Lennon’s post-1973 records, otherwise they’d have granted him an official pardon.

And the VP debate appears to have been a draw, with both candidates making the vicious attacks that Bush and Kerry can’t or won’t (respectively, pretty much); probably Edwards came ahead on points, if only because expectations were lower. Although it did allow the Chicago Tribune to run the most Onion-esque headline I’ve seen in a while: "Facts interpreted selectively". And amusingly, Cheney got the URL of anti-Kerry site factcheck.org wrong, referring to factcheck.com instead. Which redirects to George Soros’s anti-Bush site – result!

Final debate thought: I was surprised to read a headline on Google claiming that Cheney creamed Edwards – until I clicked through to discover not only that it was a piece by mad hack Hugh Hewitt, but also that Hewitt thinks Bush won the Kerry debate last week. Again with the wishing it were satire…