An extraordinary evening in New York on Thursday night, at a fund-raising dinner for work, with entertainment including Emmy Lou Harris singing "Imagine" accompanied by Philip Glass on the piano.

I stayed overnight with my cousin in Brooklyn - the first time I've been there, and what a contrast it is with New York.

Then last night we had a reception in the State Dept with Colin Powell saying lots of nice things about the organisation and our boss waxing lyrical in return. No doubt thoroughly sincerely, or perhaps not. I went for dinner with two colleagues and one of our board members. The restaurant we chose was looking dubious about seating us, so I told them that one of our party was an ex-prime minister and suddenly a table was found. Of course, that's a line they probably hear quite often in Washington restaurants.

And today I have to, first, find breakfast and, second, finish editing the Georgia report. At least the hotel has a decent internet connection.

I found yesterday's news from the Netherlands rather alarming.

Apart from the fact that Mabel is a personal friend of mine and it's always very unpleasant when people you know get dragged through the media this way, it's enough to make me wonder what will happen if I ever get back into electoral politics (as I genuinely hope to do some day). Will my ex-girlfriends (or indeed my never-quite-girlfriends) be hounded by the media? Will investigative journalists trawl through my legacy of writing for fanzines and Usenet posts, to quote from my ill-considered rantings of ten to fifteen years before?

Of course, probably the answer is that I am unlikely to be in contention for anything famous enough for that sort of thing (and certainly not looking to marry into royalty or become governor of California). But it's an unnerving feeling all the same.