I'd like to get in early and wish everyone a Happy New Year for 2008, the International Year of the Potato.

I intend to do my year in review of cricket for 2007 on about January 5.

If you wish to leave any comments (or any thoughts about the Top 10 Cricket Stories of 2007) please do so in the box below. The Captcha facility is not working too well, so I have disabled it and made all comments subject to approval. It might take a couple of days to get around to approving.

I've been a bit blogged out since the Ruddster was handed the controls of the nation, but my brain is slowly returning to gear now.

Billy Hughes was the Honourable Member for Bradfield from 1949 to 1952.

Brendan Nelson has been the Honourable Member for Bradfield since 1996.

Billy Hughes was a member of the Australian Labor Party before switching to the conservatives.

Brendan Nelson was a member of the Australian Labor Party before switching to the conservatives.

Billy Hughes was leader of the Australian Party until it was wound up, and leader of the United Australia Party shortly before it was wound up.

Brendan Nelson is leader of the Liberal Party... for now.

It's official. The compact fluorescent lightbulb is the Official Bulb of the State of Texas.

The San Antonio Business Journal takes up the story.

Brendan Nelson. Leader of the Liberal Party. Leader of the Opposition.

Warren Truss. Leader of the National Party. Deputy Leader of the Opposition.

Oh.
My.
God.

Analysis later.

John Howard wanted to be the new Bob Menzies. Today, it was finally confirmed that he has become the new Stanley Bruce.

There's a difference, though. After Prime Minister Bruce lost the seat of Flinders in 1929, he stood again at the next election in 1931, and won, returning to parliament (albeit as a backbencher) until 1933.

Kerry Nettle's defeat in the New South Wales senate race is one of the disappointments of this federal election. She was squeezed out by the major parties who between them seem certain to claim all six NSW senate seats. It represents remarkable good luck for Ursula Stephens, who was booted down to number three on the Labor ticket. Her return represents a nett gain of one NSW senator for the ALP at the Greens' expense.

Did you notice that John Howard did not explicitly state anything about stepping down as Liberal Party leader last night? Even though he talked about the future opposition leader, and endorsing Peter Costello for the job, it was taken for granted that he would not hang around as Leader of the Opposition.

I'm betting that he hopes he loses in Bennelong so that he can get the agony of defeat over with quicker. Irony is, he might yet be saved by postal votes. All that means is that Maxine McKew will win the by-election in early 2008.

There were no blogs in 1996. No Wikipedia, no Youtube, not even a Google. There was a CricInfo, and I used my dialup terminal connection to follow the live scores on a lynx browser, and to catch up on the archives through gopher. That was how I kept up with the Cricket World Cup on March 2, 1996, the last time Australia had a Labor government.

Not easy to interpret senate figures so early in the piece, but a couple of observations so far:

The Democrats are history. They have performed dismally in Queensland (0.09 quotas on first preference at the moment). They're on 0.11 quotas in Victoria which makes it damn hard for Lyn Allison. In New South Wales, they've been outpolled by the DLP, which has been spent force in Australian politics from the time Vince Gair was despatched to Dublin.