Britons win gold and silver in the transatlantic rowing race: an omen for the Olympics?

BOX NUMBER 8 WINS AND ANDREW BROWN BREAKS A WORLD RECORD from Talisker Whisky on Vimeo.

On 5th December, we watched 17 rowing boats leave the harbour at San Sebastian La Gomera at the start of a transatlantic rowing race and, after getting home, have been following its ups and downs ever since.

Last night (40 days later), first and second places went to British rowers who arrived in Barbados 26 minutes apart - with the next boat more than 100 nautical miles away.

Rowing across the Atlantic may have yet to qualify as an official Olympic sport, but it would be nice to think that their success will be an omen for more medals for our competitors later in the year.

At the time of writing, the bronze medal contenders are only 47 nautical miles from the finish and you can keep up with the race HERE.

A gentleman who is for turning: snakes or ladders weekend for Ed Balls?

Thanks to a speech to the Fabian Society (above) and endless interviews by Ed Balls (e.g. below), this weekend has been alive with the sound of turning in the mainstream media, blogs and on Twitter.

Under a headline 'This is new all right. it just isn't enough', John Rentoul of the Independent on Sunday tells us 'Ed Balls caught up with where the Labour Party should have been 16 month ago. It was an important moment...' (more HERE).

The New Statesman is rather less optimistic, with an article by Owen Jones telling us 'Ed Balls' surrender is a political disaster' (more HERE).

And, perhaps not surprisingly, the unions aren't too pleased by what looks like rather sudden U turn from Mr Balls - see Unions criticise Ed Balls's pay freeze comments on the BBC website HERE.

Snake, ladder or both?

For me, I find myself wondering how the speech and interviews by Mr Balls fit in (or not) with the snakes and ladders theory of political communication, which proposes that interviews work like snakes for politicians (by attracting negative news coverage) and speeches work like ladders (by attracting positive news coverage) - for more on which HERE.

But here we have an example of a politician staying consistently 'on message' - and a highly controversial one at that - both in a speech and related interviews.

There's no doubt that a message has got across (though to how many over a weekend?) and, given how little of the speech was actually to be seen or heard on broadcast news programmes, this probably had more to do with the interviews than his Fabian Society lecture.

However, whether it's had (or will have) a positive or negative otcome for Mr Balls and the Labour Party, only time will tell.

Polish lawyer shoots himself while waiting for Miliband's speech

While I was waiting to hear Ed Milband's speech earlier today, I was seriously distracted by a macabre piece of news footage, in which a Polish lawyer shoots himself during a five minute break that he'd just requested.

And if that wasn't bizarre enough, he missed and, at the time of writing, is still alive (more on which HERE).

So anyone expecting to read about Miliband's 'relaunch' speech will, I'm afraid, have to wait...

Update, 11 January:

Injury 'not life-threatening' - interview from hospital bed HERE.