There was a way more important by-election today in Oxford for a seat on Oxford City Council vacated by our own Richard Huzzey who is going off to the "Land of the Free" and the alma mater of the simian one.

Congratulations therefore, to Councillor Mark Mills. I see he will be twenty tomorrow, Friday 13th. So happy birthday as well! Do we have any younger principal authority councillors at the moment?

Particularly pleasing was to see Labour, who put in a whole load of work to try to gain the one seat that would have handed them a Town Hall majority beaten into third, and most especially, the Tories' turncoat left unceremoniously back in fourth again in Oxford city! Well done all round everyone!

Except for the miserable bugger porter wanting to sort the students' mail in New College this morning - I've never been spoken to so rudely by a servant of either university, from Chancellors down to porters, as I got from him this morning!

UPDATE:  My glee is somewhat tempered this morning by the news that the City Council had got the votes wrong on the original notice on their web page and in fact the Tories came second and the Greens fourth.  Oh well, you have a Labour run council and that's what you can excpect...:-)