A couple of upgrades await at the new site, including a daring innovation I call a “blogroll”, which lists other sites of interest. It should be added today. Also, moderation has been made speedier - although evidently not speedy enough for many PSRs (previous site readers). Apologies for that, but Australian libel laws are ******* ******* ridiculous and require that each comment be viewed before publication. Incidentally, naughty words will be ******* cut or edited, so don’t ******* use them. And editing the ******* things takes time, which causes delays, which adds to concerns about moderation not being ******* speedy enough.

(Not that many comments have required editing or cutting. Stunningly few, in fact. And the numerous lefties who’ve endlessly complained about being banned here and who vowed to show up in number at the new site simply haven’t appeared. Wimps.)

By the way, your moderators at the new site are Tran and Nkomo, two hard-working young immigrants keen to make careers for themselves in the lucrative Australian moderation caper. A live-and-let-live type of guy, Nkomo is inclined to let even the most contentious comments through. He doesn’t have issues with anybody, God bless him. Nkomo is a Libran who lists cricket and peace as his major interests.

But Tran is absolutely terrifying. The other day, down in the moderation pit, he got into a fight with one of Joe Hildebrand’s nightshift moderators over possessive apostrophes. The ambulance guys said they’d never before seen such elaborate knife wounds.

Thing is, Tran was armed only with a thesaurus. Sharpened, admittedly, but still just a thesaurus.

Treat both of them well. And treat Tran with extreme caution.

Now head on over to the new site.

Remember, we’re only 24 hours or so into this. Don’t fear the newness. Only a few years ago my site had no comments facility at all; I used to get slammed for that, too. And later for allowing too many comments. Now, for not posting comments quickly enough ...

We’ll sort things out. Might take a little while, but still.

The new site - the shiny new Daily Telegraph site - is only an hour or so old as I write and very much a work in progress. No links yet to other blogs, nor do I have any idea how comments are meant to happen. Give it (and me) a few days.

Massive thanks are owed to Florida’s Andrea Harris, who patiently and expertly hosted me for five years and who during that time became something of a cult figure in Australia. It took the might of News Corporation to lure me away, Andrea.

Now - to the future!

Gordon Brown, Ken Livingstone and 300 Labour councillors were not the only casualties of the local and London elections. No one seems to have noticed, but the other big losers were those people who care about the environment.

We might just look back on May Day 2008 as the moment when the power of green politics peaked and went into reverse. I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it. The reaction of the two main parties to the elections was instructive ...

Mr Brown was not alone in relegating the environment to the back burner. David Cameron, the wind in his sails after the elections, held a prime ministerial press conference in which he set out his priorities for government. Significantly, the words “environment” and “climate change” did not appear in his 1,200-word statement.

Via Benny Peiser. Meanwhile, in Australia we’re still fighting yesterday’s battle:

Treasurer Wayne Swan will unveil an ambitious $2.3 billion climate change program in Tuesday’s budget.

Also in Tuesday’s budget: Swan’s measures to combat scrimshaw piracy, cribbage addiction and pet rock abuse.

Mr Ramsay said he had already spoken to Prime Minister Gordon Brown about outlawing out-of-season produce.

When winter asparagus is outlawed, only outlaws will have winter asparagus.

He says it would cut carbon emissions as less food would be imported and also lead to improved standards of cooking.

Here’s another idea: stop importing foreign television programs.

The TV chef said it was “fundamentally important” for chefs to provide locally-sourced food.

The same presumably applies to locally-sourced television. Ramsay’s UK-sourced program is shown in Australia, the US, Canada ...

"I don’t want to see asparagus on in the middle of December. I don’t want to see strawberries from Kenya in the middle of March. I want to see it home grown."

Ramsay owns a Ferrari; a curious choice for an apparent anti-globalist.

"There should be stringent laws, licensing laws, to make sure produce is only used in season and season only,” he said.

The Green Team’s final tip is just for you, Gordon.

"If we don’t restrict our movements within this industry of seasonal-produce only, then the whole thing will spiral out of control."

Strawberries in March. Why, it’s absolute chaos!

UPDATE. Ramsay is a food fraud:

[Gordon Ramsay] fails quite brazenly to practise what he preaches in his own restaurants, which serve food from thousands of miles away.

UPDATE. And Canberra is more boring than Adelaide.

The Rudd Government is rejecting asylum seeker applications at a higher rate than the Howard government, according to an analysis of new figures.

An Asylum Seeker Research Centre report says the immigration department has knocked back 41 of the 42 cases it has had referred to it since Labor took power after the November 2007 election, a rejection rate of 97.6 per cent.

Time for Phillip Adams to start another reader campaign.

(Via Kae)