I picked a bad time to be insanely busy, what with the traffic leap brought by the Weblog Awards shortlisting coinciding with the latest round in the Russia/Ukraine gas dispute (something I’ve been keeping an eye on for a few years now), a rumpus over a silly bit of “art”, and now the uproar over the EU’s ban on (some) pesticides (which according to many hysterical parts of the British eurosceptic press is as good as a death warrant for the carrot, giving them another handy load of fruit’n’veg-based nonsense to go on about now that the straight bananas and curvy cucumbers myth’s finally been killed off).

And now I’m buggering off to Japan for two weeks (a trip that will see the number of times I’ve been to Tokyo overtake the number of times I’ve been to Paris, which doesn’t seem right at all).

While I’m gone, the EUtopia Netvibes Universe and EU Blog Directory should keep you entertained – and I’m planning a long-overdue update of these when I get back, so please leave any suggestions for new entries in the comments. I’ve spotted quite a few new EU-centred blogs since the start of the year, but have probably forgotten to take a note of most of them – and there’s about to be a bunch of new ones on the scene courtesy of the Think About It EU blogging competition.

Oh, and after an absence of a few years, it looks like the UK’s got a new pro-Euro campaign. For reasons best known to themselves their report is only available as a (256 page, 4.5 meg) PDF at the moment, and their website is nothing more than a very basic Wordpress job that looks like it was knocked up in 5 minutes, but the list of contributors includes some good names. Should be worth a read – I haven’t had the chance yet, but plan to have a look through on the plane. (If that doesn’t send me to sleep, nothing will…)

Back February. Keep an eye on things for me, eh?