Hi all,

I have been a bit lax lately in posting, so here is the blog post to beat all posts!

Over here in NSW Australia, we have just had the NSW election. I love elections, the free sausages down at the local school, the garage sale and most of all, the statistics. Elections are full of statistics, whether it's the preferential voting system, the voting swings, or the TV coverage that claims to know the winner when 0.001% of the vote has been counted.

The week in my Podcast, we cross to my excited recordings on the way to vote, have a discussion about the preferential voting system used in Australia, and take a look at the closest election victories ever, and the largest ever victory in a democratic election in Jaipur India.

We also have a give away of some tickets to see The Man in the Lab Coat at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, some copies of Cosmos Magazine and a gift of merchandise to the first person to write in from each continent in the world. Tune in and listen for your chance to win!

Grab the podcast here and the mp3 for this story here

I have also put up other stories on the podcast recently. I had a chat to Jenny Lynch, coordinator of the Questacon outreach centre in Sydney about communicating science around Australia to 1-2 year olds, in shopping centres and in indigenous communities. Questacon is Australia's premiere interactive science centre, and has a number of outreach programs that travel Australia communicating science.

We also found that Pluto has a friend in New Mexico, who refuse to recognise it as a planetoid or dwarf planet, but maintain it to be a planet. The other voice you hear on this episode is that of Celine Steinfeld.

Grab the podcast here or the mp3 for this edition here.

Another thing I have been doing is playing around with interactive widgets for the web. The most recent widget that I have come across is the frappr map - please add yourself to "Mr Science World" and say hi. I'd love to know where you are all from.

As a statistically minded Australian, the 2007 Cricket World Cup is something that I have been looking forward to for a long time. I am involved in a cricket blog on the topic - Handled the Ball - with my good friend Nick, so get over there for all your cricket needs over the next few weeks.

I am sure there will be some good science and some interesting statistics arising from the tournament, but until then, have a vote in my poll and let me know who you think will win - all in the name of science of course. We'll see how close the quoted odds are to how First Science readers and listeners think. At the moment, sportstab in Australia have the Aussies as favourites at $2.75, with South Africa at $5.50 - this seems to be some home-town favouritism to me! Sri Lanka at $7.50 is a good bet.

If you can not see the poll, go here to vote.

Then of course, there's all this html stuff I add to the end of my posts...