And behold, we emerged into the cold sharp sunshine, rapidly being warmed by the realisation that Obama indeed had won, that as dawn Eastern European Time approached, red states had turned blue, yea, even Florida; and as our eyes slowly focused, we remembered that we lived in Bulgaria and should tune in again to see what was going on. Hence, a short journey into an Obama-free zone. Not necessarily the kind that Sarah Palin would have wanted.

Tattered scraps of newspaper, or to be precise, a week-old copy of mass-circulation daily 24 Chassa, told us that the first impact of the global financial crisis was being felt. To wit, the number of clients of beauty parlours had dropped. However, restaurants remained full and cinemas and theatres reported no decline in sales of tickets.

Presumably, in the dark of auditoriums, no one can see the absence of a manicure. In dimly-lit restaurants, no one need detect a limp and fading coiffure. You could always make a medium-term investment in a Sarah Palin wig, presumably now discounted and less in demand. Oh, I'm sorry. I did promise an Obama-free zone.

Speaking of elections (no, not that one, please stay with me), the "leader" of Boiko Borissov's party GERB, Tsvetan Tsetanov, told a news conference that he had evidence which he said implicated the majority partner in the national coalition, the Bulgarian Socialist Party, in vote-buying in a village that he did not identify by name.

Tsvetanov gave the BSP a week to confirm or deny his allegation, after which he would refer the matter to the European anti-fraud office, Olaf. A week has passed, the BSP has not responded, and no proof has been offered, and nor has the village been named, and for anyone hoping against hope, there is no suggestion that it was in a battleground state. Oh, there I go again. By the way, did you know that the BSP are rather proud of being European Socialists? Whoops, sorry.

A tiny scrap of daily newspaper Klassa said that Bulgaria's heavy industry could shrink by 30 per cent by the end of 2009 because of the global financial crisis (conjuring up an unfortunate image of machines magically shrinking) while a fragment of daily Trud said that there would be a 30 per cent drop in tourists in Bulgaria this winter, and they did not mean off a steep cliff at the end of a black run.

Oh, wasn't it nice that some of the election night coverage on CNN was interrupted by adverts for Bulgarian tourism? Unemployed house and senate Republicans are welcome anytime, to make up the numbers. (Really, I'll stop now, I promise.)

They could help Economy Minister Petar Dimitrov in his cause, which apparently is to prove that Bulgaria will profit from the global financial crisis. It is not that Dimitrov's background was as a lifejacket salesman in a little boat bobbing near the Titanic, oh no, he owes his educational background, after attending a high school in Sofia named for Karl Marx, to a course in the 1980s at the Moscow Institute of Economics and Statistics, where he got a doctorate. Whether he was summa cum laude or somewha' lower down I do not know, but his faith endures in the bright future of this country as the Capitalist West collapses.

Dimitrov's rationale, as he told the South East European Economic Forum this past Wednesday, was that Bulgaria had low prices, the cheapest energy distributors and low taxes. Well, at least Joe the Plumber could be encouraged to apply for asylum. Dimitrov unfortunately left out the fact shown in a survey earlier this year that Bulgaria has the lowest unit price of beer in the European Union, which could have been the clincher. All right, I know I promised, but surely that was not the only fatuous promise issued in recent weeks. As to the low prices, one foreigner may not be entirely convinced, to wit, that MEP who was charged a heap of euro for a trip from Sofia Airport to the city centre. He tried to take up the matter, but in turned out the taxi receipt the driver had given him was fake. Worth about as much as a dimpled chad.

And Bulgaria was not without its own political tectonic shifts. The landscape trembled as Kuncho Filipov of the LIDER party, Krassimir Karakachanov of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation and Stefan Lichev of the Agrarian National Union together formed a movement whose name translates as Forward, solemnly announcing that this was the first step towards a new political force in Bulgaria, poised to seize the balance of power, although there was no sign that the balance of power was in the slightest aware that it was about to be seized, and appeared to remain dozing complacently. "If there's a robocall for me," the balance of power might say, "take a message and wake me later". Perhaps Forward could adopt what is now known to be a winning slogan, "Yes We Can" although they would need to tack on an additional "…Form A Party That Has More Than A Few Dozen Members".

Still on politics, for those who were inexplicably mesmerised by a pending change of leadership in the most important country on the planet (our Beijing Correspondent asks that I clarify that to "one of the most important countries"), there were media leaks that General Atanas Atanassov intends to challenge Ivan Kostov for the leadership of the Democrats for Strong Bulgaria if the party does badly, as the opinion polls suggest it will, in next year's parliamentary election, which Atanassov clearly would indeed prefer to see as a general election. May I suggest that they rename the party the Strong Democrats for Bulgaria? It could even work. Given their nationalist strain, they could even try combining this name change with the slogan "Country First" which for the moment is no longer being used. However, applying the "Country First" principle would mean a renaming to Bulgaria Democrats for Strong. Generally, confusing. At least Forward does not have this problem.

Meanwhile, on other matters of national moment, the deputy leader of Novoto Vreme (the "New Time" party, which has time on its hands after voters declined in the most recent elections to give it any seats in Parliament) made known his views on the performance of journalist Elena Yoncheva on television reality show Dancing Stars. "Elena was a star even before Stanishev's rise to prominence," said Miroslav Sevlievski, a reference to the long-standing close friendship between Yoncheva and Prime Minister Sergei.

However, Sevlievski, who briefly was energy minister before the electorate switched him offline, said that discussions in Bulgaria never did anything more than scratch the surface. Sevlievski, in an interview with daily Trud, lamented: "It is more interesting that a certain politician in a certain show sang out of tune or mis-stepped in a dance. No one is commenting on the Belene nuclear power plant".

Amen.

Or for those still here and who may be of the variety who believe that the AntiChrist has just been elected to the Oval Office… O-men.