My sister-in-law returned from a new year’s knees-up in Berlin with a wallet fresh with euros. There’s something quite exciting about seeing the birth of a new currency, particularly one that as many newspapers have emphasised can be used from the Arctic Circle to the Pelopennese.
One intrepid, and I presume tired, Financial Times reporter decided to put this theory to the test. Early on New Year’s Day, he extracted some euros from a Helsinki ATM. Flying via Amsterdam, he made his way to a scruffy port town outside Athens. After some suspicious scrutiny, the ferry operator in Greece accepted his Finnish euros.
The Guardian decided to see what 1 could buy in six different countries. Since it’s worth less than $1, the answer is not much.
Tom Friedman essays a welcome contrarian thought: “And now, I wish Al Gore were president.” Tom wants to see the US become a better global citizen, not least in energy use. I’m a broken record on this, but Tom, one of the great cheerleaders of a brand of globalisation dominated by the US, is a more unexpected voice.
32 million personal details online 
The UK’s Public Records Office has put the 1901 census online. As happened when the Ellis Island records first went online, demand has utterly swamped server capacity. But if you wait a few weeks for the immediate excitement to die down, there should be some fascinating stuff for data mavens.
Keep it in your files for trivia contests to come. What country has five presidents in two weeks? Answer: Argentina. Bonus points for naming all five.