John Cleese has declared his support for Barrack Obama and is offering to write Obama’s speeches. Cleese lives in California. Like our governor Arnold, Cleese is enjoined by the constitution from becoming president of the United States, but being the president’s speechwriter would bring him closer to the power.

“The 68-year-old, best known for playing the irascible Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, uncovered a more serious side when he said he thought Obama, who is bidding to be America’s first black president, was a ‘brilliant man’.

He said: ‘I am due to come to Europe in November but I may be tied up until then because if Barack Obama gets the nomination I’m going to offer my services to him as a speech writer because I think he is a brilliant man.’”

I try not to do posts that are just links to other posts, but Mashabale has done a great job collecting 13 online presentation tools. I am sure there are more than these, though. Slideshare? ScreenCast? NetMeeting even? (Although NetMeeting appears to have been replaced with Windows Meeting Space in Vista.)

I suppose the implication is that all the tools on Mashable are free. Now I have to go try them all.

I’ve decided to restart Hyde Park, my executive communications consultancy, and along with it, this blog. I have a fondness for Hyde Park, as my first and best blog.

From a social media standpoint, it’s “feature-free.” No Twitter window in the sidebar. No tags. No social bookmarking. Maybe it’s the lack of these things that made this such a good blog in the first place. Before I knew about all of that “cool stuff,” all I thought about here was writing well.

And I’ll give a free Techneuroti t-shirt to the first person who comments below identifying the source and context of the title of this post.

With the recent and untimely passing of former President Gerald Ford and legendary performer James Brown, a pattern of spooky coincidences has emerged, establishing a close link between these seemingly very different people.

Consider this:

• Both men have a total of 10 letters in their names, three vowels and seven consonants.
• As president, Gerald Ford rode in a Lincoln Continental limousine, and James Brown has performed at Lincoln Center.
• Neither man appears on a U.S. coin.
• Both men changed their names at some point in their life. James Brown changed his name to remove the suffix “Junior.” Gerald Ford was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr.
• Both men were modest about their education. James Brown said, “I only got a seventh-grade education, but I have a doctorate in funk, and I like to put that to good use.” Gerald Ford said, “I had a lot of experience with people smarter than I am.”
• Ford received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award in May 1970, and in 1998, Brown was arrested after a high-speed car chase and charged with carrying an unlicensed firearm and assaulting a police officer.

James Brown (left) and Gerald Ford both shared an unusual penchant for microphones

It certainly gives one pause, if only for a moment.

Amanda Chapel, thought by most to be a fictional/composite character, was, according to a posting on the web site Strumpette, seriously injured in a car crash in Chicago yesterday.

Searches on Google News and the web sites of the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune do not confirm that the AP released this story.

I believe it is a hoax (if the injury of an ostensibly fictional character can be a hoax.) I am going to go out on a limb and guess that this is the beginnings of a plan to “kill off” Amanda in time for the new year.

Wal-Mart, Sony and others have recently been caught creating fake people to participate in social media. If my guess is right, this is the first serious injury sustained by an invented social media celebrity, and may end up being the first such death as well.

And if my guess is wrong, I wish Amanda good fortune and a speedy recovery.