It is half past four in the morning, your time. For me in Australia it is half past three in the afternoon. I am on the coast of New South Wales, on a balcony overlooking the Pacific. Purely by chance I've just spotted a passing group of whales, heading south. On the television within, in front of a bitter audience of his supporters, John McCain is conceding defeat to Barack Obama in a speech of memorable grace. Outside, one of the whales has just flicked its tail right up out of the ocean: something I've never seen before and always wanted to. Within, Senator McCain has just remarked that it's a privilege to run for the presidency. I - the accidental whale-watcher - reflect that it is a privilege simply to be alive.

Towering ambition

The seven days that this notebook records began with a privilege of a different sort. Last Thursday in London I did something else I've always dreamt of. I raised Tower Bridge.

Ever since my grandpa took me, a six-year-old boy, into Smithfield market before dawn to buy the meat for his butchery in Penge, and as we crossed Tower Bridge told me about a London bus that drove onward when it should have stopped - and successfully jumped the widening gap - I've wondered whether this was an urban myth; and what it would be like to pull the lever myself. Now, on a cold, clear October morning more than 50 years later, I stand in the tiny control room by one of the towers, joystick in my right hand, and Chris Earlie tells me it did indeed happen: on December 30, 1952; a No 78 bus to Dulwich.

Chris is in charge. He and his colleagues at the City of London Corporation - which owns and manages the bridge - are inviting journalists like me to pull the lever as part of their campaign to publicise a huge three-year restoration project now under way, and the permanent exhibition, open to the public, at the bridge. I happily accepted the invitation, but wondered whether the act of raising the two great bascules might itself prove an anticlimax.

Not at all. “Press that 'close' button,” said Chris. I did. A warning siren warbled, traffic lights on both sides of the bridge turned red, and the big wrought iron gates closed in synch as panicking pedestrians (one on a mobile phone - “I'm on a bridge... arrgh!”) began to run.

“Now press the ‘disengage' button to pull back the nose bolts.” I did. “Now pull down the lever.” I did. A low rumble from the bowels of the tower. Up - slowly, smoothly, inexorably - went both bascules. Beneath, a pleasure cruiser, the Dixie Queen, with whose captain Chris was in radio contact, slid through. “Thanks,” said the captain.

OK, I'd have preferred a big warship to a faux paddle steamer with a decorated funnel... but still, what a thrill! I wish grandpa could see me now.

Chain reaction

I've just come across this: security advice issued to all staff at the European Commission, some of whom were caught unawares by recent protests in Brussels.

“(1) Do not leave cycles on the open street. They can be used as missiles by demonstrators. In the event of a demonstration, open-air cycle racks may be closed off.”

What a marvellous mental picture. The last days of the European Union. Furious mobs roam the streets of Brussels. EU officials cower beneath their desks, the air thick with flying bicycles, handlebars clattering against the plate glass.

How delicious. How surreal. And Magritte was a Belgian...

Boris befuddled

This, too, reaches me: the true story of a man on the top deck of a No 277 London bus from Canary Wharf to Islington. Boris Johnson, who doesn't know my informant, is on an adjacent seat. It is early evening. Something has occurred to the previously placid Boris, who all at once becomes agitated. Begins fumbling wildly in his briefcase, going through all his pockets. Can't find what he urgently needs - his mobile phone. Asks to borrow my informant's, but he doesn't have one. More rummaging. Finally finds his own. Furiously stabs in desired number...

“Hello? Subs [newspaper sub-editors]? Am I too late? There's a mistake in my copy. Can I make a change? Still time? Oh, thank God! About half way down; near the top; the word 'encomium'. Found it? Yes? Delete it. Insert 'valedictory'. Phew. Thanks. Bye.”

Let us spray

Still on my balcony. Within, Obama is making his victory speech to a cheering crowd. Out at sea another whale passes, spouting.

Times Recommends

• Fragility always gets my sympathy vote
• Double it and you get the real jobless total
• Has al-Megrahi paid his council tax?