(Warning: do not watch this video if you are drinking anything at your computer. Seriously. Don't. And now, on to our regularly scheduled blog post)
I remember the first time I was ever published in the Guardian. I must have emailed everyone I knew, and let me now extend a belated apology to all my friends for my excessive giddiness. One of the best memories of my life is the day I went into the Guardian offices - I was there for an interview, and I remember feeling like Alice down the rabbit hole. I met some amazing amazing people, people I read every day who were suddenly there in the flesh. I was thrilled and delighted - they all use Macs! - and awed all at the same time. An even pleasanter memory is the night I won the Guardian First Book Award. I talked about how lost I felt about losing my Marxist beliefs, how I floundered until I found the Guardian as a student at the University of Zimbabwe, and in the process found a paper from London that read as though written from the deepest recesses of my mind.
The Guardian, I said, is a force for good in the world.
The last 14 days of Hackgate prove this beyond doubt. The Guardian, its editor and journalists risked ridicule as they clung to the story of the decade. Individuals at the News of the World, they insisted, had tapped illegally into voicemails and the management must have known about it. When you think of who was massed against them, the world's most powerful media conglomerate, politicians and even, it seems, the Metropolitan Police, it is all the more remarkable that they stuck to their guns at all. And now teeters the house of Murdoch.
All hail Alan Rusbridger, Nick Davies and team. I am really, really proud of the Guardian. I am even prouder than I felt at my son's last piano recital. Sorry Kush.