Last month, when everyone was passing round links to this video, I fell in love with it. It's such a brilliant pastiche and reworking of the material, so perfectly realized by the vid makers (whoever they are). And it made me go back and dig up my old Broadway cast CD, and prowl around on YouTube and iTunes searching out various versions and productions of Les Miserables.

And despite whatever one might say about the overblown bombastic quality of some of those Cameron Mackintosh musical extravaganzas, I sat here at my computer watching scenes from Les Mis and hearing the words of the idealistic students willing to die on the barricades for their dreams of a better world, and weeping when I thought of what has happened to my country over the last eight years. And wondering if we really dare hope for actual change. And hoping.

And so, because tonight is the exact time specified for the actions of this video in its stage directions/subtitles, there can be no better time to present you with an encore performance of