1st Whinge (already !) + 1st Question

I had to wrestle with the Blogpost system over the time stamping of that first Post. I lost. It wasn't written at 04:40 on the 11th but in the early evening of the 10th. It turned out that the default settings assume one is in the USA - an aspect of cultural imperialism that always annoys me with Internet Forms - and I hadn't realised that when I posted my first contribution. However, even when I corrected this (via Settings/Formatting) edited & re-posted the item it still retained its scheduled 04:40 stamp. Obviously you need to make these settings before you start. Or is the first post always delayed while the powers that be do some checking ? Hope this helps keep someone else's blood pressure under control.

Re the 'cultural imperialism' issue. Which default setting in a list of countries would be most efficient in terms of minimising the average time , across all users, to scroll to their location ? Having the default country the one in the middle of the list isn't the answer - although 'better' than assuming 'USA' - because one needs to take account of the relative populations (or number of internet users ?) in each country. If , given this data (or assumptions), the countries were listed accordingly, I can see how one could work out the optimum default position. However the alphabetical order needs to be retained for ease of use, so how would one identify the optimum position given this constraint ?. Answers on a postcard to......

Why ?

I've eventually got around to this - a late adopter, typically - prompted by an upcoming trip and the thought that blogging might be a good way of keeping anyone who's at all bothered informed of my progress. I've also got the intention of using this free facility - thanks Google ! - to post a few thoughts from time to time on various issues and I guess just to see what use it might be: 'travelling' hopefully, I suppose ..... a phrase which first featured for me in the context of an essay subject set, as a punishment for a minor misdemeanor, by a 6th-former in my first days at secondary school. Bastard !