Or, at least, that’s what this looks like to me:

As protests continued into the night, Egyptian authorities were holding talks to establish a “transitional government,” following the series of deadly protests against President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

The head of the Egyptian opposition Wafd party called for a period of transitional rule in Egypt, new parliamentary elections and amendments to the constitution limiting presidential terms, Reuters reported.

Expect this to pour more gas on protests in Jordan and Yemen, and perhaps even in Lebanon and Palestine.

[Update] More from the JP:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak made his first public statement since anti-government protests began four days ago. He said he is aware of the problems faced by Egyptian people, called for order and announced that the government will be replaced on Saturday.

After an extensive overhaul, the last course turned out to be a lot more work than expected. Couple that with 31 days of leave on the mainland (yes, I can do that where I work) and the “slow posting” turned into “no posting” for considerably longer than “a few weeks”.

So sorry.

BTW, those of you who follow me on Twitter, like Maggie, probably still knew something of what was going through my head.