Jack Layton offered the reporters who were shifting off his campaign tour after week one a parting gift: a copy of his book, Speaking Out Louder: Ideas that work for Canadians.

The books came autographed, many of them thanking reporters personally for helping Layton dub his campaign plane, Kitchen Air (in honour of one of his favourite lines about ideas that matter around the kitchen table).

The epigraph of the book published two years ago could not be more appropriate for Layton's campaign this time round.

It is a Chinese proverb that reads: "If we do not change our direction, we are liable to end up where we are headed."

And where did the NDP tour head off to in week one? According to the party's numbers, Layton's tour has been to 11 cities, flown 22.8 hours or 13,484 kilometres.

That's to say nothing of the time clocked in the bus and the six hotels where we (briefly) laid down our heads.

—Rosemary Barton