Britblog Roundup #70

Come in, come in, my friends; grab a pew. Ha ha! Just my little joke; we only have these unpleasant and deeply uncomfortable spikes. You'd rather stand? Oh, OK. Yes, I'm afraid that it is rather hot, but I'm sure that you will be able to stand it for a little while: believe me, it's worse outside. Are we standing comfortably? Then we'll begin our roundup of all that is great and good in the British blogging world, as voted for by you...

First up, this week is Timmy's little scoop about Airbus over at Nightcap Syndication: it seems that EADS have been a wee bit economical with the actualite. Sell those shares, people...

Over at The Sharpener—a site whose output has gone from near zero to ten billion words a day ever since the rebrand—Rachel discusses the reports into the 7/7 bombings. I particularly liked this line:

Terrorism is the messenger, not the message. Have we even listened to the message?

The only problem is, what if the message is incompatible with what we consider to be our freedoms? Do we roll over, or do we stand...?

Anoneumouse suggests that our EU friends might well be burying their heads in the sand.

Chris Dolley, "an English author (Resonance, Baen; Shift, Baen) living and writing in France", describes the horrors of a visit to the vet when there is something of a language barrier.

In a post which garnered more than one nomination this week, The Green Ribbon discusses the English Question; an insightful post in which Tom comments on the English Parliament and the West Lothian Question. (Also posted at Nightcap.)

The ruckus between Harry Hutton, of Chase Me Ladies, I'm In The Cavalry (I wrote that in full because it is my favourite blog name ever), was also nominated several times. Harry started it, and the people at The Daily Kos showed just how much our humour digresses from that of our cousins across the pond. I tend to think that the word 'over-reaction' is something of an understatement; 'total sense of humour failure' would seem a more accurate description. Personally, I laughed my head off over the whole thing.

Embracing yet another new trend, Dodgeblogium has a new "Dodging Reality" podcast up for you all to enjoy.

As per usual, Wat Tyler is on fine form writing about the failure of Britain's education policies, but it is a comment to that post which is nominated this week:

the rhetoric of meritocracy has been exposed for a sham by the destruction of educational opportunities that underpin social mobility.

Now, would someone please inform that fat fuckwit, Hattersley, please...?

Liberal England has a short piece up about The New Statesman's relaunch, and its over-emphasis on columns by comedians. Or, rather, 'comedians': after all, Rory Bremner is, these days, about as funny as a kick in the goolies.

Adloyada has done a bit of investigating into who, exactly, fired the shells which killed the family on the Gaza beach: was it the Israelis or was it, as Human Rights Watch assert, someone else entirely? Definitely worth reading, and the answers may surprise.

Again, at The Sharpener, there is a debate going on about the nature (and, indeed, possibility of building) a form of patriotism on the Left. It's an interesting article but—as I wrote in a reply over at Nightcap—ultimately, I believe, a futile exercise.

Johnney Nexus finds geographical ignorance in France; as our nominator says, "it'll either piss off the England Parliament lot OR it'll piss off some Scots, or both." The gentleman on question seemed to suggest that this might be a good thing. I keeping schtum...!

Pootergeek tracks down and administers some justice to a racist commentator via the wonder that is IP addresses; as one commenter put it,

Trying to spam up a blog called “PooterGeek” and get away with it? Truly this kid is a genius of Einsteinian proportion.

Quite.

Poetry from Samizdata: all those agencies that we'd never miss. Good; can we elect me Benign Dictator for Life now?

Young Master Barder examines the potential of a National Identity Register that isn't used as a tool for manipulation, tracking, deceit and oppression. As usual, I am not entirely sure that I agree with him (it still smacks of big government to me) but it is a clear, concise and thoughtful post: required reading.

Natalie Bennet has, for some reason best known to herself, been spending the last eight days cycling around Hadrian's Wall. Personally, I think she's insane, but then your humble Devil is a fairly sedentary creaure.

MyLondonYourLondon has a review of Before Bristol at The Old Red Lion.

The characters too will be familiar: the slightly embittered old hack for whom Fleet Street never called, the highly capable woman whose title in no way reflects her role or abilities; the old plodder who’s settled into waiting for his pension.

As is noted later on, it sounds very much like Michael Frayn's Towards The End Of The Mornong to me, but then there's nothing wrong with that...

Lady Bracknell, who I will be adding to my blogroll forthwith, ranst about smoothing facial products.

There is so much scope for vituperative outpourings here that Lady Bracknell is at something of a loss as to quite where to begin. But one must start somewhere.

I know exactly how she feels: it's a hard life being critically angry sometimes, but—my!—doesn't she do a lovely job of it. Essentially, laughter lines are good, plastic-looking women are bad. Go and read it.

Living For Disco rather incongruously discusses World Cup Tournament's that she has known and loved. This week, it is 1994. As a counter, I'm afraid that I have to nominate TinyJudas's World Cup Dungeon (Part 1): personally, I hope that he has a few more brewing.

Staying with the footie theme (because, apparently, some people like watching it), the Fever Pitch post—at Me, Me, Me—is somewhat irreverent about "England's victorious victory over the great football nation of Paraguay".

Meanwhile, Here In France has a day of art and aubergines. Relaxing and beautiful for most, although those that are acquainted with your humble Devil will know of his loathing and hatred for fucking aubergines. Though, that purple colour is quite pretty in the sun.

Tom Reynolds discusses the true state of multicultural societies, i.e. it's really not all bad. He blames the media for painting an ugly picture.

Finally, we have a whole blog nomination for Suzanne Portnoy who also, apparently, has a book out.

'See you in 6 weeks’ sex is great but ‘I hate you sex’ is even better. It’s got all the first date feelings of the former coupled with the passion that only comes when you really hate or really love someone. It’s mind-blowing. So good that if they could bottle it up and sell it, I’d buy it by the carton.

Ah, excellent. It's all entertaining stuff and worth a read through.

That closes our Britblog Roundup for this week; unless he is called to give a talk on Amphibian Blogging at Salford College next week, the Roundup will be in the usual place next week; as per, please send your nominations for the best of the week's British blogging to britblog[AT]gmail[DOT]com.

Do, also, go and register at Nightcap Sydication; we could do with lots more pieces and there is a definite buzz going on over there right now. Besides, it's already earning me more money through my Amazon referrals than my blog does via everything else, so it has to be worth it, eh? (An FAQ about how to add the links is now up, and we will be adding more swift tutorials as we progress.)

So, till next time, enjoy the articles and don't forget to put in your nominations. Oh, and do watch out for the pools of fire on your way out...

Toodle pip!

(Cross-posted at Nightcap Syndication.)