A bit of thinking out loud, this one.

I don’t think Warren Ellis‘ BAD SIGNAL email list is archived anywhere on the interwebs so I reproduce this recent email with apologies:

Here’s an idea I float out there every couple of years:

Years back, I stole a term from Bruce Sterling, “ideological freeware” — this predated Creative Commons — and applied it to the notion of web distribution of printed matter. We were talking in terms of the dearth of good writing about comics. Simply put, one could create a small magazine about comics and format it for cheap copying in black and white, and free it so anyone could print off copies. And then put it in comics stores. Viral distribution from pixel to print. SAVANT was the one that took up the entire idea, and the first twenty or so numbers of that were fireworks.

I’m talking specifically about web-to-print here, rather than the mags where the PDF was the end result, not the intermediate form.

What occurred to me after that, that I don’t think anyone picked up, was the broadside format. The single sheet. The broadside has a centuries-long history as a device for disseminating news and ideas.

I mean, flyers go up on the web to be printed off, sure. But it’s not quite the same thing. Getting an idea, or a piece of writing, on a single sheet and saying, yes, print this off, copy it and distribute it wherever you like — that’d be interesting.

In web terms, the costs are tiny — host the image on a free hosting site if you’re worried about the bandwidth hit. Use Livejournal or Blogger for the whole thing.

Hell, I might even do it myself one of these days…

The Guardian’s printable G24 is a very nice thing but a one-sheet for the bus, bog or bed would be even better.

It’s an appealing idea and I’m pretty sure it’s one that hasn’t caught on in blogging (at least, if it has, it hasn’t caught on in a widespread way that I’ve heard of). A facility that aggregated a favourite blog’s last five posts (say) into an attractive, printable one-sheet would be rather haveable, I think.

Read it and then leave it on the bus or park bench for someone else. Fold it into a paper aeroplane and send it to a colleague across the office. Virtual virus to a paper-based one. Hmmmm.

I see Oliver Kamm is once again defecating on the medium through which he made his modest reputation as a writer.

The blogosphere, in short, is a reliable vehicle for the coagulation of opinion and the poisoning of debate. It is a fact of civic life that is changing how politics is conducted - overwhelmingly for the worse, and with no one accountable for the decline.

The ‘Oliver Kamm is the author of Anti-Totalitarianism: the Left-Wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy. His blog is at…’ sign-off was my favourite bit. Blogging is bobbins, please look at my blog.

Ah, I remember Oliver when he merely used to get stroppy about the difference between a ‘faction’ and a ‘fraction’ (as in the ‘Red Army…’). ‘The stupidest blogger alive,’ was how he described Ryan of Beatnik Salad over the affair, not poisoning the debate at all. Happy days.

I met Kamm once. It was at the lunch where the bloggers who were christened ‘the new commentariat‘ by the Guardian were summoned. (I was invited, inexplicably, all other bloggers in the country seemingly too busy being civil to each other and engaging in intelligent debate). Oliver turned up late and immediately launched into another tedious and protracted diatribe against Noam Chomsky. The starters were therefore cold so Tim Ireland and I finished all the wine between us. True story.

I believe Oliver lives near me although I’ve never bumped into him. Since that day I’ve kept an eye out for him so I can mess up his hair, push him into a patch of nettles or roll him in dog muck in the park.

The travelling roundup reaches Liberal England.

More’s the pity.

Unity over at Ministry of Truth has uploaded Guido Fawkes’ Newsnight film to YouTube.

He makes some good points and asks worthy questions. It’s just a shame it was Guido asking them. It’s like Prince Harry lecturing someone about their drinking.

Here, making my YouTube debut, is the studio debate afterwards.

Share and enjoy.

It seems Michael White hurt Guido’s feelings somewhat and Britain’s most fearless blogger hit back this morning. Funny, he said Michael was ‘fantastic’ last night.

One can only imagine what Guido’s new visitors will make of his shiny, revamped website. He should have used the money he saved by not suing Tim Ireland, Sunny Hundal and me to pay for a website designer. It looks like he had a teenage nephew do it and makes Guido look like a bedroom fantasist.

What will sophisticated Newsnight viewers make of the commenters on his blog going by the handles of ‘homosexualist bummer‘ and ‘little black sambo‘? Or Guido’s biggest scoop this week: Gordon Brown picks his nose.

Paul Staines is 40.

Once again, blogging takes a shot in the arse. Why are self-appointed exemplars in any field invariably its worst exponents?

Update: Manic has a transcript of Guido’s pasting with a revelation of another example of Britain’s top blogger being ‘cavalier’ with the facts.

Guido Fawkes was on Newsnight last night. Hung, drawn and quartered is how I think you could describe it. His might have opted for a ‘disguise’ but it wasn’t enough to hide his signature white quiff. Grecian 2000 might be in order if he wishes to stay ‘undercover’.

Does anybody know how to take streaming media and get it on to YouTube? I’d like cherish it and cherish it again.

Watch it here (fast forward to about 33:30) and see Guido rat out BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson as one of his sources. Stay right to the end for Paxman’s closing punchline. Guido is now furiously deleting adverse comments about his appearance from his blog.

It seems even the best of us have a spin cycle.

Ha.

Is now available for your delectation over at Clairwil’s place.

Bored and following this post from Chris, I’ve discovered the wonders of Twitter. It’s blogging via your mobile phone as far as I’m concerned.

You send up to 140 characters via text message to a given number and it appears on your Twitter page. Something to keep me amused for a bit.

Those who wish to can receive a Twitterer’s posts via their mobiles or Instant Messenger. A little jiggery pokery lets you post your ‘tweets’ on your blog as well - see in the sidebar on the right under ‘out and about’.

I think I might liveblog my trip to the pub tonight. Bet you can’t wait.

…shock and awe started this time four years ago?

Tim Ireland wants to know what bloggers were saying for themselves on March 20 2003.

I was blogging at ‘Bar Room Philosophy’ at the time, a blog I kicked off in January 2002. The blog is now long gone but thanks to the wonders of the interweb, the post I wrote on March 19 2003 was preserved by the Wayback Machine.

The post I made on March 28 was better, after having been on Brighton beach watching the West Pier burn down.

I was a proper Stopper back then. My marching days didn’t last very long though. Trying to get away from combat-booted policemen, breaking up a march for having the temerity to deviate from its route, while pushing a two year-old in a buggy made a coward of me, I’m sorry to say. And then seeing George Galloway speak in the flesh put me off the Stop The War Coalition altogether.

I was very fond of BRP and I’m sorry I closed it. Through it I became friendly with a few people who I still know now, including Tim. Some of them are still blogging and I’ll tag a few of them (Jim, Nick and Rochenko) to carry on this meme, if they don’t mind. I think this is rather a good one.

So, what did you post on 20 March, 2003? (Or on as near to the day as possible.)

• Jim Bliss
• Rochenko
• Nick Barlow
• Daniel Davies
• Backword Dave

Doesn’t have to be a blog entry; it could easily be in usenet or in a forum.

Update: Rochenko reminisces.

The nomadic weekly pick of the pops turns up at From The Dustbin of History.

Devil’s Kitchen says I’m a ‘thogger‘, bless him. I’m to nominate five of my own. In no particular order, then…

• Jim Bliss
• Jamie Kenny
• Rachel North
• Donald/Jarndyce
• Philip Challinor

None should feel obliged to pass on the contagion.

Hearty congratulations to Troubled Diva, Mike Atkinson, who’s managed to put together ‘Shaggy Blog Stories’ in seven days in aid of Comic Relief.

The book collects amusing pieces from 100 bloggers. I’m in it but you shouldn’t let that put you off.

You can read more about the book here.

The book’s published via Lulu and you can buy copies at www.shaggyblogstories.co.uk.

Go on.

Arrives at poons’ place.

Mike, the troubled diva, is putting together a book of blog hilarity for Comic Relief.

Anyone who fancies publicising, contributing to, buying or pimping the book should head over here.

(via Tim Worstall/Lucy Pepper)

James Higham’s Saturday Blogfocus is here.

Mr E hosts the now peripatetic Britblog Roundup this week. Cheers and kudos to Tim Worstall who has hung up his roundup hat.

That photo of David Cameron and Boris Johnson while they were attending the 1987 Adam and the Ants convention has been banned. The photographers have withdrawn it for ‘commercial reasons’.

I know how they feel. I recently had my copyright on a photo breached and the moral rights of its subject violated by an unmitigated arsehole who neither asked permission nor offered credit or financial recompense. Some people get awfully uptight about this kind of thing.

Unfortunately, I can’t afford a lawyer and so have no choice other than to stay in bed, float up stream. See, poverty can be quite relaxing some times. Some of us have to resort to cheaper methods of making people laugh.

Political Blogging for Adults.

On Saturday last week, a Guardian article from 1986 was circulated amongst a group of bloggers which related to what Paul Staines, AKA Guido Fawkes, may or may not have got up to whilst a right-wing political activist at Hull University.

Being something of a night-owl, Sunny Hundal at Pickled Politics beat the rest of us to the punch and published the article. Early Sunday morning, Tim Ireland, Labour MP Tom Watson and I followed suit.

Shortly after, emails arrived from Paul Staines stating that he considered the publication of the article as defamatory. He demanded its removal from our blogs, stating he had a ‘retraction’ of the article which he would let us see. In a show of good faith, I removed the article from Chicken Yoghurt, as did the others from their blogs.

Paul Staines posted on his blog saying that the post that had appeared on Tom Watson’s blog (and only Tom Watson’s blog) was now gone and bragging that legal notices had been issued. You can no longer read that post because the next day (Monday), it was deleted. You’ll have to draw your own conclusion as to why he might do that.

I have now seen the ‘retraction’ that Paul Staines referred to. I am unfortunately not permitted to publish it. I am not allowed to print the ‘bane’ of the original 1986 article, nor am I allowed to print the ‘antidote’, a personal letter - written four years later - from the journalist who wrote the article, which Staines claims exonerates him. Read that again. The Guardian newspaper did not retract the article. That is why it is still available in the Lexis-Nexis database.

I will leave others to draw conclusions as to the behaviour of a person whose own blog is registered off-shore (in Nevis) in an attempt to avoid British libel laws.

Guido has a mini-corporation behind him, Global & General Nominees LLC of Nevis. If you want to sue the publishers go ahead, the office for service is properly registered in accordance with the law. The laws of the island require that the plaintiff first deposits US$25,000 with the court before commencing action. Guido will defend himself vigorously.

Or the behaviour of a self-confessed libertarian drawing on the power of the state when threatened. Or the behaviour of a gossip-peddler happy to smear with innuendo and the help of anonymous commenters on his blog. Or the behaviour of a person who claims to have evidence exonerating him from allegations but refusing to allow that evidence to be published. Or why he chose to ’serve notice’ on four bloggers and not the Guardian.

At the end of the day, this boils down to money. The libel laws in the UK are a plaything of the monied - you can’t get legal aid to fight a libel action. It’s often said that ‘it’s not libel if it’s true’. That is incorrect. It is, actually, ‘it’s not libel if it’s provable‘. To fight my case would take more resources than I have.

I will take this opportunity to say that, since his attempt to claim some credit in the outing of Mark Oaten last year, I have regarded Paul Staines AKA Guido Fawkes as little more than scum. That he is held as some exemplar of blogging by those who should know better has always struck me as a sick joke. This is not a matter of ‘ideological differences’ or a ‘Brownite-plot’ (you have to laugh) as the witless have tried to make out. This is pest control motivated by disgust.

This blog is now taking a break. I don’t know how long that break will be but hopefully it won’t be a permanent one. I’ll continue to publish my The Friday Thing columns here for those who are interested. They’re my best stuff anyway. I’m also honoured to have been asked to play a small role in the launch of National Service.

Comments on this post are closed.

Update 15/2: Paul Staines emails…

Lexis Nexis’ legal department confirmed this morning that the defamatory article is being removed from their archive immediately.

Sending the email with a footer exhorting the recipient to ‘Whisper Vicious Rumours’ and ‘Leak Secret Documents’ was the classy part.

Update 15/2 @ 7.30PM: For those seeking further information and context, I would urge you to read this from Sunny and follow his links.

Iain Dale says, ‘let the Blog Wars cease‘ and then lets his supporters give Tim Ireland another beating in the comments.

Smooth.

Update @ 10.15am: Paul Staines insists he has a retraction of the Guardian article making assertions against him. He has made assurances that he will make copies of it available as soon as possible.

In the mean time, therefore, I’ve removed the post that was here.

UPDATE UPDATED 12/2: The post on Paul Staines’ blog where he brags of issuing ‘legal notices’ has now vanished. Am I allowed to airbrush my past as well?

UPDATE UPDATED UPDATED Who once said: ‘The libel laws in Britain have long been overly restrictive and frustrated Guido’s efforts.’ Yes.

And yes. And yes.

UPDATE UPDATED UPDATED UPDATED: Sunny gets another scoop.

If you’re not a fan of hot blogger-on-blogger action then you’re probably best advised to move on. There’s some jokes I wrote for The Friday Thing further down the page. Some of them I was quite pleased with. This is probably my last word on this subject, so let’s get on with it.

Not long after the piece I wrote for Martin Bright’s blog was published on Wednesday, I received an email from Iain Dale refuting what I had said about him in the piece. I took the time to write what i thought was a considered and polite reply outlining the facts as I saw them and making some observations about Iain’s behaviour over the last week or so. Since then, I’ve heard nothing. No acknowledgement, no ’sorry’, not even a ‘get stuffed’.

Iain asked that I keep his email confidential. He didn’t, however, ask that I keep my reply confidential. So I’m reproducing it here - I’ve kept to the letter of Iain’s request if not the spirit. One show of bad faith deserves another.

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See why here.

I’d quite like one as well, while you’re at it, Iain. For pretty much the same reason. Call it a two for one offer.

Martin Bright at the New Statesman asked me to write a guest post for his blog about the Tim Ireland/Guido Fawkes skirmish.

You can read it here.

UPDATE: The post is now reproduced below the fold.

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Tim Worstall’s Britblog Roundup #102 and James Higham’s Saturday Blogfocus - OUT NOW!.