Shuffling off – Death

Death, like syphilis, incontinence and vegetarianism, is all very well unless it’s happening to you. Then it’s not so much fun, obviously. Here we’ll explore the deepest of mysteries, examine the greatest of levellers and try not to get too down about the biggest of bummers.

To paraphrase Malcolm in Macbeth, nothing in this life becomes us like the leaving it. There seems little point in worrying about it other than to rail against the unjust deaths visited upon so many in the world today. And also, to make peace and reconciliation with the fact that we ourselves will one day, to quote more Shakespeare (Hamlet this time), shuffle off this mortal coil. (No, I’m not convincing myself either.)

In other words, this is a chapter in which we reaffirm that death is like a Cliff Richard record at Christmas: there is no escape. It’s a bad business, to be sure.

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October 2005 – International Rooksbyism: Violence
Here’s Ed Rooksby with a powerful – and graphic – meditation on violence and death.

October 2005 – Tokyo Times: Ghoulish Gifts
Lee Chapman has lived in Tokyo since 1998 and his blog, Tokyo Times, offers an English perspective of Japanese society. Here, he tells of an even darker aspect of Japan’s notorious suicide rates.

November 2005 – Militant Moderate: Where We Hope To Keep Safe From Pain
In November 2005 George Best hung up his boots. To say he was a complex character leaves little room for dazzling, perplexing, infuriating and a thousand other adjectives. Militant Moderate Ken Owen, while acknowledging Best’s faults, wrote of the man’s talent with some fine, sincere lyricism.

November 2005 – Blood & Treasure: Stick a fork in him
With no disrespect to Ken, however, there were many, including me, for whom Best’s talents were totally eclipsed by his terrible failings. My partner used to work in Chelsea and saw Best often – he was invariably sitting outside a pub on the King’s Road with a pint in his hand. Her job? She worked in a women’s refuge clearing up the carnage the likes of Best created. Jamie Kenny showed the kind of anger that some of the more lachrymose obituaries studiously avoided.

December 2005 – Robert Sharp: Encountering the ‘Submerged’
While George Best and other public figures who died in the last 12 months were fêted with acres of news coverage, many, many more slipped away unremarked upon and unmourned. Robert Sharp meditates on those who suffer and die away from the spotlight.

December 2005 – Gnus of the World: Hold on tight, it’s the end of the road
Oscar Wildebeest commits a minor heresy by refusing to mourn the death of one of London’s most famous icons.

December 2005 – Stumbling and Mumbling: John Lennon and the decline of the Left
On the 25th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon, Chris Dillow had some harsh words to say about Lennon’s impact on British politics, specifically on the left wing.

January 2006 – The Loneliest Jukebox: Whale Meat Again
In January thousands of people lined the Thames to watch a lost whale swim up and down. The cynical side of me wonders how many went home afterwards and joined Greenpeace. Here’s a short but thoughtful piece from Gary Barnfield who deserves an entry for his title alone.

February 2006 – World Weary Detective: Mary Mary Quite Contrary
The World Weary Detective relates a tale of another victim of the Blind Eye.

May 2006 – Rafael Behr: It’s a metaphor for something, but I don’t know what
Rafael Behr notes a tragic collision of two of humanity’s abiding passions – a thirst for knowledge and high-powered weaponry. There is one unanswered question that calls to another passion: how did it taste?

August 2006 – John Band: It’s morally right that people should die for my amusement
Why ban potentially lethal guns but not potentially lethal margarine? It’s all to do with the fun-to-killing ratio, explains John Band.

August 2006 – As A Dodo: Albert Camus’ The Outsider 1942–2006
August saw the departure of a much-loved classic. As A Dodo writes this touching obituary.

September 2006 – Konichiwa Bitches: War Against Terror? I’ll take me chances.
John Brissenden remembers a friend killed on September 11 2001 and takes stock of the War Against Terror as fought so far.

September 2006 – Mr Eugenides: At least a croc didn’t get him
Mr Eugenides marks the passing of a True Aussie Hero.

Related posts:

1. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 6
2. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 5
3. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 3

Blood, Sweat and Beers – Work and Play

Life, as a great man* once said, is the name of the game, and I want to play the game with you. Did you know that in an average lifetime we spend around 25 years asleep and six months on the loo? We also spend about 20 years at work and 10 years eating. That only leaves around 15 years for the pleasures of drinking to excess, smoking, le cinéma de Bruce Willis and vigilante campaigns against paedophiles.

Let’s face it, work is a hateful activity. Anybody who says they enjoy their job is a teetotal sociopath with a threadbare social life. This chapter consists of a vicious critique of the bitter ennui that is working for a living. It’s tempered by a vibrant celebration of those priceless jewels of hope, joy and wonder snatched from the claws of the beast known as work-commute-sleep-work, along with other meditations on the human condition.

* Bruce Forsyth

…

November 2005 – Tokyo Times: Toilet Techno
Tokyo Times’ Lee Chapman explains how the Japanese, with their famous attention to detail, do business.

January 2006 – World Weary Detective: Stop and search does not work
The World Weary Detective, a Metropolitian Police detective in London, gives ‘a view of life from the thin layer between you and the underclass’. Here’s an account of the short-term thinking of senior officers that prevents street robbery from being tackled properly.

March 2006 – NHS Blog Doctor: The Crippen Diaries (Week 11)
If you want to know what goes on inside the National Health Service, Dr Crippen’s diaries are unmissable. And, like the World Weary Detective, he gives an insight on what it’s like on the front line, and continually buffeted by the short-term whims of politicians, managers and bureaucracy. Infuriating, heartbreaking and darkly humorous in equal measure, the diaries make for essential reading. Here’s the Good Doctor having One Of Those Weeks.

March 2006 – NHS Blog Doctor: Schizophrenia
Here is another piece from the Good Doctor; long but vital reading. The best blogging has the power to change the way you think and see the world, and here’s a fine example.

April 2006 – John Band: Healthy eating!= bruschetta-eating
Forget Jamie Oliver. John Band’s a lot less infuriating. Here he is with some advice for eating on a budget. And he’s offering to come round and cook your tea.

April 2006 – Jim Bliss: Comment Spam
The internet has created career opportunities like never before, some of which are highly bizarre. Here, Jim Bliss tells a cautionary tale of an encounter with someone whose previous job was probably hiding under a stone.

March 2006 – World Weary Detective: This is the End
There’s many a tale about bloggers getting caught out and losing their jobs or being threatened with the sack for blogging. John Band of ‘Shot By Both Sides’ fame gave up his popular blog last year after some oily little coward took exception to one of John’s posts and anonymously complained to his boss, putting John’s livelihood in jeopardy (he’s recently returned, with Banditry at www.johnband.org/blog). Petite Anglaise (www.petiteanglaise.com) was less fortunate in actually being fired in July after her bosses took exception to her ‘Bridget Jones in Paris’ missives.

Back in March, the World Weary Detective, after an edict from on high, decided discretion was the better part of valour.

May 2006 – William Shaw: The Lion
Un-made-up was started in May this year and collects short non-fiction stories from different writers. While the stories ‘don’t have to have a punchline, they don’t have to be dramatic, they don’t have to be funny, they don’t have to make a point, they don’t even have to be autobiographical…they must, of course, be true’. It’s well worth a day or two of your time, whether reading or (even) writing.

Here’s William’s encounter with the King of the Jungle.

June 2006 – Pandemian: Parthian shot
Pandemian (the blogger formerly known as ‘Green Fairy’) chronicles the soul-destroying drudge of working life with an admirable, yet weary, wit and stoicism. The following piece was actually handwritten on a piece of notepaper and scanned onto her blog [..]. The real thing will be on display in the British Museum one day, you mark my words.

June 2006 – Pandemian: Haiku d’état
Thankfully, shortly after the previous piece was posted, Pandemian was able to escape on holiday. As you might expect, a postcard and a ‘Wish you were here’ weren’t good enough for her.

June 2006 – Do You Come Here Often?: 99 Top Stains
An enviable skill of some bloggers is the ability to elevate the mundane and everyday to something rich and strange. Here Rhodri Marsden wonders if Surf’s list of 99 Top Stains covers all the basics.

July 2006 – The Eyechild: Jaspers
It was a hot, hot summer this year. Britain felt as if God, like a small sadistic boy, had got his magnifying class and was making us tiny creatures scurry and yelp in the terrifying heat. The Eyechild spotted that a traditional element of classic summers was missing.

August 2006 – poons: Anniversaries
They say there are eight million stories in the naked city. Tales of hope and redemption are my favourite. Here’s poons with his.

Related posts:

1. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 7
2. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 2
3. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 1

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1. Grab yourself a bargain
2. Because I love you all
3. Competition time

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2. The Blog Digest digested
3. Merchandising

It’s true to say that while blogging has proved the ideal inducement to people sitting on their arses, it’s also provided many incentives for people to get up off them as well. If you’ve got a cause, blogging is the perfect medium for rallying others to it.

Coupled with other online tools (Pledgebank.com, where people pledge to perform a certain action, and WriteToThem.com, which allows you to email your MP), blogging has become a real force, if not exactly for holding Authority to account, then at least for going a long way to informing it of what it is its true bosses (that is, us) are thinking and want.

Here, amongst other articles calling for awareness of important issues, we see how a cause, a blog and a little bit of good old-fashioned pluck, can bring about real results.

…

December 2005 – Bloggerheads: Public Carol Service
Under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 it is now illegal to protest or make any kind of political statement in Parliament Square in Westminster without prior permission gained six days in advance. British Blogland’s very own merry prankster, Tim Ireland, saw an opportunity for some mischief. Here’s the text of his invitation to a Christmas carol service with a difference.

December 2005 – Rachel North: Amazing Grace
The concert went off without a hitch and a tidy £300 was raised for the charity Medical Aid for Iraqi children. Rachel North reported back.

January 2006 – Burning Our Money: PFI Panic
What the Government gets up to with our money is a subject that seems to leave most people rather uninspired. However, once you get down to it, it doesn’t take long for righteous indignation to manifest itself. Here, Wat Tyler, who has made it his life’s work to expose government profligacy, explains how the Private Finance Initiative works and why we should be up in arms about it.

April 2006 – Bristling Badger: Carbon offsets are a fraud
The debate about energy – how we produce it and how we use it and what we do with the carbon dioxide created in the process – gained greater prominence than ever this year. The idea of carbon offsets were trumpeted. It’s not a very good idea, said Merrick.

March 2006 – D-Squared Digest: Thought for the day
A common feature of Blogland is the creation and spreading of ‘memes’. A concept invented by Richard Dawkins, memes are ideas as viruses. Tell someone your idea and they are immediately infected with the virus. Daniel Davies created another. Spread the word.

June 2006 – Charlie Whitaker: Stuck to the back of the filing cabinet, in the basement…
So, you want to help save the planet. How about starting small and cutting back on your energy consumption by insulating your house? That’s what Charlie Whitaker decided to do. Getting help to do it, however, means negotiating a system seemingly designed in committee by Orwell and Kafka and then built by M.C. Escher. You have to admire Charlie’s tenacity.

August 2006 – Burning Our Money: Down These Mean Streets
In August, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair’s observation that it was safe to leave front doors unlocked was met with peals of ironic laughter from many. Wat Tyler mounted a rebuttal against Blair’s vision of Utopia.

August 2006 – Nick Barlow: Mud, mud, inglorious mud
Sometimes it does a blogger good to get out of the house. Nick Barlow took this to extremes by embarking on the trek from John O’Groats to Land’s End. His walk was done in the aid of the Brain Research Trust charity after his brother Simon died from a brain tumour. At the time of writing (mid September) Nick is still yomping. By the time you read this, and with a following wind, he will have completed his epic journey and be enjoying a well-earned rest, but you can still drop a few quid in his virtual bucket here: www.justgiving.com/nickswalk. Nick’s blogged his journey at every opportunity and this dispatch from the wilds finds him following the backbone of England.

September 2006 – Web of Evil: Get it off your chest
The mainstream media cottoned on to interaction in a big way this year. Members of the public were asked to send their eyewitness accounts, photographs and semi-coherent musings to news channels desperate to fill the hours. It was called ‘citizen journalism’ by some or, more plainly, ‘getting the public to do our job for us for nothing’. Here, Web of Evil subverts the idea…

Next, Chapter 6: Blood, Sweat and Beers – Work and Play

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1. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 1
2. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 7
3. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 4

Those readers who aren’t fans of drama, democracy, or tales of dirty deeds done dirt cheap, should skip to the next chapter. Whoever says politics is boring deserves a wet slap, this year more than ever. To try to chronicle everything that has gone on in British politics this year would fill this volume and beyond. And being a political blogger myself, I was very tempted to try.

We’ve had the resignation of Charles Kennedy as Liberal Democrat leader and the election of Ming Campbell as his less than sparkling successor; Tessa Jowell’s moody mortgages; David Blunkett resigning (again); John Prescott visiting a billionaire businessman’s ranch to talk about cowboys but not casinos (Prescott’s sexual shenanigans are dealt with elsewhere in this book); the passing of the Identity Card legislation (I think it’s safe to say that there isn’t a single British blogger who’s in favour of that); the Tories’ ascendancy in the opinion polls despite their lack of policies; and continuing speculation about when Tony Blair might retire to the US lecture circuit. And more…

…

December 2005 – The Yorkshire Ranter: David Cameron: Not just more right-wing than you think…
December saw the election of David Cameron as Conservative Party leader. Alex Harrowell, the Yorkshire Ranter, attempted to burst Cameron’s bubble from the outset.

January 2006 – Chicken Yoghurt: In understanding be men
Upsetting his own party, policy U-turns, making things up on the hoof: with the election of David Cameron, there was more than a whiff of 1994 in the air. Blair and his supporters accused Cameron of the same tricks that Blair had been guilty of 12 years earlier. Being the father of two small children, I thought I had spotted just why New Labour were so jealous of the new arrival.

January 2006 – Blood and Treasure: My Name is Charles Kennedy and A new job for Charlie
In January Charles Kennedy resigned as Liberal Democrat leader after revealing a drink problem. Most people were sympathetic – ‘This battle with the bottle is nothing so novel,’ as Elvis Costello once sang. Here’s Jamie Kenny with a couple of observations.

February 2006 – Perfect: Liberty? You have no idea how lucky you are
Writing in The Observer in February, the Prime Minister attempted to rebut accusations made against him of authoritarianism and the destruction of our civil liberties. Charlie Whitaker, along with a lot of others, didn’t believe a word of it.

April 2006 – Actually Existing: Living in the thick of it
In a year when Labour went nuclear and the Conservatives went green, Tony Blair wanted to hound hoodies and David Cameron wanted to hug them, quite a few political bloggers came to the conclusion that the terms ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ were losing their usefulness in determining someone’s political standpoint. Here, Phil Edwards suggests a new system for finding just where we stand.

May 2006 – Tampon Teabag: Which Wing Are You?
Larry Teabag, on the other hand, still saw merit in the old labels of left and right. Here, he asks…

March 2006 – Rachel North: This is an insult
It’s fair to say that Charles Clarke, when he was Home Secretary, with his plans for ID cards, 90 days’ detention for terrorist suspects and all-round disdain for 700 years of civil rights, didn’t endear himself to political bloggers of either Left or Right. The treatment he meted out to the father of Rachel North, a survivor of the 7/7 bombings and campaigner for a public inquiry into the atrocity, merely served to confirm what many had suspected of the man they had less than respectfully dubbed ‘the Safety Elephant’.

Very few bloggers are able to challenge directly the politicians that they write about every day. Rachel was given that opportunity, although not in circumstances she would have chosen herself.

April 2006 – Rachel North: Meeting the Home Secretary
The story reached the mainstream media pretty quickly. Some of the coverage was almost as vitriolic as that in Blogland – ‘less welcome than terminal cock cancer’ said Devil’s Kitchen, a ‘rancorous thug’ echoed Matthew Norman in The Independent. A few weeks later, after having written to Rachel’s father to apologise, Clarke offered to meet both Rachel and her father.

April 2006 – Tim Worstall: Fuck Him
The actions and policies of the Blair Government created something of a coalition of incensed bloggers from the Left, the Right and the Centre. A seemingly unnecessary and vindictive announcement from then Home Secretary Charles Clarke inspired this splenetic post from Tim Worstall. The Times was so impressed it printed a less sweary version the next day.

July 2006 – Holly Finch: Meeting the Home Boy
Of course, Charles was gone a few weeks later, the fall guy for the Home Office’s foreign prisoner scandal and New Labour’s poor showing in the local elections. His successor was political hard man John Reid. Had things just got better or worse? On the issue of the public enquiry into the bombings, the new Home Secretary was as steadfast in his refusal to hold one as his predecessor. As Holly Finch, another blogging survivor of the bombings, pointed out at a meeting with Reid, the reasons for his refusal were evaporating.

July 2006 – Ministry of Truth: Following the money…
Following stories (related elsewhere in this volume) of what John Prescott did or didn’t do with his cocktail sausage, another scandal erupted over other trysts the Deputy Prime Minister had enjoyed, this time with billionaire Phillip Anschutz. The Ministry of Truth, in a forensic post, reckoned it had Prescott and the Government banged to rights over dealings concerning the Millennium Dome and the super-casino Anschutz wants to build there.

August 2006 – Europhobia: The politics of hope (but mostly fear)
Nosemonkey sees little to hope for in another Government initiative.

August 2006 – Rafael Behr: Party conference season – a preview
Political party conference season. The interminable speeches. The back-biting. The over-analysis (‘What did he mean by that?’, ‘What does his body language say?’ and on and on…). Rafael Behr does the lot with an elegant economy.

September 2006 – Shuggy’s Blog: For the virtues of faithlessness
At the time of writing (mid-September) Tony Blair is still Prime Minister. If that has changed between now and your reading this I’d like to take the opportunity to wish Prime Minister Brown/Reid/Cameron/Beckham (delete as applicable) well.

At the end of the week that saw a so-called failed coup against Blair by Brown and the Brownites, and Blair announcing he would resign within the next 12 months, Shuggy wrote an early obituary for the Blair years.

Next, Chapter 5: You And Me Against The World – Activism

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1. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 2
2. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 3
3. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 5

From the smallest playground spat to intercontinental nuclear exchanges, fighting in all its ugly forms is regarded by all right-thinking people as A Very Bad Thing. Unfortunately, these days, right-thinking people aren’t allowed within 500 yards of the apparatus of power and this is where it’s got us. The last one to come close was probably Mahatma Ghandi, and look what happened to him. Somebody shot him.

Conflict is a subject with many contradictions. Glass someone in the pub and you’re a common thug; push the button on half a million* Iraqis and you’re a statesman. As the soldier says in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life: ‘I killed 15 of those buggers. Now, at home they’d hang me; here they’ll give me a fucking medal, sir.’

Here, some of Blogland’s foremost thinkers attempt to traverse the moral minefield that is Fighting Each Other, whether it be in Iraq, on the home front of the War Against Terror in London, or raking over the coals of World War II.

* At the last estimate, according to research published in The Lancet.

…

November 2005 – The Jarndyce Blog: Bloody Iraq, for the last time
Iraq may have been on a slow slide down the news agenda this year but it still refused to disappear. Away from the ongoing carnage it remained a highly divisive issue in Blogland with arguments usually degenerating into insults and vitriol pretty quickly. Jarndyce wrote a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece about where we were in Iraq and how we got there.

November 2005 – The Curmudgeon: At Least She Isn’t a Gipsy
It wasn’t just a case of soldiers engaging in battle this year – a certain tabloid editor has been in the wars as well. ‘Gotcha!’ said the soaraway Curmudgeon.

December 2005 – Curious Hamster: What’s Your Problem?
Garry Smith, the Curious Hamster, makes a pre-emptive strike…

January 2006 – Curious Hamster: Iran
With Iran looking to become one of the world’s hottest destinations in the coming months, the Curious Hamster provided this handy and rather good cut-out-and-keep rough guide to the country and its recent history. Lots of links, well worth following.

December 2005 – Rafael Behr: Reassurance GLA-style
The terrorist threat was still ever-present. And we weren’t allowed to forget it.

December 2005 – Mr Eugenides: David Irving and Holocaust denial
The arrest and conviction in Austria of the historian David Irving brought debates about World War II and the Holocaust to the fore once again and managed to divide and unite bloggers simultaneously. While some welcomed with his conviction and some didn’t, nearly all agreed that it couldn’t have happened to a nicer man. Mr Eugenides put it best.

January 2006 – Ministry of Truth: Irreducible Stupidity
Another battle: Evolutionists versus Creationists (or IDers, as they have recently rebranded themselves). The Ministry of Truth takes sides.

February 2006 – Chase me, ladies, I’m in the cavalry: David Irving
Ever the voice of reason, Harry Hutton spotted an even bigger danger than Holocaust deniers such as…

March 2006 – The Quiet Road: The madness of anti-Americanism
One of the more tedious aspects of the debate about The War Against Terror is the accusation levelled at critics of US foreign policy that they are ‘anti-American’. Jim Bliss mounts a defence far more nuanced than that of those doing the name-calling.

March 2006 – Acerbia: Telemachiavelli
Here’s D of Acerbia again, reincarnated this time as a roboticist, fighting in the eternal battle that is Man vs. Machine.

April 2006 – Kitty Killer: No to war, yes to proxy war. Labour hacks support armed Iranian resistance
Iran and its nuclear ambitions were also in the sights of the Western Powers this year. In a nice piece of reportage (still quite rare amongst British blogs, I think) and analysis, Kitty Killer found some Labour MPs willing to support armed Iranian resistance groups.

April 2006 – The Inside Of My Head: The same, but different
Peter Gasston spots a double standard with regard to the treatment of two countries that both have uranium enrichment programmes.

July 2006 – Steve Lovegrove: 07/07/06
July brought the first anniversary of the London suicide bomb attacks. Steve Lovegrove, a survivor of the Piccadilly Line bombing, gives his account of 7/7 one year on.

July 2006 – Smokewriting: The Powerlessness of Israel
It’s a fact of political blogging that if you’re going to make any kind of point about the Israel-Palestine issue, you should be prepared to get flak from both sides of the argument, even if you write an even-handed piece. Comment threads degenerate quickly into insults, hyperbole and expletives. The pro-Israeli camp will call you anti-Semitic. The pro-Palestine camp will call you a supporter of tyranny. Eventually someone will mention the Nazis, at which point you have to invoke Godwin’s Law (‘As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one’) and call the whole thing off.

With the kidnapping of Israeli troops by Hezbollah and the retaliatory bombardment of Lebanon, an already complex situation was complicated exponentially (‘What they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over,’ was George Bush’s now famous appraisal of the situation). Rochenko at Smokewriting wrote what many thought was one of the best pieces about the unfolding carnage. Thoughtfully and sympathetically argued, it’s written more in sorrow than in anger.

August 2006 – Devil’s Kitchen: Tony and his detractors
On the subject of the Israel vs Hezbollah war, Devil’s Kitchen gave us a thought-provoking and debate-catalysing call to arms after Tony Blair had made a speech in America about the future direction of the War Against Terror. There was, he said, much criticism from bloggers of how the war was being conducted but little suggestion of how to bring it to an end. Why not play along too? Solving the Middle East crisis is a game for all the family.

(This is an unusual post from Devil’s Kitchen, since he is famous across Blogland for his liberal peppering of articles with the kind of inventive swearing that would make Dennis Hopper whistle with admiration. DK’s imaginative use of Anglo-Saxon was even quoted by Environment Minister David Miliband at a recent awards ceremony.)

August 2006 – Europhobia: Oh, come on…
This year heralded the fifth year of the War Against Terror. The announcement that the security services had foiled a terrorist plot which, as the Home Secretary John Reid described it, would have caused death and destruction on ‘unprecedented scale’ was met with a degree of scepticism. Nosemonkey, AKA J. Clive Matthews, spoke for many.

Next, Chapter 4: Confusing Power With Greatness – Politics

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1. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 4
2. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 6
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The beast with two backs. The mattress mambo. Touching the Void. Posting Yul Brynner first class. Where would the British be without euphemisms for the sexual act? In possession of a much more mature attitude towards sex, no doubt, but having fewer laughs along the way.

This year’s rash of political sex scandals (is that the appropriate collective noun?) heaped yet more ridicule on politics and politicians. The avid interest and disapproval aimed at those affairs by the media and the public showed us to be simultaneously – and paradoxically – both prudish and prurient.

Sex still sells big. It’s to be wondered how much envy plays a part in the voyeuristic intrusions we make into other people’s sex lives; is it that we would quite like to be doing those kind of things with our own John Thomases and Lady Janes?

…

January 2006 – Tim Ireland: ‘Our legal advice is that Mark Oaten is not a paedophile.’
If you ask me, the story of Mark Oaten and his predilection for male prostitutes brought out the very best and the very worst in British bloggers. The now famous Guido Fawkes (by ‘famous’ I mean that his blog receives more visits than any other in the country – many bloggers set store by such things, much like comparing manhoods) and his associate Recess Monkey, another political gossip-monger, tried to claim a role in Oaten’s outing. Many bloggers were pretty disgusted. Tim Ireland takes up the tale with a round-up of how the blogs saw the affair. The following pieces contain many links but they’re worth following to gain the full flavour of how the story played out in Blogland.

January 2006 – Iain Dale: Simon Hughes Deserves Both our Condemnation and Understanding
Shortly after Mark Oaten’s downfall, Lib Dem leadership candidate Simon Hughes was outed as gay by The Sun. Surely only a homophobe could have failed to be disgusted at the ‘Another One Bites The Pillow’ tagline and sniggering that went with it. Here, Iain Dale, former Conservative parliamentary candidate and current Cameron ‘A-lister’ speaks of his own experiences while sympathising with Hughes’ predicament.

March 2006 – Rhetorically Speaking: The best idea I ever had (this evening)
Bookdrunk has a suggestion for those God-bothering types looking to interfere in the bedroom (so to speak).

May 2006 – Biffovision: Porn-Oh!
Finding evidence of a youth being currently misspent reminds Mr Biffo of another youth previously misspent.

May 2006 – Harry Hutton: In Defence of John Prescott
Birds do it, bees do it, even Deputy PMs do it. In May, the story broke of John Prescott, his cocktail sausage and his diary secretary, Tracey Temple. Cue much hilarity. Harry Hutton reckoned a Deputy Prime Minister on the job was much less dangerous than one doing his job.

May 2006 – Acerbia: Bit Player
Acerbia is the archive of the many and fabulous adventures of D. Like a hard-bitten son of Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius taught to write by William S. Burroughs, D has led many lives; continually reincarnated, he’s a boxer fuelled by sexual frustration one day, a patient at the doctor’s with a case of sentient ringworm the next. Here he explores the eternal triangle by way of a cinematic classic.

June 2006 – Chicken Yoghurt: Ask Tony and win: The winner is…
Shortly after the Tracey Temple scandal broke, Tony Blair held a webcast on the Number 10 website answering questions from the public put to him by two journalists. Being the cynic, I thought the searching questions would be weeded out and the chances of one being put to the Prime Minister were slim. So, I held a little competition on my blog. Anyone managing to have their question asked would win a prize. As it turns out I was the winner. My question was about a largely overlooked aspect of John Prescott’s conduct. But as you’ll see, asking the Prime Minister a question is one thing. His answering it is quite another.

June 2006 – A Spinster’s Quest: Speed-Dating
Lucy is on A Spinster’s Quest. She’s attempting to find 50 ways to find a lover – an anti-Paul Simon. She’s determined to try online dating, lonely hearts columns, singles’ nights and wherever else love may linger. Here, she tries speed-dating.

July 2006 – Emerald Bile: Achilles’ Cunt
Here’s a piece from Emerald Bile’s Noreen about her gynaecologist. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

October 2006 – The Sharpener: Talk amongst yourselves, we couldn’t possibly comment
Donald from the blogging collective The Sharpener performs a stylish high-wire act over the most divisive of issues.

Next, Chapter 3: We’ve Had A Bit Of A Falling Out – War

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1. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 4
2. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 6
3. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 5

DO NOT click here.

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3. What the 2007 budget means for you

‘In the future,’ Andy Warhol famously said, ‘everyone will be famous for 15 minutes’. As it turns out, Warhol, the dear old over-rated charlatan, was of course wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. His 15 minutes was an average figure. The world is seething with infuriating nonentities and spectacular mediocrities who have enjoyed simply hours of unearned fame while far greater talents freeze to death on the streets of Britain every day having had not even a nanosecond of recognition. Add all those times together and divide by the number of people and you get 15 minutes. QED*.

Fortunately, The Blog Digest is seeking to redress this imbalance by featuring in this chapter only articles of culture and refinement. Big Brother and its sub-human denizens, for instance, are afforded the space and respect they deserve (that is, hardly any). Celebrity pin-cushion and alleged popstar Pete Doherty also features but only as the untalented berk he is rightly regarded as being. So pull up a chaise longue, uncork the laudanum and wallow in the best, and a little of the worst, that British culture had to offer this year.

* This theory will be proved if it takes you longer than 15 minutes to read this book.

…

October 2005 – The Curmudgeon: Lions, Lizards and Gospel
October last year saw the release of the movie adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Philip Challinor takes a literary tour of the Lewis’ fantasy series, examining their subtexts.

October 2005 – Diamond Geezer: Today on the web
Diamond Geezer summarises the major stories from October 2005 while trying to get namechecked on the Guardian’s daily ‘Today on the web’ feature, which rounds up what the blogs are saying on any given subject.

February 2006 – No Rock And Roll Fun: Doherty Remains on the Streets
What a year it’s been for the nation’s favourite moon-faced heroin addict, Pete Docherty. Does anybody know what he’s actually famous for? Did someone mention a band? His gruelling tour of the country’s courtrooms was documented with admirable restraint by No Rock And Roll Fun.

February 2006 – Rolled-up Trousers: Those blasted cartoons
The Danish cartoons, needless to say, caused offence, debate and violence. Osama Saeed takes a balanced look at the controversy.

February 2006 – Tampon Teabag: I’m Cartooning Too
Larry Teabag took a balanced view of a different kind.

April 2006 – No Rock And Roll Fun: Didn’t We Have A Lovely Time When Doherty Wasn’t Banged-Up?
If it’s April, it must be time for another court appearance from Pete Doherty. No Rock And Roll Fun files this report.

May 2006 – Diamond Geezer: The Sultan’s Elephant
The Sultan’s Elephant arriving in London in May was certainly one of the biggest and most exciting spectacles the city has seen. It’s one of my biggest regrets this year not to have seen it with my own eyes. Although many bloggers took photos and videos of the Sultan’s quest for the time-travelling girl who haunts his dreams (just Google ‘sultan’s elephant’ to find a huge collection), very few attempted to describe it in words. Thank goodness, then, for Diamond Geezer.

June 2006 – Clairwil: Whose idea was that?
And now to philosophy. Clairwil ponders the unanswered and fundamental questions about how we got to be where we are today.

June 2006 – qwghlm: The Myth of 62p
In June, we were told how much the Royal Family costs the public – 62p each. Chris at qwghlm.co.uk was having none of it.

June 2006 – Flying Rodent: Big Brother: Series Seven – Some Thoughts
The Flying Rodent says – with élan, economy and accuracy – all that needs to be said about this year’s Big Brother.

July 2006 – Biffovision: Flop of the Plops
Lest we forget, Top of the Pops was put out of its misery this year. Paul Rose, AKA Mr Biffo, conducts the autopsy.

July 2006 – The Sharpener: My admiration for modern art
Paul Davies visited the Tate Modern and discovered a previously unheralded art form.

August 2006 – Clairwil: Clairwil’s Book Club
Time for some literary criticism. Here, Clairwil reappraises a blockbuster.

August 2006 – Sunny Hundal: Why do newspapers hate us bloggers?
August saw something of a backlash against bloggers and blogging. Blogs ‘are the verbal diarrhoea of the under-educated and banal’, sneered Janet Street-Porter in her column for The Independent on Sunday before rounding off the column with a paean to the joys of porridge (really). ‘Where do blog writers and surfers find the time? When do they do the washing, cooking, eating, talking, cuddling, story-reading to the kids? Do they never help with the kids’ homework, go to the theatre, make love, read books, talk to friends, entertain?’, asked newspaper columnist, media pundit, think-tank researcher and author, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. There were others.

Sunny Hundal pondered on the origins of the backlash.

August 2006 – Robert Sharp: Why are we wasting our time with this shit?
You probably won’t be surprised to hear that a lot of bloggers are passionate about freedom of speech. In August a Muslim group offended by a blog post on Tory überblog Conservativehome.com campaigned to have its author sacked from his job (such campaigns aren’t unheard of). Robert Sharp sounds off.

August 2006 – No Rock And Roll Fun: Pete Doherty: Class Warrior
I know what you’re thinking: we need an update on Pete Doherty’s progress. After another court appearance for drug offences, at which the judge praised Pete’s music (true!), Pete found himself in The Priory clinic. Here, for the final time in this volume at least, is No Rock And Roll Fun.

September 2006 – Chris Dillow: Corrie’s truths, Campbell’s cretinism
Chris Dillow on the ultimate test of a politician’s integrity – do they watch Coronation Street?

Next, Chapter 2: The Honourable Member – Sex

Related posts:

1. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 6
2. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 2
3. The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 7