The Wardman Wire

After last week’s tour de force over at Redemption Blues, this is going to be a quick canter through the Blogosphere. Here we go.

Let’s start with one left over from last week: actress Kim Benson writes about an experience in a hospital in North America:

“…he underwent a colonoscopy … even asked for pictures which they readily handed to him…gross.”

Now an important story that is only breaking over the last few days. The Society of Homeopaths is doing an Usmanov and attempting to shut down blogs as a way of shutting down criticism. They are about to get their fingers burnt. In this case it is not about shares in Arsenal, it is about - among other things - whether the Society of Homeopaths are going to take responsiblity for their members who have peddled homeopathy as a cure for malaria in Kenya. Go to this article for the update, then read the history and post your opinions on what they did to Quackometer:

My web hosting company Netcetera have received a complaint from the legal representation of the Society of Homeopaths about this posting. On the request of my hosting company, I have taken down this post while I try to understand the concerns of the Society of Homeopaths.

(Note to Society of Homeopaths: I’m the ghost of Aunty Mable, and this article stays on the table).

Tom Hamilton draws our attention to the “Lovestruck” column of the London Paper, for following up somebody you thought you found attractive when you thought you saw them for an instant:

“I’m sometimes tempted to place an entirely fictional, but plausibly vague, ad in there as an experiment.”

Mr Eugenides opts out of the campaign that will not be named any more on this blog:

“Mr Eugenides regrets to inform his readers that he has no opinion whatsoever on the Liberal Democrats, their former leader, or their next one. This blog frequently focuses on the trivial, the mundane and the dull, but seldom all three at the same time.”

However, I must, as Jonathon Calder has received a letter from Shirley Williams, which he contrasts with the one she sent him last time there was a leadership election:

Autumn 2007: I think he would find it quite hard to manage an election two years off and to maintain the kind of dreadful pace of elections nowadays.

Spring 2006: Ming Campbell is the leader we need to guide us through the challenging years ahead.

Ouch.

Stumbling and Mumbling explores the threat posed to our pies by the new obesity task force.

Isn’t it time the government banned pies? Alan Johnson’s claim that fat people are more dangerous than the atomic bomb suggests he might be thinking this way.

Personally, I would rather ban Alan Johnson - or at least put him in the Morecambe and Wise comedy slot until he can come up with some rational thinking in the area. Perhaps we could use large hamster wheels with a pork-pie just out of reach of children Mr Johnson considers to be unhealthy. Alternatively, he could get Mr Usmanov to eat them all, so that there are none available.

Barkingside 21 explores a bit of England that is for ever the USA:

Back in July the UK Government announced that it had given permission for Menwith Hill, the largest electronic monitoring station in the world outside America, to be used in the American Missile Defence System.

Meanwhile, Philobiblon has been thinking about Spitfire Pilots - women as Spitfire pilots. There were 164 of them, and they should not be forgotten:

The “Spitfire Women”, although not all of them got to fly the fighter pilots’ favourite plane, were the 164 female pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA).

And Save the Ribble report on a possible success:

Ribble Barrage and Floodplain Building Developments Take ‘Backward Step’ - Has The Ribble Been Saved?

As a final item, On an Overgrown Path has published an interview with the Aldeburgh Festival Artistic Director:

An inspirational £14m ($28m) creative campus will make new music available to future generations.

And as a final, final item, let me introduce you briefly to a new cartoonist in the blogosphere, Paul Toner, who publishes a daily cartoon called “Rue Britannia”. He’s good - go and take a look. Here’s one for the right and one for the left.

I have also received a couple of rants articles about animal rights, but since people sent me texts to publish, not the links where they exist,there’s not a lot I can do about it. Sorry, but the review is about published posts not publishing posts.

And that is it for this week. Apologies for the delay in publication - that’s life sometimes.

Suggestions for next week to “britblog AT gmail DOT com”.

Tags: britblog roundup, britblog
[tags]britblog roundup, britblog[/tags]