The Wardman Wire

A nasty shock when this appeared as a Google advert in my right hand sidebar:

Leaving aside the eminently forgettable service name that falls neatly into the middle of the triangle formed by Diageo, Consignia (do you remember the “vanishing down the plughole” logo), and a nursery rhyme engraved in my memory along the lines of “The Big Ship Sales on the …”, it may be a good service (apparently they do “Professional Networking”). If anyone likes it, do comment!

On a different note, there’s a new Welsh blog that gets the bit between its teeth in Welsh politics called “Miss Wagstaff presents…”, and goes for the detail. In a Welsh Assembly Government that may turn out to always be a set of rotating coalitions, it may be that bloggers can be a force to keep politicians’ behaviour at least vaguely transparent.

The blog motto:

Analysing the ‘One Wales Agreement/ Government’ and whether it is serving the people of Wales or merely a convenient way for Labour to stay in power and for Plaid Cymru to gain ministerial experience.

The style is a little bit like Westmonster, but (to my ear) without the partisan edge, with more detail, and a little less snarky. It could be that Miss W has the same partisan edge as me so I missed it.

Miss Wagstaff has just completed the ‘Crazy Eight’ meme, so I can tell you the following snippets about her:

Passions:

My social life (Good food and good wine and good conversation). Excellent.
Having fun and plenty of it. Excellent.
Healthy work-life balance. Er … you’re blogging.

8 things I want to do before I die:

See Wales become a successful and respectable partner within the UK. A Unionist? (Stir, stir, stir)
Have a walk-in wardrobe built for myself. Hmmm. That might make you a Shoe person.

8 books I’ve read recently or am still reading

Rough Guide to Venice. Nice spot, but smelly. Like Norfolk, visit before it sinks.
Alastair Campbell, The Blair Years. I’ll let you off if you didn’t give &^%&* AC any money.

The blog is only three weeks old, but it’s an impressive start, and she has her teeth into the networking aspects already which is a good sign. One to watch if she sticks with it.

I’ll be blogrolling Miss W when I next do a revision, and have recovered all my notes from an over-full hard disk that died.

[Update: Ordovicius is sceptical:

Bethan Jenkins says that many AMs are too afraid of anonymous attacks to start a blog, despite the fact that one can use comment moderation to prevent such things. I suspect that those blogless AMs are more afraid of engaging in debate with real people than something so trivial as an anonymous name-caller, which is why many of them have their researchers run blogs instead. Such blogs have all proved to be short lived and fall flat on their arses as soon as there's a whiff of trouble, as do those by civil servants. They still like to have a go, though the the most recent attempt is more of a place for them to hang out together than anything else.

I'll reserve judgement until the first crisis, and see if she is closed down.]

Tags: welsh wagstaffe, one wales government, welsh assembly government, welsh assembly, torchwood

[tags]welsh wagstaffe, one wales government, welsh assembly government, welsh assembly, torchwood[/tags]