The Wardman Wire

A special welcome to visitors from Comment is Free. You can listen to the 5 minute “Britblog Roundup” spot I did on Radio 5 this morning while you read this week’s Britblog Roundup.

I also produce a “First Edition” podcast of the news for 2am each morning (play it on the right or subscribe using RSS).

Avoiding the Archbishop

How do I start a roundup for a week where this happened:

• According to Google News there are 2062 stories about Rowan Williams.
• According to Google Blogsearch there are 6204 stories about Rowan Williams.
• According to technorati, there are 8689 stories about Rowan Williams.

I’m going to do what any sensible blogger would do in the circumstances, and blog about blogging for a bit, which Iain Dale did this week from (half an inch inside) the Oval Office. He asks whether he is the first to blog from there. The answer is arguably no.

I will be touching on the “Rowan” story later in the Roundup, however - so I’ll include a break to warn you like this (just in case you have an allergy to the story yet), and a small picture of Rowan Bear in the margin.

<— Archbishop Alert —>

I usually aim to avoid doing commentary in my roundups. Today I’m going to use more of a editorial voice than usual, but I’ll still aim to be neutral.

This roundup is in 4 sections:

• A list of other roundups, as there are a lot around at present.
• Articles suggested this week.
• Does the Balkanisation of Blogging Matter?
• And finishing off with the “Relationship between Islamic Law and the British Legal System”.

A Roundup of Roundups

The Britblog Roundup has now been around for 3 years or so. One of the defining features of 2008 - so far - has been that new roundups have been appearing with the frequency of skeletons out of political cupboards. One Archbishop avoidance strategy is to spend some time on one of these.

Many of the new roundups are born of bloggers in search of more traffic, so take a look while they are here (it won’t work in all cases). Others are well-established roundups that you might have forgotten about. I’m ignoring blogs based in large media organisations.

The Geographical

The Scottish Roundup is edited by Doctor Vee and Will Patterson. It is partly political, but not totally. While I’m on the subject, does anyone understand what “Not a Real Vee” means? (dances? reels of cotton? or a(nother) dastardly plot by the mysterious Mr S).

The Welsh Roundup is into it’s 124th edition.

The Political

The Sunday whip is a weekly roundup of Holyrood politics from Will Patterson.

The Daily

The Daley Dozen comprises stories from various blogs from Iain Dale. His new blog design doesn’t have its categories sorted properly, so I can’t give you a link that will keep being updated with the latest.

Six of the Best is a daily political roundup from disciplinarian Tony Sharp.

You can obtain a capsule of Conspiracy from Aaron Heath over at Liberal Conspiracy. It needs it’s own category.

I run a Daily Roundup of stories as an article and podcast from the newspapers and major websites at the Politics Daily blog, which also appears here at the Wardman Wire. The aim is to have it up the night before, but that is currently a “challenge”.

The Weekly

Not quite a roundup, but Gavin Whenman and Lee Griffin have just started a weekly “Political Sketch” called Politalk. Here is episode 2. The audio is definitely Not Safe For Work, unless you have headphones or your own office.

The Eclectic

Steve Green is now up to his 64th Mystery Blog Tour. Generally, but not exclusively, political.

The Blogpower Roundup happens occasionally, and when it does is a huge effort - comprising 50 or more postings. No regular we address.

The Intellectual

Cassilis has started a weekly roundup of brain food from the think tanks. It still needs a snappy name. Suggestions in my (or his) comments. My suggestions: “Brain Food” or “Who’da Thunk It?”

Roundup Wrap-Up

That will do for roundups. I get the feeling that there are at least as many again still out there. If you do a regular roundup post, drop a note in the comments.

Links for this Week

A very eclectic selection this week. Starting from the top…

Personal

• Bendygirl writes about how friendly (or NOT) her local J D Wetherspoons can be.
• Jonathon Calder is interesting in who’s moving the furniture in restaurants, and about Tolerance in the 1960s.
• The PDF talks about whether cannabis wrecks your .. er .. teeth.

Review

• CBBC are running a series about the famous Summerhill school. Carlotta explains.
• Peter Welch does a book review of Palacio Quemado, having known the author.
• Susanne Lamido looks at Lembit and Lemsip (go and see).

Freedom

• Cabalamat writes about human rights and wrongs in Afghanistan, and then gets on to wrongs and wrongs in Saudi Arabia.

Bookshops

• The long-running saga of the closedown of one of the most thoughtful and diverse chains of UK bookshops - SPCK - accelerated this week, and the shops are closing at the rate of roughly 1 per day. I reported this previously (including interview), and Dave Walker has tracked the SPCK story closely.

History

• Ed Fordham writes about the history of George Orwell and South End Green in Hampstead (where your host used to live).
• Peter Ashley looks at history through the lens of a pub sign.
• Philip Wilkinson gets all pumped up about a Pump Room in Purton Stoke.

Politics

• Baroness Rosscott reports on women in politics, and admits that she has not met any overt sexism in her career.
• Skipper asks whether living in social housing is not difficult enough already?
• The European Tribune pleads for Blair not to be President of Europe.
• The US Primaries are still in progress, and Mrs Dodge is picking up the disease from her husband.
• Chris Dillow compares benefit fraudsters to Tory MPs (but no mention of Cabinet Ministers).
• On the Wardman Wire, we have a whole series of posts about MPs and their expenses from at least five viewpoints.
• Jeremy Hargreaves blames Labour for Greg Mulholland’s “Thou shalt have 125ml wineglasses in thy restaurant” proposals.
• The Devil has words to say about British Fascism.

Of Niches and Ghettoes

I’m a relatively new blogger (started seriously in April 2007), and one of the surprising discoveries has been how much bloggers exist in ghettoes and silos - usually talking to those we agree with, or to those who are anoraks of a similar ilk.

In the Political Blog niche (which is the main one - along with technology, and to a small extent commentary on sport, religion, architecture and anything else of interest - occupied by the Wardman Wire) blogs of a similar political stripe usually link to each other. There are exceptions for occasional stories, but not many.

One point that deserves reflection is whether a Balkanised blogosphere is an indicator of a Balkanised society that is generating it, and whether that matters? (In my view it does - profoundly).

<— Archbishop Alert —>

And the story of the week

I come to that story. I have a lot of links: a good number amount to character assassinations of Rowan Williams, and a good number are simply straight bats played in his defence.

So I’m going minimalist, which includes not linking to my own articles.

The story about Archbishop Rowan’s lecture has gone across a lot of niches this week, and that is how I am going to structure my links on this story. I’m going to link to a number of “summary” type posts in different blog-niches, and leave you to go from there. Here we go.

The Key Documents

• The text of the lecture is here.
• The text of the Archbishop’s interview with Radio 4 is here.
• The video of the lecture is here.
• The text of the Archbishop’s speech to General Synod is here.
• An annotated text of the lecture is here.

Political Comment

Archbishop Cranmer and Matt Sinclair are broadly critical, while Dave Cole and Septicisle are broadly supportive.

Feminist Comment

An almost total absence of feminist comment, so The Chameleon wrote a short article, and (feminist blogger take note) is making Feminism and Sharia the theme of the next carnival of feminism.

Islamic Comment

Just one link here: Yayha Birt is thoughtful.

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