Chicken Yoghurt: The last laugh

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 don't know how much this whole blogspat with Guido and the rest influenced Justin but I can't help thinking that this decision is not a coincidence. In which case it is hardly a victory for British political blogging and a damn shame to boot. But I couldn't help thinking that this whole campaign by Tim Ireland et al was doomed to achieve little in the end. Indeed, I think it's done more harm than good. If your adversary doesn't have a reputation to ruin in the first place, but you do, it might be better to think hard and carefully before you strap the guns on.

Does anyone think less of Guido/Staines than they did before all this blew up? It's unlikely. I stopped reading him months ago. Actually, it was after I listened to his drunken podcast with 'Recess Monkey'. I thought then, WANKERS! But that term has been flashing in front of me more and more lately as I read the posts of bloggers for whom, until now, I had the greatest respect. Unintended consequences, or what?

The saddest part of all this is the way it has highlighted the inherent weakness of British political blogging. If it had been in a more robust state there would have been no need for the shrill and sometimes tiresome, longwinded and patronising posts we've been subjected to from some quarters.

I'm not a part of the political blogging scene. I'm just a link-blogger whiling away some spare time. There are some out there who don't consider me a blogger at all. No comments or trackback. No 'conversations' with other members of the 'blogging community'. No Usenet history. Blah, blah, blah. To which I just say, 'bollocks'. It's a free world.

And if the time comes that I have to conform to some 'blog charter' or 'code of practice' brought down from Trackback mountain by some self-appointed Moses of the blogosphere I'll think I'll just quietly fuck off and find something else to do with my time. It's no big deal.

In the meantime I find myself looking out on a blogworld which is, if anything, is in a worse state than it was a few weeks ago.

Laugh? I don't think so.

It makes me want to weep.