Philobiblon

Welcome to the Britblog roundup – the all-singing all-dancing, but only with a minimum of performing animals, weekly show – as nominated by you – the great British blog reader (all you need to do is email britblog AT gmail DOT com with your own or another excellent post). Don’t be shy!

Turning the usual pattern on its head, I decided to start with the arts this week.. if you can call Hollywood art. (If you really only want the politics, skip down a couple of screens.)

Two takes on this week’s Indiana blockbuster: A Very Public Sociologist gets first billing with a lively headline: Indiana Jones and Sub Cold War Hogwash. Swiss Tony’s a little more charitable: “somewhere along the line, Lucas and Spielberg forgot the ingredients that made Indiana Jones so charming in the first place”.

And staying with entertainment – no, sorry, I refuse to call it sport – a lively piece of live blogging of the Monaco Grand Prix: start at the bottom if you fancy chronological order.

Heading for the bookshelves, for a meatier pastime, The 3Rs reads some shocking facts about Lauren van der Post – who sounds like a hideous individual. And I’m going to use the host’s privilege here to point you to one of mine – my new second-favourite historical detective, Nell Bray, suffragette.

And the classiest bit of culture here by far – a Classical-style windmill in Warwickshire, built in 1632.

Moving into the important public announcement category, I have to start with Weggis’s account of men’s problems. Given the weaker sex’s early death rate, and low level of attendance at doctors’ surgeries, the more honest discussion of such matters, the better.

And equally important, the NHS blog doctor’s warning about the statin police. “Statins are the most “successful” medication ever made provided that you accept that the criterion of success is the level of sales.”

You might also put into this class, well I have, a unique and informative take on the Pennbury eco-town from Toby Savage.

That seems to lead nicely into the environment, broadly defined.

On Onemanblogs, a paen of praise to the suburban weekend, but Edward on One Mor Cup of Coffee has found you can’t stay anonymous in a village for long.

And on Blog of Funk, how children discover the facts of life – or at least olives, while Stroppyblog explores how the social environment – women, smoking, how shocking and uinfeminine – has stuck around from the 1920s onwards.

In the blog environment, when is a safe space safe – or to put it another way, how do you manage the comments? But however you manage it, Ruscombe Green concludes IT does not reduce bureaucracy.

And digging down to Australia, on Conserve England, an exploration on how Europeans brought biological cleansing to Australia. But there is some good news at the end…

Then on to politics, for those who wouldn’t think it was a Britblog roundup without it…

I’m going to start with The Daily (Maybe)’s very personal take on knife crime – “the question is not how we get the young to accept the society we live in now – but how we empower ourselves to create a society where everyone genuinely is a valued member of the community.”

The Magistrate is also offering a unique perspective – gazing through his crystal ball – to the outcome of a new law to criminalise clairvoyants. But what does it mean for vicars?

And a nicely blood-pressure raising post next: Mr Eudeniges’ take on converting parliamentary expenses into straight payments – “Perhaps they don’t realise, when they sound off about feral media and whining bloggers, that it is they who must bear the lion’s share of blame for the catastrophic breakdown in trust between government and governed.”

Then on to the really important – the course of an individual’s life: on Informed Comment Juan Cole has the inside story of the likely deportation of Yezza Orwellian, who has been the victim of the arrest of the student student Rizwaan Sabir – all of this caused by the dowloading of a document from a US government website.

Following on the politicians and expenses line, this might be seen as a bit of my local interest, being from the London Borough of Camden, but it was nominated: on Theo’s blog a council leader is language lessons at public expense. Also in Camden, Suz Blog was commenting on the Camden Green Fair – where the political parties were all allowed to attend, after the Lib Dem “cake stall” was exposed. (And yes, you might have heard my less than dulcet tones there this afternoon in the “big debate”.)

And then on to equality issues: nominators are by tradition anonymous, but I will say that it was a Lib Dem who nominated this post Justin has a question Lynne Featherstone hasn’t answered: why did a female, local candidate get dumped in Henley?

And it was also a Lib Dem, a different one, who nominated this post from Liberal Burblings, asking to “Save the Stoke One”.

At the intersection of internet politics and history, The Political Wire has been looking at politics on the web as it used to be. We’ve come a long way…

In the same territory, Jonathan Calder on Liberal England makes a slightly frightening discovery about Allison Pearson, nee Lobbett.

And finally in politics, to the blog of Jersey Senator Stuart Syvret’s Blog, who has a poll on the current regime, and some suggested reasons for the result.

Finally to finish, the uncategorisation collection:

* Meg Pickard offers a very sensible, minimalist new set of commandments

* From the Missy M Missives (writer’s spelling, not mine), dogs for hire – possibly a good idea?

* And it seems there are still some questions about paid-for television show voting. Surely people aren’t still participating in this?

* In old Hampstead Town the police lights are on, but no one is home.

* And still on history, one that made me laugh – the term “medieval parking fines” might just make some sort of sense.

And that concludes this week’s roundup. Next week we’ll be swinging over to Matt Wardman. (Think that’s right – sure someone will correct me if not…)

Do get your nominations in ASAP – the roundup can ultimately only be as wide-ranging and classy as you make it with nominations, and it is always nice to see new bloggers represented in it.