Philobiblon

Welcome to this weekly roundup – you might have noticed there’s an election almost on, so to start this week, a look at some of the events you might not have read about in a weekend one-story deluge…

Plaid Cymru had its pre-election conference. Welsh Ramblings was focusing on the coverage of the public sector, particularly pay, while the Monmouth Blog has been celebrating some excellent media coverage for its MPs.

The Green Party has also had its conference over the weekend (declaration of interest, I was heavily involved) and on Green Despatches you can find a roundup of the blogging action. It was backing the “Robin Hood tax” – something that A Very British Dude has strong feelings about, as does the Britblog’s founder, Tim Worstall.

The Devil’s Kitchen is less than impressed with the Pirate Party and its view of copyright issues.

Now I suppose there are some other parties that I should cover, so let’s start cheerfully, with the way James Purnell didn’t resign, although how a guest blogger on The Socialist Way thought he should have.

Turning on the Tories, on Mark Reckons there’s an account of the woes of the soon-to-be ex-MP Andrew Mackay. And Cath Elliot on Too Much To Say for Myself has some scathing thoughts about a slightly misplaced – one spot only – decimal point in the Conservative figures on teen pregnancy.

Also related to politics, Mr Eugenides is less than impressed by Scottish rail workers, on The Melangerie, Phil is concerned about the definition of Hooverite economics, and Jonathan Calder on Liberal England mixed nostalgia, a damp suit and a bit of politics to pleasant effects as he reflects on the Market Harborough swimming pool.

Neil on A Place to Stand looks a little further afield, towards the former Irish Tiger, suggesting the economics may not be as bad as suggested, and Laura on The F-Word has been contemplating a government move to allow faith schools to opt out of effective sex education.

Now there’ll be plenty more where that came from for the next ten weeks, so let’s get right away from politics to explore the weird and wonderful range of British blogging topics.

Starting with something completely different, Airminded, subtitled “Airpower and British society, 1908-1941 (mostly)”, hosts the military history carnival. And Elizabeth Chadwick has been revisiting the surprisingly short siege of Framlingham Castle – in 1216, in case you were wondering…

Penny Red is reflecting on what you need to do now to get into journalism, while Greener Leith is reflecting on what you need to do to get a phone box removed (and maybe one day the bin too!)

Barkingside 21 is working to save access to local history and Chris on Capital Nature is counting London birds.

Diamond Geezer has been visiting the real Albert Square and the Onion Bag Blog has dropped in on the new year celebrations in China Town.

And that’s all for this week…. host next week will, I believe, be Matt Wardman.

You might be surprised by some of the links here: the way the Britblog works is that nominations are made, and the host is generally obliged to use them – and to use them without undue editorial bias.