[blogfocus tuesday] first of the new format

Warning to Bags Rants, Ingsoc, Ellee Seymour, Finding life hard?, Mutterings, Buckeye Thoughts, The Last Ditch, Two Wolves, Lord Nazh, Sallyinnorfolk, basswulf, Imagined Community, Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe and a selection of Blogpowerers who often don't get a mention that they're in my sights, along with some others, for the next few Blogfocuses.

I've decided on a new, leaner format. Three Blogfocuses a week, with eight posts each, all on the main page - this seems the way to go. Together with Firefox, it will be about twice as quick to prepare. So to the first of this new format:

1 Mars Hill's Paul Burgin is famous - he has a fanclub, so let me be the first to congratulate him by leading off the Focus this evening:

Recently I find I have been getting a lot of hits from the Facebook website, enough to wonder what is going on and if someone was using my identity.

So I joined in this morning and found that there is a "Paul Burgin Appreciation Society". It mentions me as a thoughtful future Labour MP. It's very flattering and rather kind of them, but, like 99.9% of everyone else on the Planet I am sometimes anything but thoughtful and people being predicted for high things in politics find that it is the kiss of political death.

2 Celia Green is referring here to a philosopher who was comparing freedom and social identity:

What makes her think that I would value ‘freedom’ more than a social identity? I might well choose to sacrifice ‘freedom’, if I had any, for the sake of social status. I never expected, or wanted, to have to live without social status, and I was deeply grieved and shocked to find myself thrown out of society fifty years ago, not only without the Professorial status which I should have acquired at about 15, but without any status at all as an academic on a career track that could ever lead to a Professorship.

3 Guthrum gives an overview of the next election and the question of independence:

Also somebody has also woken up to the fact that in the May elections the SNP are going to do pretty well, and may even start pushing for their ultimate goal of independence. Having given Scotland its Parliament back, apparently in order to scupper the Nationalists, (astute move Tony), they are taking full advantage of their independence of action and doing sensible things like not saddling their students with years of debt. Mr Hain has been given his marching orders by those two unlikely bedfellows Paisley and Adams, so that Ulster now has its virtual independence from Whitehall.

4 Ruthie Z has taken over from Welshcakes in the culinary department, all in the interests of her little one, you understand:

This week I made gnocci for the first time, and it actually was a big success... Little C loved it. The sauce is just a very basic marinara, and the chicken was marinated and grilled (it's just warm enough to grill outside now). Speaking of warmish temperatures, some of my neighbors are already mowing their meager, still-half-dead lawns. They're fanatics. Little C is going to be baptized next week, on Easter.

5 Sicily Scene is now into fashion and here is Welshcakes' take on the Sicilian hot collection for spring:

The new shoe collections are in the shops and I want some! There is still a lot of bright red about in accessories but the definitive look for spring seems to be shoes in gold and silver - predominantly silver. The toes are still rounded and the shoes are flat or kitten-heeled. [I hate these heels as they get stuck in pavement cracks.] The matching, sequinned bags are absolutely to die for, ladies and the ones I've seen have not been all that expensive. They are, however, small and this is a favourite party trick of mine - I buy a small bag to be fashionable, then have a fight with it and rearrange things to get them back in every time I open it!

6 Croydonian is less into fashion and more into the Water Board:

The Consumer Council for Water's tireless championing of the consumer continues. The quango which seems to do everything but promote the interests of consumers has moved from household water saving tips to gardening advice. Yes, really. Here is the ne plus ultra: "Reduce water loss through evaporation by protecting the garden from wind - fences and hedges will do the job well". Consider even a postage stamp sized urban garden. Is there anyone who in order to bring a thin smile to the lips of 'Dame' Yve Buckland would fork out for a selection of fence panels in order to reduce water evaporation? If there are any such, I think they deserve to be bracketed with the idiot super patriot who willed his entire estate to the state for making a small hole in the national debt.

7 Sinclair's Musings looks at China and what you really need to watch out for:

It is a cautionary tale of optimism coming to grief in the face of a culture that the investors could not understand. Despite this I am not convinced that Westerners are the ones who should be most concerned by this book. Losing even staggering amounts of capital like the amount sunk into China is mostly a concern for those who lost it and has little lasting effect on our way of life. By contrast, the effects that the culture of venality which the book exposes will be having on China will already be huge and could become catastrophic.

8 … and Theo Spark winds up this Focus with the issue we are all smarting from:

“Whatever else you might think about President Ahmadinejad,” said one British sailor under no duress, “at least he took risks to get us, and genuinely desires to keep us in his country; which is more than we can say for Prime Minister [Tony] Blair.”

The British prime minister, upon hearing of the defections, said, “We did all we could, within the bounds of diplomatic propriety, to request the release of our troops. We really were fond of them. I do hope that they’ll come back and visit us sometime.”

Yes it is a piss take, but following the Governments efforts so far who can blame them.

Another Blogfocus on Thursday. Hope to see you then.