Disco Vicar

Oh crivens! The Beeb's pretending to 'get' blogs again. Even by their standards though, the latest attempt is a little weird. There's some headmisstressy drivelling about taste and decorum, then the article lurches into covering Chris Dillow's work over at Stumbling and Mumbling. Now, Chris's stuff is fabulous but it's not what you'd call 'mass market'. Hey - that's not a criticism. One of the best things about the blogosphere is that it allows genuine experts like Chris to write about their area without dumbing down or the like. It's simply a very smart guy writing for other very smart guys - and yes, I don't understand a word of it.

Next up, we have Depleted Uranium explaining how Bayesian Inference can shed light on how the Police deal with suspected suicide bombers. Finally, we have some discussion about the literary and political significance of an obscure 19th Century bombing incident.

Now, this is all good stuff, but do you note that it all clusters towards a certain end of the spectrum ? How can one put this ? This isn't exactly what they talk about down the Dog'n'Duck.

As ever, it turns out the BBC have an agenda. Here's how the article ends:

The newspapers have got rhetoric and leader columns covered. What it would be great to see from blogs is the start of a set of building blocks - analogies, psychological mechanisms, and actual experiences - to help us build up an understanding of the mad world around us.

It's a task more noble than "taking on the media", and it's one that
only the blogs can do.

Yes, indeed. Listen to the Reverend and spend your time producing nice, constructive articles about the analogies between Ancient Egyptian burial rites and modern bus routes, instead of hiding in the Vestry with a camera while the vicar 'tutors' the head choirboy. Remember, accountability is for the leetle peeple.