Courtesy of Red Ken's Dirty Tricks Dept

There's me mulling over the minor matter of the bandwidth limit of my fileden account exceeding past bursting point when, in the real world of grown up politics, Harry's Place has become a victim of its own success.

A week before the Mayoral Elections, and HP can’t run well researched and even handed stories on Livingstone, Galloway and the SWP? Oh, that’s a sore one. Some of its regular posters and commentators must be tearing their hair out. No wonder Wardytron always wears a hat in his pictures.

I suggest that some of the HP regulars put ‘Mikey’ on suicide watch in the meantime. What with him not being in a position to exhibit his ongoing expertise on the politics of the left he’ll be kicking his little green football in frustration.

On second thoughts, leave him be.*

*Yep, a variation on this joke first appeared over at Socialist Unity blog. I'm nothing if not repetitive.

Whatever happened to the likely lads?

Remember the Euston Manifesto? Of course you do. Harry's Place never seem to mention it much these days, but I'm sure that's because they're too busy making anniversary plans for marking its 5th anniversary in 2011.

Splintered Sunrise blog pops up to put the EM in a nutshell in his latest blog.

"It may be best to go back to the Euston Manifesto. You remember the Euston Manifesto, one of the defining documents of this century, yes? No? Well, the Reader’s Digest condensed version goes like this: Norman Geras and Nick Cohen go to the pub. Nick bitches and moans about what a shower of bastards the left are. Norm scribbles a manifesto on the back of a beer mat. (Eustonians like to say there was Serious discussion involved, but I’m sticking with the beer mat theory. It’s the best explanation for the combination of windy truisms with weirdly specific stuff on the Middle East and, er, Linux.) Alan (Not The Minister) Johnson then sets up another one of his thousands of websites, and invites punters to sign the document."

Ah, O'Neills pub on Euston Road. Halfway between the Housmans Bookshop of their past, and the British Museum of their future.

Taking the Cliffite Pledge

Via the ongoing feuding between the Socialist Unity Blog and Lenny comes the petty, sectarian but very funny quip of my day:

#307 I imagine that Seymour’s relationship to Rees is similar to his “The Simpsons” namesake’s relationship to his mother, Agnes.

“Seymour, are you reading those anti-SWP blogs again?”

“No mother!”

Comment by Anon — 25 February, 2008 @ 6:04 pm

[Via Here.]

A Fragile Ego Writes . . .

*snigger* Wonder what prompted this little spewage?:

"The second thing is, the Sitemeter at the bottom of this page is inaccurate, and not in the good way (ie, it doesn't inflate the numbers). I've only recently discovered that Sitemeter and other similar services have a reputation for seriously undercounting visitors. It is true that another service that doesn't appear on the site gives me an extra hundred unique visitors a day, Google Analytics ditto, and a system that used to exist but went out of business gave me a couple of hundred more. However, some say that no free service really tells you how many page views, or unique visits, you get. The professional services that you pay for, or get free with certain packages like Wordpress, apparently describe five or six times more unique visits. Now, since I don't have advertisements on the site, I would generate no revenue from having five or six times more visitors - this is entirely an ego issue. As such, I'm not going to change the hosting service or pay for some package or other. But I am going to piss and moan about it. And perhaps find some way to get a proper counting device free."

PS - I also think it's sweet that Lennie keeps been drawn back to the swamp of "sectarian blogging". *Cuddles*.

Leant On

Is SCWR having a pop?

Gone to Siberia? Try Miami

David T. from Harry's Place is getting in a tizzy about the whereabouts of uber-SWP blogger, Lenny. Apparently he's gone missing.

Of course, he claims his concern is motivated by no more than a desire to know where Lenny will pitch his tent on the Galloway versus SWP dispute, but you know that it's more than that.

Dave T and co need Lenny as much as they need Benji in their comment box. They're a source of political comfort in an uncertain world. It's like a modern day blogging version of the The Jocks and the Geordies. A verbal scrap and a cyber-warrior scrimmage, and then home in time for tea.

Bugger the whereabouts of Lenny. In my alternative universe, he's suffered suffocation after disappearing up Zizek's arse once too often. The more pressing question is where's Harry? Oh, there's Harry.

PS - Look at the first comment on the Harry's Place thread. What did I say before? Google Alert is good, but Tim's 'Galloway Alert' is better.