Whom are we not remembering with our poppies?

As the son of a farmer, with two grandfathers who were also farmers, I wear a poppy with a slight sense of unease. Our family was, to say the least, a bit short on relatives who fought in either of the two world wars, let alone who died in them.

This was because those in 'reserved' occupations didn't have to go to war, although my paternal grandfather used to grumble about having had to hand over some of his horses for military duty in WW1.

But there were others working in occupations no less harrowing and no less dangerous than those in the armed services.

The father of a primary school friend of mine was in the London fire brigade throughout the blitz. Also in London at the same time was one of my father's cousins, a Quaker and conscientious objector, who drove an ambulance to and from bomb sites.

Although both of them survived (though not without scars), there must have been many of their colleagues in the rescue services who did not.

But, like those who 'were digging for victory' and countless others on whom the war effort depended, they never get a mention on remembrance Sunday.

Shouldn't we be remembering them too?

Tips for new bloggers

Blogger Shane Greer of Total Politics magazine has a link to an interview, which he offers some tips for new bloggers that I'd have found useful when I first started out.

If you're thinking of starting a blog, you might find some of his points helpful, even if you're a bit older than the questioner's target audience!

If you could give a 17-year-old startup blogger three top tips, what would they be?

Greer: 'Firstly, you have to have a strategy. Not in a Machiavellian sense, but you have to know what you want to achieve. Do you want to reach tens of thousands of people? If that’s your goal and you manage it, then you’re a successful blogger. If it’s just two very specific people that you want to reach and you do, then you’re a successful blogger. Know what you want to achieve, and don’t just write for writing’s sake – unless that’s your objective.

'Secondly, engage in the wider blogging community. Share links, ask for a place in a blogroll – but the bigger bloggers, like Iain, tend to keep blogrolls that only show what they read, so you might not get on there. When I was starting out I also found it useful to get involved in comments. If you’ve written something that’s interesting, then, without spamming, you can share the link in comments. Drive traffic by getting people from that bigger site to find yours through those links. If someone links to me from Iain Dale’s Diary or Political Betting, the effect can be quite phenomenal.

'Thirdly, a lot of times people get caught up in how their site looks, with loads of widgets and so on, but content is king. You can have the worst-looking site in the world – Drudge Report – and still have a gazillion readers because you’re putting up very good content that an audience wants to read. Your audience won’t come back to your site because it’s got lots of shiny things on it, they’ll come back because it has good-quality blog posts that actually add something to the discussion.

'... a fourth piece of advice to a young blogger, don’t just toe the party line. No-one wants to read someone who is just relentlessly on-message – it’s dull. If you disagree with the party, say it' (extracts from an interview on the Tory Rascal blog).

Question Time as entertainment: the 'Not the Nine O'Clock News' version

Having raised the question of whether BBC's Question Time has lost its way through its selection of post-Robin Day chairmen and addition of a fifth guest (previous post) should enjoy this version from the Not the Nine O'clock News team.

If you can't imagine a comedian pulling off anything as effective as this by impersonating Peter Sissons or David Dimbleby in the chair, it arguably supports the point I was making in the previous post.