Now I’m not sure if it’s the computers here at work, but the current crop of Google Ads on LibDemBlogs seem to be drug related, including this classic block of ads:

Blogger and BlogSpot are being rubbish. I’m finding that requests aren’t being returned for a large number of users (which changes everytime) XML files. For the time being all Blogspot hosted blogs have been disabled from the site. Hopefully they’ll fix their end soon and we’ll get you all back on.
19:00 update I’ve changed the cache period from 25 minutes to 2 hours, so new posts may take time to appear. However this does seem to allow BlogSpot blogs to appear.

I’ve just spotted a Google Ad on LibDemBlogs advertising jobs for MI5.

It’s only for admin staff, but I’m sure that the job could lead to other more exciting roles.

In Lincoln we (currently) elect in thirds. Being the newest councilor for Park Ward I have noticed a problem. Of all the casework that has dropped through the door or been left on the phone, all of it has been for my attention. Nobody ever asks for Cllr Quinton, yet she is the one who knows which department or officer needs to be spoken to.
The only good thing is that I’ve now got a casework helper…
…Heather.

I’ve added Gravatar to LibDemBlogs for the moment. I’ve used the email addresses which people requested to be added to the site to generate the gravatar. If you don’t already have a Gravatar visit their site www.gravatar.com and register. If you do and it doesn’t appear, let me know which email address you think I should be using. If it does appear and you don’t want it let me know and I’ll work out what to do.
Note if it slows down LibDemBlogs or it just doesn’t look that good I may turn it off.

It’s now possible to donate towards the cost of LibDemBlogs.
I’ve also added my search engine (well a Google API script) to the site, so you can try and find those old posts or just search for random words. A small bug is that searching for LibDem Bloggers doesn’t really work as their names appear on almost every page.

After two hard days of getting it to work, the new style for LibDem Blogs is live.
Hopefully the layout is easier to read, and with the discrete advertising that has slipped in, some of my bandwidth costs can be covered.
Please leave feedback in the comments, as the site is there for you the readers and not me.

I’ve add MyBlogLog for the time being to both this blog and LibDemBlogs.
Currently it’s a trial, after both Will and I thought it would be nice to see which stories actually got read on the LibDemBlogs site during the LibDem Spring Conference.
You can see the stats for LibDemBlogs here or my blog here.
Any feedback welcome.