Last night was the first BritBlog blog meet, and I have to say it was a very nice evening!

We had a turn out of six very nice people (which I’m told is good number for the first one), so I’d like to thank Digbeth, George, Tom, Darren, and Godwin for braving the rain and coming along.

The conversation touched on lots of topics, but for some reason kept returning to knitting…

Anyway, it was a great night and I’m looking forward to the next one!

Phew! I just got back from a day trip to Glasgow. Had a business meeting at 2:30-ish, and an early finish meant that I could meet up with Gordon from Scottish Blogs for a quick beer. We’ve been in touch for the last year or so talking about combining forces on the Scottish Blogs/BritBlog front, so it was great to finally meet him face to face. I still find it a bit funny meeting up with bloggers (I met Gary from Binary Slate last month - my first beer with a blogger), but so far they have all been very enjoyable occasions, and I’m really looking forward to the first BritBlog blogmeet (plug plug)!

Anyway, as I said, it was great to finally meet Gordon. He’s a really nice chap, and it should be a lot of fun moving our joint project forward. Now I just need to find some spare time and we’ll be sorted!

Life (and work) is way too busy at the moment, hence the major lack of bloggage these last few months.

Anyway, I managed to find time to pop up to Cambridge this weekend: this time for the 4th Elysian Beer Festival (photos here). I’m sorry to say I’ve misplaced my festival beer list so I can’t tell you what I had and what I thought, but suffice it to say that the beer was of an excellent standard, and the free shuttle bus laid on by the kind people at the Live & Let Live in Cambridge was a great touch.

The following morning was nice and sunny, so Jim, Matt and I went of to Anglesey Abbey (photos here) for a walk. This was pleasant enough, but it would have been nicer if there were some flowers and things out - it must be much better in the summer — or even then spring!

Lunch was in the White Swan in Stow-cum-Quy, and was very tasty indeed (though not as good as last weeks lunch in the Fort St. George, which was accompanied by some exceptionally nice ale), and the afternoon was rounded off by some coffee and cake.

Anyway, Matt and Jim have both agreed to help out on the new BritBlog, so we had a good chat about the possibilities throughout the day. There are some great ideas coming up, and it will be great to get some of them in place for BritBlog.

I really miss not living in Cambridge and being able to throw ideas around with other like-minded people. I keep thinking of getting a job up there, but there are so many geeks in those parts it makes the competition a lot higher! Still, one day…

As I said, the new ideas for BritBlog are coming along nicely, so once our new web server is set up and in place we can start working on it properly.

Right, the oven should be warm now, so time to put the chicken in!

Technorati Tags: britblog, cambridge, ale

I’ve just made quite an important announcement over at BritBlog.

Over the next few months BritBlog is going to see quite a few changes. First of all, BritBlog and Scottish Blogs are going to join forces. There seems no point in both Gordon and myself running separate sites, so by combining forces we should be able to offer our members a much better service.

The BritBlog web application (web site) will see a total re-write too - the main goals of which will be to improve the community feel of the site, to allow special interest groups and communities to form, and to develop more useful resources for British Bloggers.

Anyway, exciting times are ahead! Head over to BritBlog to read the full announcement, and if you’ve got any comments we’d be keen to hear them!

Tags: british, blogging, britblog, scottishblogs

And not really got much time now - so just a quickie!

1. A plug: If you live in the UK and want to grow some vines, then my dad has started selling vine cuttings online. He also provides lots of information to help get you going, so go on: convince him that e-commerce works and make an order!
2. Technoranki is getting there - have been working on the site traffic tracking stuff. It’s still not ‘open to the public’, but if you’re a member of BritBlog then you can help out in the trials.

Right - got to dash!

Woohoo! The new version of the Top of the British Blogs has gone live! It’s taking longer than it should to get up and working, but it’s getting there…

Why not head over to BritBlog and take a peak?

Just had an email through from the amazon affiliates thinggie:

The Alexa Web Information Service 1.0 release is now available. The Alexa Web Information Service offers developers a platform for creating innovative applications based on Alexa’s vast repository of information about the Web.

I’ve been playing with web services a lot lately, so I’m looking forward to having a play with this. I’m sure I should be able to integrate some of this stuff into BritBlog…

I was quite surprised to receive an email today telling me that BritBlog has been nominated for the Best of .net awards 2005 in the Best Blog category.

We’re up against the likes of Blogger, flickr, bloglines, wordpress, and msn spaces, so I don’t expect we’ll get that many votes, but it’s nice to be recognised as they say.

Anyway, if you vote you get a chance to win a huge flat screen TV, a very nice digital camera, or an ipod photo, so if you’ve got a moment to spare why not vote for us and enter the competition?