Warning: football boots can kill children

What is the point of The Sharpener? I don’t ask the question rhetorically but rather as an exercise in some early navel-gazing. It has been just over a month since we re-launched and with the meetup coming up, this seems an opportune time to ask.

Blogs need a ‘reason’ to succeed and do well. You may disagree of course but behind every averagely popular blog is a reason. Or exceptional writing, but let’s not go into that *cough*

More specifically political blogs need a reason to prosper and build their audiences. They need someone to rant at, they need controversies that people can vent feelings over and they need a general editorial line readers can identify with. Most importantly political blogs need attention and committment from the author and hence they need a reason to exist. Read More

Okay, as promised, here’s the second part to this trilogy. To remind you, in part one we asked you to come up with:

…anything you think could reasonably be called an achievement of the Blair government. Try to leave partisan feelings to one side.

This one is a little different. Read More

Catching Phishers
Easier than you think

The Carnival Of Education

A Bill Shankly Quote – No, not that one, another one
Socialists and the World Cup

My attempt to save Margaret Hassan
FO skullduggery courtesy of Georgeous

The Rise of the Neo-Greens
Eco-capitalists on the march

What the heck, all the proper meeja are running one, so here’s The Sharpener’s prizetastic World Cup competition. We’d like to offer the winner two tickets here on 9th July. Sadly, the advertising revenue won’t even stretch to two tickets here, so you’ll have to make do with a voucher for the online retailer of your choice, courtesy of the site’s meagre coffers.

We’ll chuck in a Googlemail account if you don’t have one already, and a chance to guest post here on a subject of your choice, so long as you answer the tie-break question: Posting at The Sharpener is a prize not a punishment because… Read More

Tips for taking penalties
… should you ever step away from the keyboard, that is