Bob Piper has been a Labour Councillor for the Abbey
Ward in Sandwell, West Midlands, for 10 years. He is a lifelong supporter of Aston Villa Football Club and a follower of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
The views expressed here are mine in a personal capacity, not those of the Labour Party, Sandwell MBC, Aston Villa or Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Get it! Mine... just mine!
Promoted by Bob Piper of 115 Barclay Rd, B67 5JZ on behalf of the Labour Party, care of 39 Victoria Street London, SW1H 0HA . Hosted (printed) by Swaithe Internet Solutions who are not responsible for any of the contents of these posts.
Please note however, that The Labour Party is not responsible for the content of this website or individual posts as, unless specifically stated, I am writing solely in a personal and individual capacity.
Promoted by Bob Piper of 115 Barclay Rd, B67 5JZ on behalf of the Labour Party, care of 39 Victoria Street London, SW1H 0HA . Hosted (printed) by Swaithe Internet Solutions who are not responsible for any of the contents of these posts.
Please note however, that The Labour Party is not responsible for the content of this website or individual posts as, unless specifically stated, I am writing solely in a personal and individual capacity.
There are far too few female political bloggers altogether, and the possibility of losing two of them, both Labour bloggers, is pretty depressing. Although from entirely different parts of the Labour tradition, Susan Press (Grimmer Up North) and Sadie Smith (Sadie's Tavern) both seem to be about to call time on their blogs to concentrate more on, amongst other things, having a life. I wish them both well in that. Both were included in my 'daily reads' section, the list of about 30-40 blogs I check out every day, and both well written. Hopefully, after a period of reflection they will return to blogging some day to amuse, entertain, provoke and educate in their different ways.
As someone with a blog called "Councillor Bob Piper', facing an election next May in the teeth of a gale, I'm also making plans about whether I want to continue this blog, (possibly renamed), or develop a different site... or just take time out and give you all a break. It's strange in a way, because if we do lose the next General Election, blogging on a disintegrating Tory Government would be more fun, and a damn site easier than things are now. I'm no blog designer, but I have dallied with some different 'Blogger' templates in case I need to change the site next May, but quite a few people advise me that Wordpress is a much better blogging platform. Anyone with any experience of creating a site in Wordpress, who can advise me on how easy or difficult it is to manage, please feel free to leave comments here, or drop me an e-mail.
Yeah, I'd go for Word Press over Blogger and Movable Type. MT is great, but as I'm sure you've found out, templating is over complex and republishing the site isn't fun either!
The latest versions of Word Press is really nice and there is a much wider array of 3rd party plugins. I think you'd really like it.
I've got a test installation set up, I'd happily get you a login if you want to have a poke around the admin :)
You don't even need to pre-moderate. Insert a ton of keywords you don't like and every comment containing them will automatically be held for moderation. The rest will be allowed (within spam rules like prevention of posts too quickly) to allow more productive discussion. All that's optional btw so you can customise it to your hearts content.
Hope this helped!
Bob Piper said:
November 9, 2009 11:47 PM | permalink
John, thanks for your kind words, and for the link.
Adrian (above) has connected me to a Wordpress site to play with... but I'm not over techie and I've struggled a bit (although taking a couple of hours out hoping to see Liverpool batter B'ham slowed me down a bit). I've worked out roughly how to alter templates in Blogger, and now I'm going to have to try to get a hang on Wordpress.
Trial and error, I guess. Good job the election is not until next May.
bob - I know a lot about wordpress. Ask if you run into any problems
Bob Piper said:
November 11, 2009 8:09 AM | permalink
Thanks Sunny. Adrian (above) has been really helpful and has got a site I have been able to play about with. I've also had a few offers to assist if I need to migrate this site to another format.
November 9, 2009 2:06 PM | permalink
Yeah, I'd go for Word Press over Blogger and Movable Type. MT is great, but as I'm sure you've found out, templating is over complex and republishing the site isn't fun either!
The latest versions of Word Press is really nice and there is a much wider array of 3rd party plugins. I think you'd really like it.
I've got a test installation set up, I'd happily get you a login if you want to have a poke around the admin :)
Ade