I once called Harry's Place something like the most civilised of political blogs. Not these days, it ain't. It's a seething, vitriolic cess pool.

Oh yes, and completely irrelevant.

Was 1976 the best year of your life?

Actually, this might explain something I've thought about quite alot, though not very seriously, as will no doubt become abundantly clear.

In the demonology since the realignment of British politics, the seventies are synonymous with all that was shite with the old world order. In what is laughably known as the political spectrum these days, it is axiomatic that things are so much better now than they were in the days when we went cap in hand to the IMF.

Unlike many who pontificate on such matters, I was around in 1976 as - at 18 years old - an almost fully functioning human being, and funnily enough I enjoyed life. Jobs were relatively easy to come by and the famed inefficiency of British Industry mean that the workplace was a pretty cool place to be. You hung out, chilled, did a bit of work now and then and got paid for the privilege .

Many of the things that exercise us these days were much less common then. Time poverty, widespread depression and stress related illnesses were concepts yet to trouble us unduly. The gap between rich and poor was less and the underclass hardly existed.

Summers were better, too.

Support for my Nader as Right Wing fifith columnist theory.

As an adjunct to the Blog Guide, sadly pulled by the editor after only two installments, I would like to offer a further service to my reader. There are so many opinions and so much wordage around bloggo bloggo land that anything that permits someone with an actual life to lead to skip posts and comments can only be a good thing. With this in mind I am compiling a list of typical bloggo phrases that you might come across, along with what they inevitably presage and/or what they say about the poster, so you can make an early, informed choice about whether it is worth reading on.

ZOG - the poster is(tpi) a rabidly anti-semitic twat.

As Anne Coulter so rightly says... - inevitably leads to (ilt) Socialists are filth.

Here's my fisking of... - ilt random passages of an article cut and pasted onto a blog interspersed with obviously not.

...they must admit that this is an argument they are not going to win - ilt 157 intemperate comments wherein nobody admits anything to anybody.

There are no ifs or buts about it - tpi a smug, self satisfied twat.

Moral equivalence.. - ilt ...pro-fascist apologists for terror at the BBC/Guardian/Independent.

Those Liberal Democrat... - ilt 1,000 words of tedious, irrelevant shite.

... failed statist, protectionist policies... - ilt a wordy, fatuous argument whereby all is for the best in the best of all free market capitalist worlds as long as big business is allowed to make shitloads.

I have no intention of rising to your ad hominem bait... - ilt ...you fucking spacky troll.

The world according to the Kid.

I wonder what it's like, living in that head of his.

So, who's the sharpest leftie blogger, hm,hm? University egghead Dsquared, ever ready with a Bon Mot or three on a vast range of cerebal topics over at Crooked Timber. Or the needle sharp lawyer, Marcus, whose elegant dissertations at Harry's Place have delighted friends and frustrated foes for seemingly as long as there has been bloggie argufying?

Only one way to find out. FIGHT!