The site went down due to excessive bandwidth (I wonder what may have caused that...). But once more MyOstrich, the hosting company for my blog sorted it out quickly. Thanks folks - it's appreciated.

As I was coming out of the Simon Mayo Radio 5 Live interview I was grabbed by another fella who wondered if I might spare a couple of minutes. He told me that he was Chris Vallance from Pods&Blogs, we'd spoken before but only on the phone so I didn't recognise him.

He asked me about my slight ribbing that I'd given the BBC news-site in a previous post and wondered if I could answer a few questions. Being the media whore and loving the sound of my own voice, I agreed.

We found an empty studio and recorded a bit about the research suggesting that Blogs aren't as trusted as Print or TV media. It then went into their show which is currently available for listening to online.

Although I think that Kevin Anderson sums it up the best in this piece.

"It started off pretty easy, writing this blog. I mean there was always plenty of material, people would fall over and injure themselves and I'd write about it. I mean, for God's sake - I work in East London it's not as if we are short on stabbings and shootings?"

The author looked down at the half drunken bottle of cheap cider.

"But of course, as the number of readers increased they demanded more from me. It wasn't good enough for them to read about some bloke falling off his bike and skinning his knee. They wanted blood and gore. Failing that they wanted 'heartwarming', or 'shocking'. I mean, I try and do as little work as possible, but now I found myself having to go looking for patients. Interesting patients at that."

Taking a swig from the bottle he looked around, as though frightened that someone walking their dog across the deserted park would overhear him.

"Well, it started off pretty simply, but then most bad ideas do. We'd be driving down the street and I'd see some old woman looking a bit unsteady on her feet - I'd give her a blast on the sirens and see if I could make her fall over. Did I mention that the readers liked little old ladies being injured? I'd get some good comments from a nice 'Nan down'. But it still wasn't enough, they demanded more. So then I graduated to pushing small boys heads through park railings. I'd go to a house and the first thing I'd do was to go into the kitchen and look for a nice large pot. My crewmate would look after the patient while I worked on jamming onto a kids head."

"It went well for a time being, but those readers, those damn readers, they demanded more. So we took to cruising the streets at night looking for drunks winding their way home from the pub. My crewmate would hide the ambulance around the corner and I'd jump out from behind some bushes and beat up the patient. Then we'd 'discover' another case of 'inner city violence'."

The author took another swig from the bottle and stared at his hands.

"Of course, people started putting two and two together. I suppose publishing the evidence was a bad idea. The blog had became a kind of confessional, detailing my crimes against humanity. Where once I would have dry spells without an interesting job, now I only had to stalk the night carrying a root vegetables, some stockings, an orange and a length of garden hose and I'd have a post worthy of the Boingboing."

"My station-mates started asking questions about why I kept getting such interesting jobs. I thought I'd thrown them off the scent with a few blatantly made up stories - but who would believe that I'd go to a drug addict with a heart of gold, or would find myself trying to save a pigeon with a broken wing? So I got found out. The service couldn't stand the shame, so they quietly 'retired' me."

"Still it wasn't all bad - the BBC needed a replacement presenter for 'Animal hospital' after the incident with Rolf Harris and the badger. A TV programme where vets would look after cute little creatures is pretty simple, I could get viewers crying over injured little animals, I mean, people cry over sick animals a lot more than sick people."

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have to prepare for tonight's programme. I have a baby deer to kneecap. These things don't run out in front of cars on their own you know."

The author stood up and walked off into the sunset swinging his favourite claw hammer while whistling a happy tune.

*By 'The Truth', I actually mean 'Completely Made Up', this post was inspired by a joke from the very funny Scaryduck who, incidentally, has a book for sale.

So, the BBC news website has published an article about a piece of research that the public trust big media much more than blogs.

Scroll down to the bottom of the article and they mention that 'The Girl With A One Track Mind' was recently outed as Zoe Williams.

Erm...no, wrong person.

Unfortunately there is no comment box for us poor, untrustworthy bloggers to correct them.

(In another story they refer to a common bacteria as 'rabbit flu', which is wrong on *so* many levels).

Apparently there is a new book out today - you may have heard of it.

I hope you enjoy it.

(And if you ordered it from an internet shop, you may have received it already).

'Girl With A One Track Mind' is an anonymous blog, concerning itself mainly with sex it has recently been turned into a book. The anonymous blogger behind it has since been 'outed' by the Press.

The 'Blogosphere' is built upon a number of things, reputation is one, conversation is another. It is also built on a form of respect, an 'honour amongst thieves' if you will.

I know 'Abby' in 'real life', she is a clever, funny and honest person. For quite some time she has been concerned that her real name would be found out. I know for sure that this outing is not a bid for more publicity.

She trusted in me to uphold the unspoken honour between bloggers. If I'd 'outed' her I would have increased the number of people reading my site, but I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror. It is these unspoken rules that help bind us bloggers together into the community that we have. For many of us it would not have even crossed our minds to reveal something about another blogger that wasn't in the public interest.

It appears that the Press have forgotten this honour. There is no 'public interest' in discovering the true identity of an anonymous blogger who happens to write about sex. Yet the Press seem to feel that it is their 'right' in order to sell more newspapers to the important female 18-30 demographic to invade someone's privacy in this manner.

The Press Complaints Commission's Code of Conduct states,

i) Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence. A publication will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual's private life without consent

I would be interested to see what reason the journalist who wrote this piece about her has to say about the justification of this intrusion.

We bloggers are not special, we have the same expectation of privacy as everyone else in the world, yet it seems that, at least for some journalists, we give up that right when we start writing. We bloggers examine every word on our blogs for their effect on our privacy, we edit what we write to reveal as much, or as little about our true selves as we desire. To start investigating those of us who want our privacy surely needs more of a reason than that of simple titillation.

So it seems ironic that when I am in a newspaper for all the right reasons, another is in the papers for no reason at all.

It is shameful and I hope that the journalist is disciplined for this breach of their code.

I was reading The Independent today and one of the stories was about how single men in their thirties (i.e. me) are generally worse off than their happily partnered off colleagues. Then I saw that single people use 13% more energy and take up more space.

Finally there is the front page of Time Out.

I wonder if the government will soon start forcing us to have partnerships and I wonder if I should be 'regretful' about having not found the right person to share my flat/life/health concerns/power usage with.

Well if Blair and co. want me to partner up, then they better make shift work illegal.

A couple of days ago Ben Hammersley took some photos of me, for use in various publicity bits.

On the day we did this he had been fitted for his bulletproof vest. He's now over in Afghanistan both writing and publishing beautiful pictures.

Go take a look, he's a top bloke (and bloody clever as well). I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he stays safe.