No geek
is an island

The deadline for nominations in this year’s Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year awards is midnight tomorrow (Friday night), so you’ve got just over a day left to get your nominations in.

Don’t forget that you can make more than one nomination in any given category, but that blogs and posts from the judges (me, Ryan Cullen of LibDem Blogs, Lynne Featherstone MP and last year’s winner and Liberal Democrat Voice editor Stephen Tall) are not eligible. Shucks.

There are six categories, including the much sought after title of Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year. For the “Best posting on a Liberal Democrat blog” category, remember to nominate your favourite single post since October 2006, rather than the blog on which it appeared.

You should email your nominations to ecampaignteam@libdems.org.uk as soon as you can. Full details are on the party website, and the shortlists will be announced next week.

Jonathan at Liberal England has been blogging valiantly throughout the summer about the BBC’s Summer of British Film season. This week the genre is horror films, kicked off at the weekend with an excellent documentary on BBC Two. In addition to the films mentioned in Jonathan’s post, selected cinemas put on limited showing of what is arguably the best British horror film of them all: The Wicker Man. So Mr Nimbos and I pottered along to the Trocadero last night to watch it.

A tale of pagan worship, sexual repression and a missing child, it’s a dark film, but not without its share of light touches: Edward Woodward’s Sergeant Howie, dumfounded as the denizens of the Green Man Inn spontaneously sing about the buxom daughter of the landlord; Christopher Lee in a dress; a schoolteacher explaining the symbolism of the maypole. Woodward’s portrayal of the pious Howie faced with temptation and debauchery is a masterpiece - although that doesn’t stop Lee stealing scenes when he appears. There is satire of religion generally and of Christianity in particular, as Howie is challenged to explain why his faith is more well-founded than the islanders’. The climax, the swaying and contrapuntal song counterpointing the shocking action, is both bleak and unpleasantly upbeat, leaving entirely unresolved the question of whether the islanders’ beliefs turn out to be correct - a definitively British finale.

For fans of The League of Gentlemen (the TV series, not the film), there are some very recognisable moments. Oh, and Britt Ekland prances around naked. Did I forget to mention that?

Rooting around in the attic, I have discovered one of the lesser-known educational books for children from the 1980s.

It was never going to sell as many copies as Doctor Who Discovers Early Man and Doctor Who Discovers Prehistoric Animals, but it remains highly sought after by fans.

On Wednesday on was a panellist on Up Front, internet TV station 18 Doughty Street’s daily half-hour news discussion show. It was my first time on the programme - having previously been on other Doughty Street shows - and my first time on with Conservative presenter Donal Blaney.

You can watch it in the 18DS archive here.

No time to write more than to say:

Tommy and the Weeks, 4.30pm, Pleasance Courtyard, final show is today (Monday). If you’re in Edinburgh, do go along.

I went along yesterday and it was very funny.

I’ll explain later.

I know what you’re thinking: what could be more ludicrous than the Grant Shapps “1234” affair?

Well, fans of hilariously bad attempts to use false identities online, it must be this.

First off, someone created an account on Facebook in the name of Liberal Democrat MP Norman Lamb. They then used this account to create a Norman Lamb group purporting to be from the man himself. This group was, well, rubbish. It plugged another Facebook group critical of Norman and the blog of his Tory opponent - significant signs that it wasn’t real. Having had Norman confirm this, party HQ contacted Facebook, who quickly suspended the Fake Norman’s account.

A number of people contacted the email address given in the group after it was revealed on Liberal Democrat Voice. Replies from this email account showed the internet address from which they were sent. The same address had made a number of edits to Wikipedia that were critical of Norman, indicating that the person wasn’t a fan. Despite this, a number of comments on Liberal Democrat Voice - those not trying to pin the blame on UKIP - claimed that the perpetrator was surely a Norman Lamb supporter who had innocently created the group, planning to hand it over to Norman at a later date.

And here’s where the fun begins.

It’s possible to see from the Liberal Democrat Voice logs the internet address from which these comments - apparently from eight different named people plus some anonymous ones - were posted. It looks like the person behind it didn’t realise this because (guess what?) James Becks, Charlotte Steels, Alex Solomon, Jason Anyassor, Grace Clarke, Sarah Makepeace, Mary Samson and Shane Cruise all share an internet connection. Either that’s one busy student house or someone has executed one of the most inept attempts to use false identities on the internet. To top it off, the last comment was made shortly after the sockpuppetry had been publicly revealed.

You can read summaries of the amusing and sometimes contradictory comments over on Liberal Democrat Voice.

Meanwhile, the true identity of the person who created the fake Norman Lamb Facebook account remains a mystery…