Ha. Fooled you. You thought you were getting BBRU at Suz Blog hosted by LibDem tough blonde ‘cookie’ Susanne Lamido. But we swapped. So you have me instead.

 

All the best BBRUs try witty themes, or at least cogent categories. This helps those who want to skip the political and/or feminist blogs to do so.

 

As it is August and no-one will be reading this, I am going to give ‘em as they come. And in part to look at some British blogs which I have not seen before on BBRU. And may never see again.

 

Thus if you are an academic locked in a footling but bitter dispute with a colleague and need a mediator to help you both sort it out, head straight for new blogger Felicity Steadman.

 

Fatly queer, or queerly fat? Interested in fat panic and fat liberation? Tick tick tick tick tick tick Boom! goes Obesity Timebomb.

 

Or are you merely lardy, a chubster, a fatso, voluptuous, curvy, cuddlesome, obese, overweight, roly-poly? Queen Simply Be celebrates the curvaceous beauty.

 

By the way, on the subject of lard do you remember fat-guts Falstaff from the days when Shakespeare was still taught in schools? I do. Prince Hal had a brisk attitude to obesity issues:

 

Falstaff sweats to death,
And lards the lean earth as he walks along:
Were ‘t not for laughing, I should pity him. (Hen IV, Act 2 Scene 2)

 

Early Modern Whale salutes a rich life from those times.

 

Mind you, becoming too skinny impacts adversely on your punctuation, as Skinny Blog shows: Went running in my Pyjama’s!!

 

Good grief, are things so bad that we now need a Waffling Banana to show us how to do apostrophes properly? Hmm – not so sure about that obtrusive full stop.

 

Dismayed by what such blunders tell us about British education? Ectoplasmic Boggartblog looks at why teachers flee British schools even more than the pupils do.

 

August is a great time for trying out a new hobby. So head on down to Same-sex dancing classes.

 

Or be an Oldmum and (wisely) stay on the edge of running.

 

Something a bit more … arousing?  Such as Renaissance! Entertainment! Eroticism! The Abyss! Mate! The Moment of Duchamp! Geometries! Yes, it’s the Streatham & Brixton Chess Blog.

 

To get even more abyssmally erotic (and geometric) you’ll need a sex educator cum (snigger) agony aunt who is also an academic and shows you dirty peectures. Pleased to introduce Dr Petra Boynton. She’s a PhD doctor not a doctor doctor, but hey, who’s counting?

 

How about the political impact of the Bristol Cities of German female politicians? Max Atkinson sensibly needs to do more research.

 

Needing NHS mudgeonry? The Curmudgeon has it. The Heresiarch looks at the UK’s National Religion and finds it wanting. But Penny Red signs up (sort of) for NHS Socialism. A Randomly Muttering Northern Doctor wonders whether we are creating new strains of swine flu resistant to our best medicine.

 

Bowel problem? A Sozzled Mumbler tells us more than we need to know.

 

Depressed by the British seaside? Not Diamond Geezer in Blackpool! Grumpy Old Man reminds us of how it used to be.

 

Mental health issues to the point of being Text-Book-Insane? I have no idea what this blog is about, if anything, but the logo is fetching.

 

Why not opt for spiritual health and turn to God? The eChurchwebsite blog shows the Path. But should it lead to schools? Hell No, says Daily Maybe.

 

Wedding walkouts? A post by activist campaigner and ‘proud stopper’ Random Blowe explains at great length but not alas convincingly why Jim Fitzpatrick MP was wrong.

 

But don’t blame the Yoof if bad stuff like vandalism happens. Anyone could do it!

 

On yer bike. But not in Bristol.

 

Part of BBRU’s remit is to give room to blogs by people based in the UK. So here is Polski blog, trying to interpret Poland to us without excess pathos. Not to forget Anglopole’s Ponglish World.

 

Meanwhile over in Poland British bloggers try to explain Poland in all its fractious mystery. Such as the flourishing blogging Polandians, musing on whether Polish houses are painted blue to denote a nubile young lady therein. And a dog-sick Pinolona, who returns to the UK and has culture shock at Health and Safety – in church!

 

OK, OK. Politics. Zzzzzzz … sorry, my brain briefly evaporated.

 

Archipelago of Truth in deepest Walthamstow tries to fathom the squalid goings-on in Boris Johnson’s empire.

 

Could the surge of the hi-tech apolitical Pirate Party as happened in Sweden happen in the UK? (No – Ed.) And if it did, who would lose out? Lib Dems?

 

It won’t happen, but place your bets anyway. That said, the Lib Dems 42-point manifesto for Real Women (including “plans for thousands of extra midwives and health visitors”) may drive men and Fake Women to walk the plank.

Will the BNP force the same fate on an Andrea Dworkin fan (eek) who has Too Much To Say For Herself?

Is Top Gear really Last of the Summer Wine? The great debate.

 

From summer wine to summer beer. And to the days when brewers’ erections were huge and stylish. Where? In Shepton Mallet.

 

But (veering wildly back to Health) where does Shepton Mallet come in the great postcode lottery stakes?

 

Finally, on 1 August BBRU godfather Tim Worstall solemnly promised to stop blogging for a month.

 

But he did not keep his word. Thank goodness. Here he is back in business, teaching the Guardian (and the rest of us) all we need to know about why long-term fixed-rate mortgages have higher interest rates than short-term floating ones. Duh.

 

Next BBRU is hosted by Slugger O’Toole. Suggestions for entries by email to britblog [at] gmail [dot] com.

 

But (for the bewildered among you) when sending an email use the @ and . Not the words in square brackets, or indeed the square brackets.

 

Clear now?