Marr's attacks

I was disheartened to see today that no less a journalistic authority than Andrew Marr has belittled me and my entire brethren, as the BBC's Sunday morning man has hit out at bloggers everywhere.

Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, the presenter characterised bloggers as "bald, cauliflower-nosed young men". Arguably a fair point, but we can't all have your movie-star looks, Andy.

The impressively eared journo added: "A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy...sitting in their mother's basements and ranting. They are very angry people."

Ouch. I may be socially inadequate, pimpled, seedy and angry, and I may not look like the FA Cup or have presented an entertaining and informative series on modern Britain, but I do my best, damnit. And I like to think my scribblings have at least some value.

Marr believes citizen journalism will never replace the real thing, as it is all too often simply "the spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night".

For a journalist of his calibre, I'm aghast at the inaccuracy of this statement. I'll have you know it's five o'clock now - so I'm still only on my third can.

It's fair to say that many bloggers are ill-informed, boorish, astonishingly insular and barely literate, (but then again, so are many people). But there are a few lone voices in the wilderness that offer real insight on a incredibly vast and diverse range of subjects.

Bloggers can provide an important precis of public mood, they can hold public figures to account, widen their readers' cultural frame of reference and some can even make you laugh and/or think really hard. (Not me, obviously.) Others can even wildly speculate as to the reason why a well-known TV presenter would want a so-called super injunction against the press.

Here's to late-night drunkenness, social inadequacy, male pattern baldness, pimples, bad speling, grammer and sintacks, and real people with real opinions. Blog away, dear reader. Just as long as it's not about the quirkier side of the vibrant Barking and Dagenham IT resale channel.