How bloggers beat the big broadcasters to UK Election News
A follow-up post from Mike Rouse on my post about UK bloggers vs broadcasters:
As one of those trawling the blogs I can assure you that we were indeed ahead because of the priceless information posted on blogs very quickly. Some bloggers had contacts within counts, others posted from mobile devices while it seems others used their crystal balls. Either way, it meant we got the news quickly. I was using feed readers and live bookmarks to keep up-to-date and made use of the Firefox extension that automatically refreshes pages for you (full post here).
As BBC Parliament is showing the entire 1997 election night, when Blair came to power, today, Mike also recounts his whereabouts on that particular night: "Without trying to make any dear readers feel old, I was but 13 turning 14 when Blair came to power in 1997."
Nah, that just makes me feel ancient. I was some eight months past 19 (going-on-90) on that night, when I found myself in a Scottish-Independence-supporter stronghold in Queensferry with Scottish sci-fi writers, Ken MacLeod, Ian Banks, a poet, whose name I can't remember, and my friend Solan (whom, like me, I suspect wasn't too impressed with either political alternative).
What I remember best from that night was fighting a desperate battle to stay awake, since some drunken football hooligans had kept me awake on the night coach from Brighton to Edinburgh (!) the previous night (what I wouldn't suffer for brilliant conversations and company in those days, even eleven hours on a coach – it was worth it though). So when they announced that mudslide victory for Labour I was just delighted by the prospect of finally getting some sleep...
