Sorry Ken, even Oxford University thinks us bloggers are worth preserving

Nik Darlington 10.15am

‘Blogging’ divides opinion. Though a regular practitioner, personally I loathe the term. If only one could go back in time and put something in the tea of whoever coined it.

But blogging is both worthwhile and valuable. It has broadened the reach of comment and debate. The everyday pundits who would habitually bore chaps in the pub can do so in the relative quietude of the Interweb. Public figures can have their two pennies’ worth in a direct and informal manner. Blogging does have its underpants-in-bedrooms fraternity but it has become increasingly professionalised (all our posts are subbed, for instance) and more often than not the best bloggers will already be involved in public life as politicians or journalists.

Ken Clarke is not one of them, according to Benedict Brogan’s morning e-mail:

I am certainly not a blogger. Quite a large proportion of them are nuts and extremists - with the honourable exception of the culture secretary.

I defer to Ken’s better judgement on many things, though not on this. It seems a good moment to announce that the curators of Oxford’s Bodleian Library have selected these pages as “of lasting research value and worthy of permanent preservation for the benefit of historians and researchers.”

Egremont will soon form part of the Bodleian Libraries’ Web Archive. It is a huge honour, gratefully and humbly received.

And I assure you all, including the TRG’s President, it won’t make our heads too big for our bedrooms. Blog on.