The straw that breaks the camel's back.

There is a fundamental inconsistency between a company that aggressively promotes the policies of a particular political party, and one that has purchased a say-what-you-like site. If the fundamentalist conservatism of Six Apart wasn't bad enough, it's now sold Livejournal to SUP, part of the Russian mafia.

Owner Alexander Mamut is the epitome of a vulture capitalist, who has been assisted by his nepotistic ties to the Kremlin under ancien president Yeltsgin and prochain ancien president Poutine. He was a co-conspirator with Roman Abramovitch (now of CSKA Kensington) in the theft of Transneft, still has to answer questions about money laundering 1999. He foreclosed a loan for independent television channel TVS, effectively forcing it into state hands. He hasn't brought anything to the table except dishonour, and money. Kommersant, the Russian equivalent of the FT, reports the sale price was USD 30 million (€20.5m, £14.5m). Just to put that in perspective, the number of accounts last Friday was 14.35 million. We now know the value of a Livejournal account.

It is abundantly clear that Mamut is in the pocket of Poutine, and does anything and everything in his power to suppress any dissent against the regime that has made him obscenely rich. It is also clear that this man cannot be trusted to run a bath, let alone guard free speech. We already know that Livejournal is the de facto blogging platform of choice in Russia, to the extent that it houses 30 of the top 50 bloggers in Russia. By comparison, not a single Livejournal blog makes Technorati's top 100.

Our belief is that Mamut has bought Livejournal with a view to its Russian userbase, and with a view to forcing them into line with Poutine and whoever succeeds him as president next year. Coming on the same morning as the news that Poutine's party continued to nakedly steal parliamentary elections, we must assume that this is nothing more than an attempt to repeat the errors of the 20th century, and keep Russia in line with a different but equally inflexible prevailing orthodoxy.

We should also remember that Livejournal suffered a massive denial of service attack in early June. According to Six Apart, the cause was an attempt to promote (or oppose, it was never made clear) the opposition DPNI and NBP parties. It's possible that this was a promotional activity by two far-right parties. It's also possible that this was a deliberate operation by forces loyal to Poutine, and a demonstration of just how miserable things are going to be when the anti-democrats are in charge.

The 2005 sale of Livejournal to Six Apart was a business error. The 2007 sale to the Ruskies looks set to prove a philosophical error.

We see this as a bridge too far. The RSS feeds of this site and Glickoblog to Livejournal have been suspended with immediate effect, and we have relinquished the authentication for those who posted under the Friends-And-Enemies-Of-The-Revolution Lock. (In other words, we've deleted two old accounts forever, and deleted our main account, at least for the moment. Not that this has stopped us from being able to read security-locked posts, which is rather interesting, and probably means that we'll be undeleting the account for a few minutes each week, then re-deleting it again.)

Nothing in this is permanent, and we will return to the matter towards the end of the month, taking a view on whether there have been significant improvements in things worth improving, without damaging things worth preserving. We will welcome comments and correspondence from those who still keep journals there on this or any other matter.

The only commitment we will make: the Decline of Livejournal This Month series of posts has now finished.

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Though there were lots and lots of new entries, not every song fell a tremendous number of places. Chumbawumba and Sash!, for instance, fell 5; the Spices were down 4, and Steps dropped just the one place, landing this week at 23. Lisa, Lee, Claire, Faye, and someone called Ian (though he'd subsequently change his name to H) had been cast at the end of 1996 from applicants to an advert in The Stage. The group fell under the wing of Pete Waterman, and received moral support and encouragement from Tony Wilson. The group had toured assiduously, playing to schools by day, and to gay clubs by night. Lead single 5, 6, 7, 8 would take advantage of the tremendous upturn in the singles market in late 1997 to become the biggest-selling single never to make the top 10; this week's position of 23 would be the lowest the group would record until the middle of February 1998. It's only slightly less of an achievement to have a number 1 in Australia with your first hit.

(More: del Amitri, bashing M People, Reds United, the bloody Verve.)

One place drops for the All Saints, Natalie Imbruglia, Steven Houghton, and Aqua fill places 6-3. Bad karaoke from Boyzone at 2, with their version of Tracey Chapman's Baby can I hold you. It would be the group's third number 2 hit of the year, and one of the songs that propelled Alex Parks to victory in Star Academy 2003. That's possible thanks to the BBC's commitment to quality music and crap presenters. Which in turn brings us to Perfect day, spending a second week at number 1.

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Here's something we've not done in a little while: looked at some of the one-hit wonders. Each of these terms was responsible for precisely one hit on our site last month.

albion v burntisland match ratings
anthea turner home made christmas decorations
campaign alliance for referenda in parishes
free music quiz and answers for 60 year olds
garry lux
i don't understand facebook
i'm sorry i haven't a clue rob brydon delilah
is the sentence summer is hotter than winter correct
pictures of redcar railway station
santa claus is on the dole song
the year freiheit keeping the dream alive was a hit

Commentary? Albion Rovers 8 (EIGHT) Burntisland 0 makes anything else superfluous... Yes, chez Turnip will be strung up alongside all the other chateaux on the Loire, then lit up and strung over the valley... there's such a body?... Has this got a good beat?... Austria's penultimate decent Eurovision contestant, natch... We're right there with you, though at least you can get on... Why? Why?! WHY???!... Not round here... This worries us, deeply... That's a good one (fires up search)... 1988, just like it was last time you asked.

In other news, Deborah Orr points out that Anti-MRSA pyjamas are on sale at Marks and Spencer. This latter, one notes, is a sterling example of responsive private sector provision. Brilliant work, Soupy.

Facebook has partially backed down on its Bacon system; it's now opt-in. However, it's not entirely clear if this will prevent unrelated data being sent to Facebook and then silently stored. On the grounds that we don't trust any of these damned Yankees as far as we can throw them, we still recommend blocking facebook.com/beacon at the adblock or proxy level. Or employing a completely different browser for Facebook and nothing else. (The linked K-Meleon is for Windows only; Mac, Unix, Linux, and Commodore 64 users will have their own alternatives.) Meanwhile, Language Log is seething through its teeth at the phrase, They is now looking for friendship. Even a coding neophyte can do better.

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It's the time of year when fathers up and down the land drag their children to a draughty hall where they can ogle the nubile backing dancers wearing nothing more than a skimpy leotard, and completely ignore the overpaid has-been on the front of the stage. These very minor celebrities are incapable of holding a note, remembering their lines, wear more make-up than the entire ground floor of House of Fraser, and look like something the cat dragged in after it had spent a night on the tales.

But December is not only about the Spice Girls concerts. It's pantomime season!

Panto grew out of the lavish masque productions in the early 17th century, and was heavily influenced by the Italian import, comedy. This idea annoyed the Puritans, who got so up themselves that they left the country for a promised land in the east, where they remain humourless grouches to this day.

In 1723, a battle began between theatres at Lincoln's Inn and Drury Lane. Each year, they would stage more extravagant, more lavish, more shocking productions, starring ever more famous actors. The Christmas productions began to have men playing women's roles, and vice versa, in a nod to the role reversal of festivals such as Saturnalia. Whatever the time of year, the good people would enter stage right, and the evil always come on from stage left; the Italian commedia del 'arte had heaven and hell associated with those sides.

By the early 20th century, pantomime had subsumed such harlequinade, and evolved into a ritual. There's song, there's dance, slapstick, bad jokes, topical jokes, bad topical jokes, and lashings of audience participation. Oh yes there is! Cheer for the good guys! Boo the villains! Where are the best years of your career, Posh? Behind you! And there's always a lot of double entendre, turning polite sentences into something risque.

The plot, such as it is, is usually based on a traditional fairy tale, or one of the Grimm stories. But no-one goes for the plot, it's an excuse to have lots of fun and introduce the kiddies to theatre. And for dads to ogle the Best Boy in her leotard.

Where are we going with this? To one of the better radio pantomimes, produced by The Mary Whitehouse Experience on 15 December 1990. In this clip, two standing jokes require explanation. The Irish voice is meant to be John Cole, at the time the BBC's political editor; according to TMWE, he wanted a new coat, one like Michael Brunson's. The Arabic voice is Iraqi President Sadaam Hussein; in TMWE-land, Pres. Sadaam was rather disappointed that the plethora of celebrities visiting him to plead for the release of western hostages hadn't yet included his favourite person, 1970s impressionist Mike Yarwood.

Just to bulk up the download, we've also included The Family Experience from the broadcast two weeks earlier. Witness for yourself the birth of a catchphrase.

We should point out that the audio quality of these shows is a bit rubbish; and that they're shamelessly excepted from the complete series 4, available at The Mary Whitehouse Experience Website.

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Right, some further commentary on the sale of Livejournal. Mark Kraft says a lot, including his extreme doubts that the new user board will be anything more than a figleaf, and why he won't be standing for election. Elfwreck translates the PR bullshit into English.

We're now also advised that Bradley Fitzpatrick introduced a backdoor into Livejournal, allowing admins to be notified whenever a given user was talking to the system. Like that's not going to be abused by the Poutine regime, and doesn't demonstrate that the owners have never actually been bothered by such trivialities as privacy.

Where next for Six Apart? August Capital wants its money back: USD 20 million was worth something in 2003, it's not worth anything like as much now. Ditching Livejournal removes a revenue stream that was becoming more trouble than it was worth, and opens the possibility for a purchase by one of the real giants. 6A has the still-profitable Movable [sic] Type, it has the very profitable Typepad, it has the loss-leader Vox.

Anyway, we don't need to think about Six Apart again until they get sold, at which point the boycott transfers to their new owners. (G****e, can we interest you in another crock of shit?)

Our impression is that the new owners understand what Livejournal is for the half-million Cyrillic users, and will (at least initially) assume that what's source for the bear is source for the custard. This is certainly no less accurate than Six Apart's unshakeable assumption that their average user was a 17-year-old girl from central Merkinland, and less likely to ruffle feathers.

What would it take to prove to us that SUP was a better caretaker than Six Apart? Resolving the basic questions of reliability would be a good start: some redundancy in data centres is a must. Preserving information that is not illegal under the governing laws is also a sine qua non; we cannot accept the involuntary censorship or concealment of matters that some might find distasteful, and banning searches for spice girls because it contains the slur spic is not a good start. Indeed, we'd appreciate some clarification of whether the prevailing law is the European Declaration of Human Rights, or the wishlist of some 18th century terrorists, or some other document entirely. We also remind SUP that the EU data protection principles appear to apply to EU customers wherever their data are held, no matter how much SUP and their predecessors pretend otherwise.

(More: Cyber war, where next for Six Apart, dissecting the 100-day plan, and our wishlist for the new owners. Look, a flying pig!)

On the grounds that having the main account deleted is achieving nothing other than confusion, and having established the useful fact that deleted accounts can still read secure posts, we have restored it, at least for the moment. We have also restored the oh-so-brief RSS snippets, delayed to 10pm UK time on the day of publication; this is more likely to be a permanent change.

We reserve the right to over-react and subsequently reverse ourselves. Unlike Miss Trott and her acolytes, we don't intend to make a habit of it.

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The BBC Sports Review of the First Eleven And A Bit Months of the Year is almost upon us, and the shortlist for Most Popular British Person in Sport has been announced. We couldn't give a monkey's who wins - after this year's performances the real winner will finish second - we're more interested in the psephology.

Prior to the vote came the nomination process. The qualification is that all contenders must be British, or be UK-resident, play their sport in the UK, and have made their main achievements with a UK team. Overseas players whose main claim to fame is the Division I title are eligible; overseas players who play in the UK best known for winning the football World Cup are not.

The 31 various panels listed 53 people, as follows:

31 votes
Joe Calzaghe [boxer, received 31 votes last year. Winner of BBC Wales's equivalent trophy in 2007, 2006, and 2001.]
Lewis Hamilton [formula 1 driver, finished second overall]

29 votes
Ricky Hatton [boxer, in action on Radio 5 to-night, the night before the award. Received 10 votes last year]

23 votes
Justin Rose [golfer, won European money list]

22 votes
Paula Radcliffe [runner, won New Amsterdam marathon race. Won in 2002, 3rd in 2003.]

16 votes
Andy Murray [tennis, last remaining Brit in the top 50. Won Scottish SPotY when it was last contested in 2005.]

15 votes
Jonny Wilkinson [rugbyman, part of world cup-losing England side. Won in 2003.]

12 votes
James Toseland [motorcyclist, won the world superbike format.]

11 votes
Jason Robinson [rugbyman, part of England side.]

10 votes
Christine Ohuruogu [runner, 400m world champion.]

(More: Who's on (and off) the panel, pen portraits of all 53 nominees, and the gaping hole in the voting procedure.)

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Time to look at the festive countdown.

• Decorations seen in any store (13 October)
• Sign saying "So Many Shopping Days" (1 November)
• Supermarket puts in-store mince pies on sale (10 November)
• Lights go on in city centre (10 November)
• Clearly identifiable record (15 November)
• Muzak (generic) (16 November)
• Decorations in someone's home (17 November)
• Festive oldie in chart (25 November)
• Cards sent (5 December)
• Decorations up at work
• Fairytale Of New Amsterdam
• Card received
• Stop The Cavalry
• Chestnuts Roasting...
• Merry Xmas Everyone

Our view is that having the major celebrations before 6 December, when St. Nicholas sails into port from Spain, is a bit rubbish. Though most of these dates are later than when we last did the exercise in 2004, we've had to go out of our way to avoid a two-month festival. Particular culprits in this is the GMG radio station Real Radio, which has been playing four festive oldies an hour since the middle of November. Folks, that's a month ahead of schedule, it's Really annoying, we've Really stopped listening, and we rather hope it'll make a Real dent into your listening figures.

We've also had a bit of luck; we would have heard FoNA last week-end, upon its annual re-entry in the top 40, but we were unable to hear the chart live.

Cards have gone to those who indicated their desire for one; anyone else who wants one should apply now. We cannot guarantee delivery this year outside Europe.

A land down under

While our attention's been occupied elsewhere, there's been a revolution in Australia. The new Labour government has been making its way in, belatedly signing the 1992 Kyoto accord on carbon dioxide emissions, and promising a repeal on the hirem 'n' firem laws introduced by the former government.

Over on the opposition benches, we were treated to a leadership election with even less talent than the UK's Labour leadership election. All the main contenders for the leadership sent their apologies: former finance minister Peter Costello retired to spend more time with his money, rural spokey Mark Vaile and foreign bloke Alexander Downer both quietly shuffled off to the back-benches, and Tony Abbott's leadership bid ran into the sand when it turned out he had about four supporters. Rather than give us Question Muck specials, or more rounds of voting than the Eurovision Song Contest, there was a straight ballot amongst the Lib-Nat's MPs. The new opposition leader is a chap called Brendan Nelson, in favour of Kyoto, and won't fight the repeal of the anti-worker laws.

Is this an attempt by the cro-magnon right to engineer a defeat in the 2010 election, and then have a coup in the party? Or is it a confirmation that Australians don't actually care for such nonsense?

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9December

The beginning of European success for Leona Lewis: top 5 in Denmark, top 10 in Sweden and Latvia, top 20 in the Faroes. Scooter and Culcha Candela enter the top 10 in Germany. It's not just the UK where we're pestered by old festive songs, Mariah and Wham! are top 20 in Denmark, the Pogues beat Cantsing in Ireland, and Chris Rea has put himself into Norway's hitlist. Rihanna's Can't stop the music takes over in the Netherlands. This week's Finnish number one is Indian by Sturm und Drang.

20 20 Take That - Rule the world
19 14 Sheryfa Luna - Quelque part
18 NE Seal - Amazing
17 re Christophe Willem - Jacques a dit
16 NE Linkin Park - Shadow of the day
15 19 Ich + Ich - Stark
14 12 Ketevan Melua - If you were a sailboat
13  9 Céline Dion - Taking chances
12  8 Kylie Minogue - 2 hearts
11 13 Bloc Party - Flux
10 17 Tokio Hotel - An deiner seite
 9 11 Freemasons - Uninvited
 8  7 James Blunt - 1973
 7 10 Alicia Keys - No one
 6  6 Plain White Ts - Hey there Delilah
 5  5 Mika - Happy ending
 4  4 Rihanna - Don't stop the music
 3  2 Timberyokel - Apologise
 2  1 Sugababes - About you now
 1  3 Leona Lewis - Bleeding love

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9December

Dear Grate British Public. Enough with the feckin' festive records already.

Airplay growers: the new Sugababes single passes the old one, both are in the top 10. Scouting for Girls and James Blunt have new releases, and Mika's re-release is also in the 20.

Out of the top 75 - for the first time this year! - is Chasing cars. Like the promoted of the Bad Shirt Casino, it'll be back. Perry Como makes 71, Bing Crosby 61, John Lennin 60. The newie from Katherine Nash is her recipe for Pumpkin soup, don't forget to feed the rest of the fruit to your pony, dear. Tom Baxter is new at 67 with Better. The newies from James Blunt (Same mistake, 57) and Scouting For Girls (Elvis ain't dead, 53) are doing well, unlike the Spice Girls land at 55: since the physical came out, their record is 11-21-55. Don't give up the day jobs. Oh. Babyshambles are only one place higher with You talk, and Chris Rea's festive offering is 51 here. And 20 in Norway, oddly. Denny Minogue's comeback is so successful that it provides her smallest ever hit, Touch me like that makes 48. Amy MacDonald climbs to 46, already beating the peak of Ell Eh on downloads, and the Killers are in at 44. Ernie K Doe climbs to 43 with his 40-year-old song.

Back in at 38 comes Do they know it's Christmas?. Officially, this is the 1989 version. However, most people are playing the flip side, the 1984 original, sales of which are aggregated with the sale of the 1989 song. Slade's Merry xmas everybody makes 37, and Phil Collins is at 36. Yep, that's three songs on the top 40 show that were recorded more than 20 years ago. In new music we trust, my arse. Which brings us to the Foo Fighters, Long road to tedium bores its way in at 35. Shakin' Stevens returns at 33, a place better than his last new release, 1991's I'll be home this Christmas. Rapper J Holiday enters at 32 with Bed.

Peter Gelderblom has this week's dodgy dance remake, Wating for uses the vocal line from the Red Hot Chili Peppers' 2002 pile of tedium By the way and an annoying beat. It made number 12 in the Netherlands in August, and won't do much more than 29 here. Wizzard makes 27, the first time they've been in the chart since 1984, unless you choose to remember I wish it could be a Wombling merry christmas from 1998. We prefer not to. Sugababes up ten to 26, and Andy Williams' interpretation of It's the most wonderful time of the year makes 25. This and the Killers (pushed out of the top 40 by the sodding re-entries) are the only new festive records in the chart. Much to George Michael's distaste, Last christmas is back amongst us at 23. Thanks to the expedient of putting the non-festive Everything she wants, Wham!'s hit beat Band Aid head-to-head for six weeks in early 1985, and two weeks in early 1986. Dodgy cover versions include Whigfield (1995, 21); Alien Voices / Three Degrees (1998, 54); and Annoying Thing (2006, 16). Enemy come in at 21 with We'll live and die in these towns.

Arctic Monkeys have the highest new entry at 20 with Teddy picker, it does sound remarkably like all the other ones. Cascada have the highest new entry at 16, covering that well-known racist Jo O'Meara, formerly of S Club 6 or 7. This week's Elvis re-release is Burning love, number 10 in 1972, and (mercifully!) the last in this year's sequence. Fairytale of New Amsterdam is two places adrift of the top ten for a third year - Band Aid and Wham! never managed three years in the top 40.

Soulja Boy makes the top 10, and Mariargh Cantsing back up 15 to 8. Ten weeks cluttering up the top ten for Amy Whingebag, Take That dip to 5, Timberyokel back up a place to 4. Council Estate Slappers, T2, and Leona mean that most of the top ten has been up there for a zillion years. Bored now.

On the albums, Leona retains number 1 for a fourth week, with Pestside advancing past Shayne Ward for number 2. Eagles oust Kylie from 4. Cascada has the only new entry of note, Perfect Day enters at 12. Good climbs for James Blunt, the Housemartins / Beautiful South hits, and McFly's hits, the last after a second disk was included with the album; their B-sides album misses the top 75. Lower down, there's a re-issue of U2's Joshua Trio album (51), and the Choirboys have a carols album (61).

 1  1 Leona Lewis - Burning love
12 33 Pogues / Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New Amsterdam
14 11 Sugababes - About you now
17 13 Bloc Party - Flux
18 15 Freemasons - Uninvited
24 20 Hoosiers - Goodbye Mr. A
25 43 Andy Williams
  - It's the most wonderful time of the year
26 36 Sugababes - Change
34 27 Mika - Happy ending
46 67 Amy MacDonald - This is the life
49 37 Scouting for Girls - She's so lovely
63 47 Newton Faulkner - Dream catch me
64 31 Runrig / Tartan Army - Loch Lomond
66 49 Hoosiers - Worried about Ray
69 66 Newton Faulkner - Teardrop
74 57 Feist - 1234

.. 26 Editors - The racing rats
.. 59 Led Zeppelin - Stairway to heaven
.. 61 Paramore - Crushcrushcrush
.. 63 Twang - Push the ghosts
.. 74 KT Tunstall - Saving my face

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9December

This week, we've been watching and hearing...

• More or Less (OU / Radio 4) The ins and outs of bowel cancer, why the dollar a day campaign is nothing more than a soundbite, damned lies and reading league tables, and why public-key cryptography isn't all that. This show
• I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (Radio 4) Mornington Croissant!
• Listen Against (Radio 4) Is podcasting dangerous?
• The Late Edition (The Fourth Programme) Oil makes it all better; and Brigstocke delivers another rant against organised religion that would have caused a furore if TLE went out to an audience measured in more than two figures.

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9December

A man who vanished in 2002 turned up last week-end. He had been declared dead, his wife had claimed on his life insurance, and eventually upped sticks and moved to Panama. A picture of the widow and her late husband was taken in 2006 and used in promotion for the Panama Tourist Board. The couple's sons feared that their parents might be doing some sort of scam.

The UK government proposed detaining people for six weeks without charge. The current Minister of Funk, Jacqui Marginal, has rowed back from the eight weeks she was thinking of last month, but has introduced a device to introduce indefinite internment without trial, in cases specifically approved by MPs. The parliamentarians would not have an opportunity to review such evidence as was collected by the police, and would have to rely on the honesty of Mrs. Marginal and her oh-so-efficient staff, such as London's inexplicable top cop, Mr. Blair of No Confidence. The plan was condemned as consitutionally illiterate; we expect nothing else from the MP for Redditch.

Two supermarket groups were fined after admitting to fixing their prices during 2002 and 2003; two other major players have yet to admit their culpability. The OFT has yet to respond to complaints about the recent 33% rise in the price of milk, and a 40% hike in the price of bread.

We regret to report the death of Anton Rogers, star of Fresh Fields and May to December.

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9December

An unsettled week; winds mostly coming in from the south-west ensured that it was mild, particularly during the middle of the week, but the poor conditions ensured it was mostly unpleasant.

03 Mo sun, showers       5/ 9, 3.5
04 Tu cloud              7/13, 0.5
05 We sun, showers      12/13, 7.0
06 Th cloud, rain        9/15, 6.5
07 Fr sun                6/ 9, 6.5
08 Sa rain               8/11,10.0
09 Su rain early         4/ 7, 6.5

Rainfall in December: 54.5mm; monthly average: 67mm

Degree heating days: 154½
2006-7: 47/499
2005-6: 145/684
2004-5: 139/556
2003-4: 174/754

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