Blogwatch: in brief

Our Man In Hanoi is asking for help in raising money for a building project, and for sponsorship for a 70km charity bike ride. If you're interested in helping out, you can find out more by clicking on the link or emailing him at ourmaninhanoi@gmail.com.

Elsewhere:

Jonathan details the extraordinary influence John Peel exerted on his evolving musical tastes and listening habits;

Nick reports on an encounter with The Youth Of Today;

Secret Knowledge Of Backroads gives an illuminating insight into its author's daily routine, in an, ahem, defiantly unpretentious variation on the Day In The Life theme - "I sit down on the toilet as I’m too tired to stand and my aim isn’t that good with sleep in my eyes. Anyway, have you tried doing a number two whilst standing up? Whilst I’m there I’ll flick through Heat which is normally plonked over the side of the bath for times such as this. Of course, I just look at the pictures. When I see J-Lo I toy with the idea of having a Barclays. Then I see Donatella Versace and forget all about it";

Neil's been banned from every branch of McDonalds in the South-East;

and Mish is taken aback by her first exposure to Gaydar profiles - "You pink darlings! I appreciate that love and affection and Mr Right is a little hard to find in this cruel age, but do you really have to post a photograph of yourself like that? Doing that? Waving it in the air like that? And offering to do that to someone whom you haven’t even MET yet?".