It’s time for another blogmeet up here in the land of the Scots. Gordon has once again done all the hard work and found us a place to drink meet: the bar of the Radisson Hotel in central Glasgow (we’re avoiding the pubs because Glasgow Scotland are playing at the football). Gordon will be there from a bit before 2pm and I’ll probably get there not long after, but feel free to come along in the evening if you’re busy in the afternoon. Full details are at Scottish Blogs.

I will be setting the video for Robin Hood and crossing my fingers that it doesn’t chew the tape, as has become its wont.

Here’s a new blog roundup for Sundays: the Scottish Blogging Roundup, bringing together posts with a particular focus on Scottish politics. It’s brought to you by longstanding Scottish political bloggers doctorvee and Curious Hamster.

I see from Bernie that today is Blog Day 2006 – who knew? Apparently we’re supposed to recommend five blogs:

Bloggers from all over the world will post a recommendation of 5 new Blogs, Preferably, Blogs different from their own culture, point of view and attitude

There’s a little time left before midnight, so here are five from my sidebar who I recommend and which differ from the sort of content you get here.

• Popular, in which Tom Ewing reviews every UK number #1 since the dawn of time
• Glitter for Brains, a slightly explicit and very pink blog written by a Gentleman Who Understands Fashion
• A Beautiful Revolution, featuring heart-rending doodles that I can’t describe; visit and see for yourself
• Nothing Tra La La in which writer Simon Guerrier writes interesting things (yes, there’s a bit of Doctor Who in it, but don’t let that put you off)
• Indexed, the intersection of Venn diagrams and humour

The 25 lines quiz is still running – at the time of writing, eight opening lines have been correctly identified while seventeen are still there for the taking.

Stephen Tall, in his latest vidcast, ponders whether newspapers are dying a death, which has spurred me to finally recount the end of my long dalliance with theguardian.

I used to buy theguardian every day. I started five or six years ago, if I recall, and the paper provided something to read at lunchtime when I was away from a PC. When I started commuting a couple of years ago, I began buying a newspaper at the station and reading it on the train, filling half an hour with the day’s news (and the sudoku). On the way home, I’d read the rest and do the kakuro or the crossword. The print copy was preferable to the online version: you could write answers into the puzzles, see the cartoons, and it didn’t involve having a computer with internet access on the train. For all these reasons, I couldn’t see myself giving the paper up.

A couple of months ago, I became an ex-Guardian reader. Initially, I wanted to save cash and to divert my daily hour on the train to a couple of books. I never felt the urge to read the paper online – the website isn’t anywhere near as easy to navigate as the print version and I’ll automatically go to the BBC if I want news at a computer. There were still interesting stories carried, but big stories would be picked up by the BBC website – or by bloggers.

And this is where the big change occurred. Now I spend my commute catching up with blogs via my mobile phone. Nearly all of them load quite happily in Opera Mini (theguardian doesn’t – the long sidebar gets in the way, as do the ads). I can access Bloglines and check the feeds I’m subscribed to, and LibDem Blogs carried the latest posts from LibDems bloggers, at least one of whom will pick up on any worthy news stories. I can also check my email and go to the BBC mobile site for news and sport.

In the past, I couldn’t see myself reading the papers on the train on a handheld electronic widget, and yet this is almost what’s happened – but without reading the newspapers part. I no longer have to worry about turning the pages without hitting the person sitting next to me. The only cost is having to charge my phone battery more often as GPRS runs it down quite quickly, and the only occasional problem is passing through an area with no signal. I don’t feel I’m missing out, and I can even post comments to other blogs on the move. Hurrah for the twenty-first century.