The problem with blogging at the end of the day is that there is often something good to watch on TV. Thanks to the heady mix of Netflix and Sky+ there’s an endless sea of things to watch. Tonight we’re working our way through the new House of Cards season. Earlier in the week we were working through Fargo. It means that blogging is right at the very end of the night, after we’ve finished watching whatever thing we’ve chosen.

Yesterday things had conspired so that I didn’t get the 5k run done which I’d planned. Granted, I’d been out for two hours swing dancing and that felt like some decent exercise, but it was not what was planned, and therefore Didn’t Count.

Today I had planned the 5k run, followed by a session at the gym. The day was planned out nicely, but working through accounts took a lot longer than I had hoped. Plus I had a visitor at 3pm, not long before I was to head out. I’m not complaining – it was good to catch up, and it was like old times: a bit of gossip, a bit of politics and then a mooch around the internet to see what was really going on with the political groups.

I’ve been late to the qlocal site. It’s one of those sites that publishes any press release that it gets. We had been looking for evidence of a policy change and qlocal seemed like a good place to poke around to see if there had been an early press release with an earlier, more embarrasing, position.

However, I was surprised when I saw an article about the West Lancs Borough Council Budget with the title “Council budget meeting – Fiiiiiight!!!“, which I’m pretty sure I’d seen here previously. I clicked on it, and I confess, I had just a faint feeling that I’d read it somewhere before. It took a moment to realise that I’d written it a couple of weeks ago. So much has happened since then, I’d completely forgotten what I’d punched into the keyboard that night.

My colleague had no idea what I was talking about when I pointed this out. More fun was to be had with the nuances of West Lancashire politics — which is a fair point — but there was a nagging feeling that it wasn’t “right”. I posted this on Facebook only to be told (via other channels) that the blog entry had been posted on a different blog as well, with no attribution.

I had to go out for my run right after this, and I pondered what to do. I’m still not sure.

It’s difficult to work out what’s the best way to react. I have no interest these days in being an elected representative and I’m not too concerned about pussy-footing around some local loud-mouths with blogs aimed at the Council. Plus, I’m really quite cheesed off that they lifted something without even a nod towards who wrote it.

However, the internet is a wide and wonderful place. Like the non-cyber world, it has good people alongside the morons and the liars — and the whole spectrum of characters in between. I think that anyone who lifts 800+ words verbatim and passes them off without referencing who wrote them is on the non-good side of that spectrum.

So, what to do? For one thing, I’ve got no idea who publishes these websites, so I’ll probably have to go to their ISPs in the first instance — unless anyone reading this post knows who I can contact.

I simply have no appetite for a fuss being made, but I am also torn by having spent many years at university where plagiarism was considered the absolute worst thing ever (i.e. in the days before the internet was widespread). I’ll sleep on it and see how I feel in the morning, but I know that I’ll have to do something.

The bloody irritating thing is that this blog is just a simple notebook. It’s a collection of regular(-ish) postings to the dozen or so people who might be interested in what’s going on in the Ormskirk branch of the family. However, regardless of whether the readership is 20 or 20-billion, there is a principle to be upheld.

So I will do something, and I will report back. As and when…

My run? Well, I went around the Edge Hill parkrun route. I’d had a plan to just get around it in a reasonable time, however about 3km in I felt really good and like there was a lot more in the legs. I picked up the pace a bit and kept going. The result was 29:11 around the 5k. Nothing to write home about, but good for me. However, the main thing was that it all felt ok and I could have easily gone further.

I then went straight to the gym for 40 minutes trying out my exciting new programme. Which turned out to mean studying the sheets and trying desperately to remember what the different excercises were. Old age is creeping up faster than I’d care to like.

Finally I picked up the children and headed home… only to realise that I hadn’t been out for a 30 minute walk.

I cursed the Gods of Walk and headed out down County Road, up Southport Road towards the train station and then around the back, under the railway and around to Hattersley’s. I met up with Jude who had just arrived back from work. I had hit the thirty-one minutes mark and so all was good.

By the end of the day, it was a few more things ticked off the lift app, but it’ll be tomorrow when I decide what to do with the local plagiarists.