This week on the blogs

This week's top story in the 'I can't believe they are doing that' league is the news that our friends at KISCOM are going to ban access to foreign pornographic websites. This measure is to be introduced as a result of two videos of a less-than-family-orientated-nature being posted on two portal sites. How the proposed ban will prevent a repeat of the problem is not explained. I'll bet the number of job applications to the Ministry of Information and Communication has sky-rocketed as men flock to take on the job of hunting down those sites to add to the banned list. So far they've found 180 sites, well done lads, there's plenty more.

This was covered at Gusts of Popular Feeling , Lost Nomad and The Marmot, where one commenter subtly demonstrated how easy it might be to get round this.

Luckily these three blogs have not been banned in spite of: talking about hard-core; showing pictures of synchronised swimmers and having a picture of a very attractive little Korean bird.

Now spring has sprung, it's good to see that Feet Man Seoul has come out of hibernation to bring us some more female fashion photos, while Mike 'I even take my camera to the bathroom' Hurt has been bringing us the men's fashions.

Most bloggers were sad to hear that Jodi at The Asia Pages has stopped blogging and made her blog inaccessible. My English wife says: 'Bye Jodi'.

Mike in Busan and Matt in Balsan have both been photographing construction sites. Matt even videoed his nearest site for the full effect. Perhaps the three of us should form a Korean branch of the Construction Site Appreciation Society?

Just as I managed to get that song 'Maria, Ave Maria' out of my head, thanks to Sam at Seoul Seeking I now can't stop humming it again. But now at least I know why it was so popular: it was featured in the Korean movie 200 Pound Beauty and who did the original: Blondie.

ROK Drop has some very sensible suggestions as to what to do in the event of the North Koreans attacking Seoul and plans for the evacuation. I liked the line 'you may find difficulty acquiring a gas mask'. It reminds me of the British government www.preparingforemergencies.gov.uk website, which is so well spoofed at the very similar URL www.preparingforemergencies.co.uk

David is celebrating 2,000 posts, he has got a long way to go to match some of these prolific bloggers but I'm sure Bill would be interested to hear of your achievement Dave.

Several bloggers have been promoting Kevin's recently self published book 'Water from a skull'. I told my father Grumpy Old Bookman, who has a keen interest in self publishing, about Kevin's problems with cafepress, which led him to refer to Kevin on his blog as 'a slightly mad Korean blogger'. To which Kevin immediately responded in his inimitable style.

And finally, as a result of promoting Kevin's book on his site, Stafford has been granted his wish to get his own icon on the Big Hominid's blogroll.