So let's get this right. An American guy living in London calling himself the Belgravia Dispatch (a blog) has picked up on a story in The Guardian which misquoted a US politician (US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz and no, I'd never heard of him before) and the Guardian has apologised .

This is being seen as a victory for the "blogosphere" but I am not so sure. Isn't this just one of those things? We all see errors in papers every day generally about subjects we know about and we all think; "if they can't get that right, what else are they getting wrong?" But does that make it a conspiracy? Does that make the paper flawed? At least they have made the correction. We all get things wrong, journalists more than others.. All they can do, is try and put it right. At least with online sites, they can make fairly immediate corrections.

The Blogosphere is (according to Instapundit) represented here.

All that said, I think that accuracy does matter and if it hadn't been for blogging this is possibly one correction that would never have been made.

Concept 2 have just released the British rankings for the year up to April 2003 and I was 13th over 2000m in the 30-39 LWT category. Actually, I was slightly disappointed because I was hoping to be in the top ten, but then it was my first year, the only race I completed and I was at the tail end of the age group. So no complaints really. If I match my time this year (and I am planning to go faster) I could be in the top three of the 40-49 LWTS. "LWT's" mean "lightweights" and is a separate category for those rowers who weight less than 75kgs (11st 11lbs) on the day of the race. Not as easy as you might think, because I am natually slighly more than that, but rather than race against people who are 6'4" and weigh 90kgs, it is easier to lose the pounds and be competitive.

If you have got no idea what I am talking about, Concept 2's are indoor rowing machines with little computers attached to them which measure the distance and time travelled (amongst other things). I first discovered them 18 months ago after I found that I could not run anymore (following a skiing accident). It isn't as boring as it looks and as a fitness tool, I think it is unrivalled.

Last year Concept 2 published these rankings in a very nice booklet, but I understand that the costs of publishing these on paper (and giving them away as they did) have become prohibitive and they are just putting them on the web. I love the way that Concept 2 have created an on-line community through messageboards (which are incredibly helpful) and the fact that they think about what their users really want.

Ken Livingston, the Mayor of London has some good ideas (congestion charging is one of them) and bringing the Tour de France to London in 2006 is yet another. Let's hope he makes some progress. The last time the Tour came to the UK in 1998 it was a great success as far as I can remember.

The bad news today is that yet another professional cyclist was found dead in his hotel room just before the start of the Tour of Germany. William Fotheringham in The Guardian has the story (as always). What are these guys doing to themselves? I still can't bring myself to read the Willi Voet Breaking the Chain Drugs and Cycling The True Story book. I anticipate it being all too depressing.

And I should be here tonight. Maybe it's because I would be classed as a "Veteran".

Is this the end of Gebrselassie's reign over 10,000m ? Beaten by Kenenisa Bekele who ran an awsome time in what were reportedly windy conditions. This young man is definitely the future. Interesting piece about the two of them by Pat Butcher in the weekend's FT.

Incidentally, I struggled to find details of this result, but the BBC Sport website came up trumps. And then I checked again and found this. The IAAF site and the event organisers do not appear to be doing quite as well. Sports results on the web still come from old media sources.

Pleased to see Darren Campbell came third in the 100m although unsure how John Mayock would view his 9th place in the mile.

Steve's emailed today to ask what has happened to my weblog which has prompted me into action. Plenty of things to blog about so need to catch up. One of the things (which Steve will appreciate) is that Azeem has given me a hard time for not using the 20six blogging tool - which he is trying to promote. Not surprising given that he is the managing director of the UK arm of the company.

Interesting to see how this development has been blogged both positively and now a little negatively. I gather from Dan Gillmor that Cory Doctorow has criticised the terms and conditions. Can't find the Cory Doctorow post, but if anyone sees it, please let me know. I may just start a separate blog (using 20six) of my sporting activities and use that as a training diary. May be of interest to a very select few particularly those on the Concept 2 message board.