Since my Twitter feed is currently getting jammed up with @replies on this topic, let’s take the subject to a more appropriate platform.
In order to qualify, bloggers need to be a) based in the UK, b) still blogging now, c) with all their archives still in one place (so multiple URLs are still allowed).
Cut-off date: February 2002.
Please let us know of any omissions!
(Update: I’m getting progressively more relaxed about c), as you’ll see below.)
12 March 1999 – Giles Turnbull
21 May 1999 – Lindsay Marshall: Bifurcated Rivets
10 June 1999 – Gordon McLean (under various blog titles)
January 2000 – Meg Pickard (formerly not.so.soft and meish, last updated June 2013, old archives set to private)
26 February 2000 – Robyn Wilder (formerly Orbyn, no old archives)
4 March 2000 – Darren: Linkmachinego
early March 2000 – Ann Carrier: Pixeldiva (not updated since February 2014)
7 March 2000 – John Robinson: Sore Eyes
15 March 2000 – Phil Gyford (see also Phil’s comment on The Haddock Directory, which started in 1996)
20 March 2000 – Jez Higgins: The Coffee Grounds
26 March 2000 – Tom Ewing: Freaky Trigger (formerly New York London Paris Munich)
29 April 2001 – Masher: Masher.tv (formerly Masher’s Blog) (older archives missing)
16 May 2000 – Mo Morgan (some long hiatuses, archives incomplete)
31 May 2000 – Nick Jordan (archives incomplete)
3 June 2000 – Cal Henderson: iamcal.com (not updated since February 2014)
25 September 2000 – Graybo: Grayblog
3 October 2000 – Brooke Magnanti (formerly methylsalicylate and Belle De Jour, no old archives)
15 October 2000 – Vaughan Simons: An Unreliable Witness (formerly Wherever You Are, last public post November 2013, all later entries currently set to private)
12 January 2001 – Alan Taylor: Oddverse (formerly Disconnected Zeitgeist)
12 January 2001 – Simon Hayes Budgen: No Rock and Roll Fun
1 February 2001 – Jonathan Green: Overyourhead
4 July 2001 – Matilda: Matilda The Cat
11 July 2001 – Julian Bond: Voidstar
late July 2001 – Anna Pickard: Little Red Boat
29 July 2001 – Stuart Ian Burns: Feeling Listless
29 July 2001 – Dave Kennamatic: Blogging Up The Works (formerly Kennamatic)
12 September 2001 – Karen/Erzsebel: Uborka / Rise
October 2001 – Mark Sinker: hashtag tashlan (formerly radio free narnia)
30 October 2001 – Mike Atkinson: Troubled Diva (many long hiatuses in recent years!)
6 November 2001 – Perry de Havilland & Natalie Solent (and others): Samizdata
January 2002 – Hg: Hydragenic (archives wiped until 2004)
4 January 2002 – Marcello Carlin (formerly The Church Of Me)
16 January 2002 – Sasha Frieze: Sashinka (last updated September 2013)
5 February 2002 – Gert: Gertsamtkunstwerk (formerly Mad Musings Of Me)
6 February 2002 – Alastair Coleman: Scaryduck
27 February 2002 – Arseblog (based outside the UK, but British content)
troubled diva 
Does this post allow us to add
30 October 2001 – troubled diva ?
Hmm, I think I’m a borderline case!
Also, there’s the whole “archives in one place” thing. Although if truth be told, I’ve recently been adding old posts to this blog and marking them as private.
I started my first blog in summer 2001; I think the oldest remaining archive is from September 12th that year, but damned if I can find it.
Have you thought about The Diary of Samuel Pepys? It was a late starter but I think it’s been updated continuously since Jan 2003.
Also maintained by Phil Gyford:The Haddock Directory – surely, the granddaddy of all Brit blogs?
Hydragenic started in early 2002, but his archives only go back as far as 2004.
Sore eyes http://www.thebeard.org/weblogs/20000311.html
The Coffee Grounds http://www.jezuk.co.uk/cgi-bin/view/jez/2000March
The Haddock Directory stopped in 2007, but haddock.org continues – alas, without any archive which I can find.
i am cal – http://www.iamcal.com/2000-06/
you guys make me feel like such a noob.
qB, but her archives have gone. And what about Dummies 4 Destruction, as it was once known?
D4D started later in 2002.
I’ll have you know I never used the 4 (except in the ‘logo’)
’twere always DestructionForDummies. (With or without hyphens)
I have found the Rise archives, but it stops in Nov 2011. I am still blogging now, though.
Got it – added!
All my archives (from jan 2000-2014) are in one place, but hidden for the moment. Does that count? 😉
It *could* count, Meg, but the latest blog post that I can find is dated June 2013 – am I looking in the wrong place?
I actually moved the mouse to search for the ‘like’ button against Swiss’s comment. Kill me now.
I bet there are loads of Livejournals still keeping the faith (if a Livejournal can be called a blog, which it probably can), and then there’s that whole parallel universe of political blogs to consider…
Political blogs came much later. F*ck those guys… 🙂
matildathecat.blogspot.com started Wednesday, 4 July 2001 (originally on matildathecat.com)
Thank you! Now added.
Further reading:
– Diamond Geezer, today, on the slow decline of old-school UK blogging.
– a satirical history of early blogging, from the same guy who wrote about it, more seriously, in early 2002 for the BBC (a rather influential piece in its day).
Giles Turnbull (who wrote those articles) was pretty influential in early UK blogs – I think he went to the first blog meet in Kings Cross.
He blogged at http://gilest.org/ but (if I recall correctly) he also did email newsletters and “proper” journalism.
Meg might remember this better than me…
Ooh, that’s a good one!
I’m late to the game as August 9th 2002. ( http://www.dummies-for-destruction.co.uk/random/2002/08/ )
Well, I was blogging at Wherever You Are from 15 October, 2000. The archives – well, a selection of them – were pretentiously moved to http://www.unreliablewitness.com/preserving/ in, er, 2006, I think, because I thought someone might still want to read them (I know, I know, I was young and vain). My last public post there was 15 November 2013, but I am still blogging there. Just privately. I’m not sure what that makes me. Probably just … confused.
I also momentarily wondered whether I could submit the blog I used to write for work at http://bbc.co.uk/ouch – that started in, er, something like June 2002 (hand-coded, you know) and was only the second or third BBC blog (Nick Robinson beat me to it, the swine). Sadly its archives are long lost, though it’s still going as part of BBC News, though I’m long gone from it. I was a PIONEER, dammit!
*waves*
Didn’t think I counted because I thought I’d lost all my early archives, but I’ve just discovered them all. I started blogging in early March 2000. The earliest stuff I can find is on typepad here: http://pixeldiva.typepad.com/pix/2000/03/index.html but there’s a few posts earlier in the month that have been lost.
I had pixeldiva.co.uk/blog and pixeldiva.co.uk/journal and then lived a couple of other places before coming back to pixeldiva some years later, and mostly not importing all the old blogger/greymatter (rememeber that?)/typepad/moveable type stuff into wordpress. And now I’ve ditched wordpress, gone to squarespace (which I pay extra for) and still don’t write very often. *And* I’ve got betaparent.com which I don’t write on either.
Tsk.
Must try harder.
Added!
“although the Haddock Directory closed in February 2007, and there don’t appear to be any archives”
The Directory was going from 1996, but what is currently the front page of haddock.org (an aggregation of others’ blogs) wasn’t there then. The Directory itself is nothing but archives, but organised by category rather than date. There are dated pages, eg http://haddock.org/directory/?d=2006-10-24 , but no chronological list of those.
My own blogging on gyford.com started on 15 March 2000 and is still going: http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2000/03/
Thanks for clarifying, Phil.
Not quite eligible, because tajmahal – February 2001 -> Summer 2003 is offline, and I don’t want to bring the archives back (though I have a copy myself). infovore.org replaced it circa June 2003. I write longform very infrequently, mainly sharing links from Pinboard. But am still here.
Well this post just helped me remember someone’s name from back then, so good tagging TD and good work Google!
I suppose I am doubly disqualified for starting late in July of 2002 and for abandoning the UK?
Does adactio.com qualify or is Ireland vs. UK too hot a potato to touch?