I was going to start today’s offering with some fluffery and chocolate cakes, yet when I read a post by Juliet Swan on Better Nation I knew that more domestic things would have to wait. Juliet makes the outstandingly obvious observation that surely politics must promote equality.

This led me to find out more about Juliet and she blogs in her own right. She asks if gravitas is a euphemism for male. I often wonder if the same thing happens in the blogosphere and I’ve no reason to think it doesn’t as blogs reflect “real life”. Perhaps when women blog – particularly when they have also blogged about domestic matters – it has less clout than a blokey blog. Notable exceptions including Caron and Nic. If this bewilders you, as luck would have it, Is There A Plan B has some advice on how to be a feminist.

Right, now, gravitas out of the way, here’s how you might fill your Easter break.

First to the cakes. (I was going to make some comment about it being possible to be a feminist and still make wonderful cakes, but I thought better of it.)

The Scottish Mum Blog has a sweetie cake and Susan K Mann has a gingerbread house.

For many it’s a weekend off and what could be better than messing about on a boat. Scottishboating tells of a trip to Germany, but also hints at a juicy tale of arresting a ship “The whole episode involved time spent in the faculty library studying precedents and working out how one should nail the writ to a vessel with no masts.” I do hope a future post tells this tale.

If you fancy a spot of culture, Scottish Art Blog reviews the RSA New Contemporaries Exhibition.

Lower brow, after some hemming and hawing I took the kids to see The Hunger Games. See how we got on.

And the weather? Crazy isn’t it. Hawth discusses fluffy rain and howling winds.

Edited by Douglas Daniel

This is my first roundup, and as someone who generally sticks to the politics area of the Scottish blogosphere, it’s been interesting looking through lots of blogs which have nothing at all to do with politics, which is obviously the whole point of the roundup – to give a glimpse of the breadth and depth of the kind of blogs that are out there.

Let’s start off with Captain Scotland, a superhero who is coming to terms with his new-found superpowers and the side-effects they bring, including having to remain sober while watching the Scottish rugby team (a rather daunting task). It’s quite a new blog, only starting up last month, and I’d recommend going back to read the first few entries, so you get an idea of the backstory. One thing Captain Scotland could do with is a logo, so perhaps he could take the advice of David Wong, writing in Rookie Oven, who explains the hallmarks of a good logo (wish we’d had this advice when I was in a band…)

Sarah Rooftops talks about accepting the imperfections in a relationship, while Felicity Fox seems to have a similar tactic, which she calls the “long leash theory”. Not so sure about comparing us blokes to dogs though! Although perhaps a dog is just the solution to the problem posed by Fitba That Ba…

Brian Pope blogs on more familiar territory for me, noticing that the Scottish Government’s list of “shovel-ready” projects that have been presented to Westminster is rather sparse in terms of South of Scotland projects, and wonders if this represents a missed opportunity. Over at That Guy From Easterhouse, Kenneth Murray backs Asda’s move to ask suppliers to continue sending normal branded goods to their Scottish (and Northern Irish) supermarkets, rather than ones branded with Union Jacks.

Sticking with politics for a moment, Edinburgh Eye bemoans the lack of female representation in politics, a view echoed by Kirsty over at Better Nation while congratulating Leanne Wood on becoming Plaid Cymru’s new leader. The always excellent Burd (aka Kate) has brought attention to the alarming number of families who are going to be forced to do some recalculating of the household finances in the face of the Tory cuts to child tax credits, and a bit less close to home, Dorky Mum asks us to sign up to Save The Children’s petition to stop the killing in Syria.

Talking of mums (dorky or otherwise), as it’s Mothering Sunday, we’ll end on In A Bun Dance, where Ellen tells mothers to stop aspiring to silly standards set by TV parenting shows and super-slim celebrity mums and ask themselves a few simple questions to determine if they’re a good mother or not. I would add “do their old school friends still remember those fine home made chips you made them 25 years ago?” to the list, but I’m just showing off because my mum’s food is legendary. She is, of course, the best mum in the world, and she’ll continue to prove that by making lots of fine cakes with the food mixer she’s getting from me and my sister…

The Scottish Roundup is a wonderful and varied thing. That it covers politics and parenting, folk music and football is testament to the rich seam of blogs we are mining in Scotland.

When I take my shot at editing I find the job invariably takes me longer than it should as I discover new blogs or read wonderful posts from old favourites. But I don’t mind as I am informed, moved and amused by turn.

However, I’ve noticed that of late there haven’t been quite so many nominations for blog posts. Perhaps everyone is busy living the life rather than blogging about it…

So I’m writing this as an appeal, a reminder if you like, let us know what you’ve written or read that you want to share. Don’t be shy, if you’re pleased with a post of your own, send it over. Blog Images and videos work too.

Nominations by Twitter @scottishroundup or on the form here please.

Thank you.

Pic by At Least Daddy Can Cook.

This week’s roundup falls naturally into Four parts: Aberdeen, politics, Scotland and nostalgia.

Aberdeen

I’m going to start with Aberdeen out of fondness for my years in the Granite City. While the rest of us are vaguely aware of a bit of a to-do over plans for the city’s Union Terrace Gardens anyone with an AB postcode is likely to have his or her weapons at the ready.

Aberdeen Voice has reproduced much of a letter from Shakhaf Barak to a friend. It is entitled “Letter To The Sane World”.

Billy The Kid chips in with, well, considerably more than tuppence worth. He thinks “it feels wrong”.

The Daily Liam is “slightly in favour” of the transformation.

And Writing From Scotland takes her mind off the whole thing with some fabulous post boxes.

Scotland

Perceptive Travel has a particularly moody time in Glencoe

And Bairds Travel hits the road north.

Politics

Bloggers put their questions to Willie Rennie and Priggy reported.

Meanwhile, Caron was getting ready for the Lib Dem conference with her pick of the conference agenda. Obviously by now, it’s mostly a done deal. If you are interested you could do worse than check back at Caron’s blog to see how it went.

And elsewhere and with other parties, SNP’s pledge over Glasgow City.

Nostalgia

Musicfootnotes reports on the gig for the late Gerry Rafferty. It’ll help if you play the video while reading the post.

The Absurdist remembers her gran in a wonderfully evocative post.

Sticking with grannies. Scottish Mum has a moments musing over photos of three generations of women.

And finally, while not strictly nostalgia, A Wee Bit of Cooking, has me hankering for brighter weather and the time (and inclination) to cook something spectacular. It’s a beautiful blog and I can’t think why I haven’t come across it before.

Enjoy what’s left of your weekend and if you see any posts worth sharing, please let us know.

Do you enjoy the Scottish Roundup or does it annoy you because something has been left out?

Either way, it might be time to step forward and have a go at putting together the roundup one week.

The Scottish Roundup is put together by a team of volunteers and we know there’s no way we can ever get round even a fraction of the thousands of posts produced by talented Scottish bloggers every week. That’s why a variety of people bringing their voice and view of the blogosphere is vital.

It’s not a huge job and we’ll hold your hand throughout. We have a very helpful guide for editors that we send you that tells you everything you need to know. Then on a Friday and Saturday we send you nominations that have come in via Twitter or via the website or via e-mail. You add in some of your own from your own reading and weave them into a blog post for Sunday’s Roundup. When you write it is up to you. Some people do it on Saturday late afternoon or evening, others get up with the lark on a Sunday and do it then. I’ve done both. Generally we like it to appear around 10 or 11 on a Sunday morning.

Typically it takes one to two hours to roundup the Roundup. Having said that I often get sidetracked by the range of blogs I discover.

If you’d like to have a go, drop us a comment here or a tweet (@scottishroundup) and we can fit you into the rota. If you’ve done it before, don’t wait to be asked, we’d love to have you back.

If you have any other suggestions for how we could improve Roundup, please also let us know.