Everybody’s talking about PhilTube. If you haven’t watched Did You Say ‘Blogging’?, do. While you’re there, check out some of the other lonelygirl15 and YouTube send-ups.

Everyone to whom I’ve shown Did You Say ‘Blogging’? found it hilarious. More than one suggested that I might have rather more in common with Phil than I’d like to admit.

Amusing point, but it raises a serious question.

Writing a blog takes time. Our friend Phil knows this only too well – he’s been “blogging the !@$&*! out of my morning”, after all. But here in agency world time is a finite and costly resource. I doubt my clients would be at all impressed if I started charging them for my blogging time. So when, and how, do we find the space in our schedules to blog?

David blogs at all sorts of strange times of day, often in slightly off-the-wall circumstances. For Tim, it’s airport lounges (I know, I’ve seen him do it). Richard Edelman, if we believe the hype, blogs at 6am.

Right now it’s lunchtime, and I’m writing this as I eat – although I could equally have written it last night whilst watching Torchwood. Sometimes I sketch out an article in my head on the way to work.

More important than when you actually write, I think, is keeping hold of ideas as they occur. I have scraps of paper with blog ideas on them, preserved in scrawl before they’re forgotten. So that when I do find the time, I have something to start from.

What about you? When do you blog?

October saw the incorporation into the blogosphere of a couple of new political blogs, Reclaim Labour and The British Bullshit Foundation. Both are pretty forthright with their opinions – but then they can afford to be, because both are anonymous.

I’m not sure how I feel about these increasingly numerous anonymous blogs. Some are more anonymous than others, some are more outspoken than others. But how should we, the reader, view the political writings of someone who won’t tell us who they are?

Anonymous or not, I do enjoy Guido and Recess Monkey. The jury’s still out on Lord Lucan. But then, I enjoy Iain Dale, Tom Watson and Kerron Cross too – “proppa bloggas”, as Sion Simon would say, who are happy to put their name to their opinions.

Thing is, if one of these Proppa Bloggas decides to declare, for example, that when Tony goes they’d rather not see Gordon as PM, their views carry much more weight than the growing ranks of anonymous “back to 1997″ mutterers.

On the other hand, the anonybloggers can get away with much more without fear of reprisal. Gossip, innuendo and assertion ahoy – no-one knows who we are, so we can say what we really feel.

A couple of blogs ago I criticised a couple of blogs who don’t allow comments. Leo commented that this was like being invited ’round for dinner and having tape slapped over your mouth. In the same way, reading an anonymous blog is like talking to someone with a paper bag over their head. But as long as you acknowledge that the paper bag is there, and the caveats it brings with it, the ensuing conversation can be just as enlightening – if not more so.

The BBC reports this morning that YouTube is being sued by … er … the Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation of Ohio. Otherwise known as UTUBE, and resident at www.utube.com since 1998.

Our tube and pipe machinery friends, established in 1985, are slightly miffed at the sudden increase in traffic since the YouTube explosion which has, apparently, caused them to reasses their hosting arrangements five times.

Regardless of what this says about their erstwhile host provider, I wonder whether legal action was strictly necessary. UTUBE wants YouTube to either cease operating (yeah right) or pay for UTUBE to renew its online presence. YouTube’s not exactly short of cash (or at least Google stock) these days. And one would have thought a freebie Google Adwords campaign could have worked wonders for UTUBE’s business.

YouTube has not, according to the Beeb, yet made itself available for comment. But as and when they do, I’d be interested to hear if the chaps from Ohio suggested discussing things over a coffee before they called in the lawyers.

Contrast this with the good natured way in which Cameron M Semmens handled the webcameron.com / .org confusion. It is, as the great Bob Hoskins once said, good to talk.

I’ve found myself of late having a number of conversations with bright young things embarking on careers in PR. It makes me feel old.

The context of these discussions varies – H&K’s graduate intake, a potential intern who’s come by for an informal chat, a group of students for whom I’m leading a workshop, or even a sixth form careers day. But these discussions always have a few threads in common.

One such thread is that the world of Public Affairs appears, so these bright young things tell me, to have a bit of a reputation as being more difficult to get into than the rest of the PR world. As a latecomer to the profession I can’t really offer comment, at least not based on personal experience. But anecdotally, at least, this is what people are telling me.

Following from this, a recurring question is whether a politically astute, ambitious bright young thing should determinedly seek out the holy grail of an entry-level position in Public Affairs, or consider other options with a view to moving into Public Affairs at a later date.

It’s a difficult question, and I’d welcome thoughts and comments. But my gut feeling – and the advice I dispensed in one such conversation earlier this week – is that, if you’re set on consultancy rather than, say, going to work for your MP or any of the other bajillion routes into the world of politics and policy, a bit of experience in the wider world of PR can’t hurt.

Why? Because, day-to-day, the boundaries (such as there are any) between we few, we happy few, we band of Public Affairs specialists, and our comrades elsewere – be they corporate comms practitioners, crisis specialists or whatever – are becoming increasingly blurred. And as such, if I were (hypothetically, before you all send in your CVs) looking for a new team-member, someone who’s had the initiative to develop a broad skills base would certainly not be at a disadvantage.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ve a session with a bunch of overseas students from Syracuse, and a breakfast seminar for PRCA Frontline. I’ll ask them this very question, and see what they think.