Where do all the lonely blogs go ? Where's the home for the forlorn, abandoned blog, cast aside like an old shoe? Today's fashion, tomorrow's charity shop donation.

Don't hold your nose, reader, don't be prissy either, I like this word: the Blogosphere. It's where we live (in a cyber sense obviously). But all roads leading to and through it are littered with the bones of famished blogs.

Bleached and dry; a wasteland of neglect, where weary blogs drag themselves off the road and away from the remorseless glare of an indifferent sun. Carcase heaped upon carcase of good intentions made Blog fading before our eyes, pleading for an entry, yet extinction awaits.

I've spent this evening wandering over this blasted heath. There's a lot to warm the eye, no question, some terrific blogs, but the backdrop is like a moonscape.

Leave it to Shelley, with a little 21st century tweak here and there, to catch this sombre scene better than anyone else could ever hope:

`My name is Blog, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
'Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away

Next steps then. Do we all adopt a blog? Gather up the fallen, save what we can, honour those for whom, perhaps, it is too late.

Should there be a Blogger's licencing scheme: I hereby solemnly promise to cherish, nuture and steward my blog come hell or high water, through the days when I'm bursting with ideas, and the days when the only thing I can see on the screen of the laptop is my wan reflection.

A Blog's not just for Christmas, remember.