THE NME LIST: "THE ORIGINAL PLACINGS WERE JUST SITTING IN MY ACCOUNT"

The Guardian's Culture Vulture blog has picked up the story (or near-story) of the supposed Great Chart Mung of 2005. They suggest Londonist's inability to stack up its story beyond a "you'll just have to trust us on this" " doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that this isn’t standard-issue bellyaching."

Which seems to be a little unfair to Londonist - they clearly seem convinced what they've run is both true and important (and it's certainly done them no harm so far, as it's given their blog a profile beyond the "oh, Gothamist have done another spin-off, have they?", which is no bad thing in itself if it brings attention to what's a pretty nice piece of blogging.)

Meanwhile, Conor McNicholas explains to the Guardina what he reckons must have happened:

“Most of us aren’t organised enough to set up a conspiracy,” he says. “I can guarantee that the final list as published is the editorial one, signed off by me. Any insinuation that there is any pressure brought to bear is a libellous one.”

“Early versions of the list do exist, but they’re working documents. They have about as much value as emails about a feature.”

“I would challenge people to make up their own minds about this.”

Although we're not quite sure there's been any doubt that Conor signed off the final chart anyway, has there?

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