POTTY-MOUTHED Irish blogger Twenty Major has cashed in with a two-book deal with Hodder Headline, the first such blogger book deal in Ireland. It follows similar blogger book deals for London call girl Belle du Jour, US political blogger Wonkette and British blogger Catherine Sanderson. Sanderson's scathing accounts of her Paris employer's work practices on her blog, Petite Anglaise, got her sacked. She somewhat made up for it with a sixfigure deal with Penguin.

Twenty Major, which attracts some 1,500 readers a day from 60 countries, is best known for his use of, erm, colourful metaphors generally involving female genitalia and digital-anal self abuse. Whether Twenty's style is a hit in bookshops will be anyone's guess, but of even greater interest will be whether the blogger's 200-word-rant style can succeed for 200 pages. We wish him well.

Our tip for the next Irish blogger to get a book deal: Red Mum. Google her and read why.

UNE PETITE ANGLAISE WINS UN PETIT ARGENT

IN A CASE that may have implications for future attempts by employers to censor what employees may write on personal blogs, an employment tribunal in Paris ruled in favour of Catherine Sanderson on Friday. Sanderson said she was a victim of unfair dismissal when her employer, British accountancy firm Dixon Wilson, summarily sacked her when they discovered she was the formerly anonymous Petite Anglaise. The company alleged her blogging had brought the firm into disrepute. The tribunal disagreed and awarded Sanderson a year's salary of 44,000 plus costs, and ordered her employer to reimburse the French exchequer for unemployment payments to Sanderson.

BRITISH BLOGGER BOMBS ON TELLY

TWENTY MAJOR may hope that he can break through to a traditional medium, but he should hope he has more success than British political gossip blogger Guido Fawkes, whose real name is Paul Staines, who won attention by publishing details of a second John Prescott extramarital affair. Last week he debuted as a documentary filmmaker with a package for BBC2's Newsnight. The Michael Moore wannabe demanded more transparency and accountability from politicians, but some pointed out this may con"ict with his insistence on maintaining his pseudonym and refusing to be pictured on camera. Jeremy Paxman interviewed a silohuette figure in a remote darkened studio and called his disguise "preposterous". On Friday the Daily Telegraph outed Fawkes, printed his real name and picture in its 'Spy' column and suggested contradiction between the stances.

THE IRISH TIMES THEY ARE A BLOGGING

MUSIC journo Jim Carroll, whom we like, has the first entry on a new Irish Times blog that was quietly launched last week. We just wonder, will Brian Boyd be reviewing the blog for the paper? We'd have our own blog on www. tribune. ie by now, but we're too busy hiding the bodies of a number of web designers we've killed.

SORRELL BLOGS OFF

MARTIN SORRELL, chief of the massive WPP group of advertising, PR and marketing companies, settled his libel suit last week against two former employees. Former WPP Italy CEO Marco Benatti and Marco Tinelli admitted they emailed a sexually explicit image of Sorrell and Daniela Weber, the COO of WPP Italy, with whom he had a relationship. They didn't admit, however, to being behind some anonymous blog posts that, among other things, portrayed Sorrell as a mafia don. Sorrell accepted a �120,000 ( 180,000) settlement after 11 days in court, but his legal costs were estimated at �2m. Both sides claimed victory, but importantly, authorship of the blogs proved too dif"cult to prove.

IN OTHER NEWS. . .

OGILVY & MATHER has won a 1.5m contract from the National Centre for Partnership and Performance for a National Workplace Strategy, it is understood. TV, radio, internet and outdoor will target workers to encourage "greater levels of workplace innovation and partnership".

Sounds like somebody's getting the message about letting 'digital natives' help shape the workplace of the future - now will they tell employers? One idea . . . stop trying to keep your employees from blogging.

CLARIFICATION

PUBLIUS wishes to reiterate that Publicis QMP, the favoured bidder for the DAA advertising contract, is in that position solely on merit. Awkward phrasing and our normally sarcastic tone led some readers to wonder what we meant in an item last week. In that item, we only meant what we wrote. If our wording caused readers to get any other impression, we deeply regret it.