Soap Opera 2.0, starring Blognation founder Sam Sethi, ended with a blockbuster today: Sam lays all the blame for the failure of the British blog network at the feet of TechCrunch editor Mike Arrington, who split with Sethi in a nasty and public way exactly a year ago, an irony that Sam notes in his post on the end of his dream. Like Techfold, I have to say this is one of the most mealy-mouthed and insincere posts I’ve seen from an alleged business person since Conrad Black stopped blogging.

I’m not sure which is my favourite part — the part where Sethi admits that he lied to his own staff about funding being imminent (which ex-staffer Oliver Starr described in an earlier installment of this saga), but blames that lying on Mike Arrington? Or the part where he says he has called in Scotland Yard to investigate the term sheet that was leaked to Mike, the one that allegedly caused the VC to panic and pull the funding?

I just can’t decide. It’s like deciding which part of the train wreck is the best, or which accident victim is worse off. The only thing that’s clear is that Sam doesn’t bear any of the blame for what happened — anything wrong he did was something he was forced to do by Mike Arrington (Mike has posted a response here). What a graceless and insipid way to end something. If Sam was trying to win any support or respect with his post, he has failed completely.

Ah, the weekend — when we get to lounge around in our pajamas with a cup of coffee, reading the thrilling back-and-forth, he-said/she-said tales of Web 2.0. This week’s installment brings us back to the gang at Blognation UK, the TechCrunch-style blog that Sam Sethi set up after he was given his walking papers from TechCrunch UK. If you recall, the last episode saw Blognation writer Oliver Starr (ex of MobileCrunch) post a 3,000-word screed about Sethi and how he was (allegedly) a lying scumbag. In case you’re interested, Sam has a sort of mea culpa here.

Now, Mike Arrington has posted a document that purports to be a “term sheet” from a venture fund called Secora, which Sethi claims is investing almost $500,000 for a quarter of Blognation. But there are some odd things going on with this term sheet — the dates appear to be wrong, and it looks as though it might have been prepared long before Blognation came apart at the seams. Not to mention that it’s difficult to believe anyone in their right mind would invest given the lawsuits that are flying.

In addition, a commenter on TechCrunch posts this illuminating excerpt from Secora’s annual report:

“The Board has subsequently carried out due diligence on a privately owned media and entertainment business… during the due diligence process it was determined that the financial results of the target business were significantly below expectations upon which the price had been based.

Several attempts were made to renegotiate the deal on terms that were acceptable to the Board and that could be recommended to shareholders, but without success. As a result it was concluded that the transaction would not be in the interests of Secora shareholders and should be aborted.”

Even if that doesn’t refer to Blognation (which is hard to believe) the rest of the report suggests that Secora itself is having financial difficulties, and therefore the odds of it deciding to put $500,000 into a struggling blog are not great. But that’s not the weirdest part: the weirdest part is that Sam Sethi appears to have posted a comment on TechCrunch using someone else’s name, which Debi Jones (another ex Blognation writer) then responded to.

This one is entering the Soap 2.0 hall of fame for sure. In any case, all this should make for a fun Le Web conference, since Sethi apparently was hoping to have a united front of Blognation bloggers show up and fly the flag. Doesn’t sound like that’s going to be happening any time soon.

First of all, let me just say that I don’t know Sam Sethi of Blognation — never met him, wouldn’t know him if I tripped over him, and haven’t heard anything pro or con about him since Mike Arrington sacked him (or he resigned) at TechCrunch UK last year. Even then, I had no opinion on the man. For all I know, he could be a prince of a guy, or he could be a complete jackass and liar who routinely slaughters kittens.

Even if the latter is the case, however, I’m not sure that writing the kind of hate letter Oliver Starr just wrote makes a lot of sense. According to the former Blognation writer, Sethi is a lying scumbag who continually promised money from some fictional venture-capital outfit and then failed to deliver on several occasions. And it’s not just Starr who feels that way — there are corroborating comments from two other former Blognation writers, Nicole Simon and Debi Jones.

For those who are interested, Sethi has responded that Starr left Blognation months ago, and therefore he’s not up to date with what’s going on — the imminent arrival of said VC funds being just around the corner — and there’s an implication that some money was paid out to staff, but Starr just didn’t happen to be one of them. Tom Raftery has more.

All that aside, I have to wonder what Oliver gains by writing a 3,000-word screed against Sam Sethi — and then not only posting it on Blognation (where it was quickly removed) but also on his own blog, and entreating readers to take screenshots, mirror the content on their own blogs, and otherwise maximize the public humiliation that Sethi is likely to encounter. Send ‘em home in bodybags, in other words.

From the sounds of it — and Mike Arrington notes that he and Sethi didn’t part on friendly terms, so it’s not surprising he would post an unflattering email — Sam Sethi is more than capable of sabotaging his own relationships with VCs, rather than having Oliver jumping in to help. In any case, why play all this out in public? I’m not sure Oliver is doing himself any favours by taking the scorched-earth approach.