Now I've Realised Why I'm Doing This Tour of the Islands' Blogs
And by Islands I mean the British Isles, and Don't even Get Me Started on the political correctness or otherwise of that term, let's just say the collection of islands at the north western edge of Europe where they mostly speak English and several kinds of Celtic.
The reason why was clarified by IrishEyes writing about Time Names Best Blogs. Which in turn completed a train of thought set in motion by something I'd read in blogshares about 20% of blogs getting 80% of the incoming links, just as 20% of humanity own 80% of the cash. I'll name no names but there are a number of British (English, actually, come to think of it... Southern English, indeed...) blogs which have masses of links-in, loads of comments, but which are crap. Just as IrishEyes traced the US ones back to Time, so most of these can be traced back to a Guardian Online 'Best UK Blog' stunt in, if I recall, 2003. Some of those blogs like Call Centre Confidential are gone now, and some are still good (Diamond Geezer, for example), but others are, well... Let's say they're among the 20%. And the 80% are far more interesting.
So, I'm on this blog tour to find about a dozen decent blogs from amongst the 80%. They'll want pictures, fresh ideas and turns of phrase, freedom from spelling and grammatical errors; they'll not be written by barmy people, (mind you, barminess is an elastic concept); they'll have humour; probably they'll be leftist or anarchist or anti globalist or somesuch, but not necessarily; they'll be posted to more or less daily. No fucking ads or cats. Finally, and this is a most difficult qualification, they'll not be up their own arses.
The reason why was clarified by IrishEyes writing about Time Names Best Blogs. Which in turn completed a train of thought set in motion by something I'd read in blogshares about 20% of blogs getting 80% of the incoming links, just as 20% of humanity own 80% of the cash. I'll name no names but there are a number of British (English, actually, come to think of it... Southern English, indeed...) blogs which have masses of links-in, loads of comments, but which are crap. Just as IrishEyes traced the US ones back to Time, so most of these can be traced back to a Guardian Online 'Best UK Blog' stunt in, if I recall, 2003. Some of those blogs like Call Centre Confidential are gone now, and some are still good (Diamond Geezer, for example), but others are, well... Let's say they're among the 20%. And the 80% are far more interesting.
So, I'm on this blog tour to find about a dozen decent blogs from amongst the 80%. They'll want pictures, fresh ideas and turns of phrase, freedom from spelling and grammatical errors; they'll not be written by barmy people, (mind you, barminess is an elastic concept); they'll have humour; probably they'll be leftist or anarchist or anti globalist or somesuch, but not necessarily; they'll be posted to more or less daily. No fucking ads or cats. Finally, and this is a most difficult qualification, they'll not be up their own arses.
It's good fun following you around on your blogtour, I like quite a few of them. But I must admit to skipping the ones with a black or dark blue background. Shame really. Incurable Hippie has some good stuff in her archive, I think she's my favourite so far.
ReplyDelete[btw.. Did you know that your formatting has gone all awry? Posts under archive, with a huge blank green space above. Apols if 100 people have already told you.]
Have reformatted the blog with a new template - thanks.
ReplyDelete