1. Down In Me: Through the bed clothes(Nominated by Gordon)

She came to him for help, where he lived, in the round room with the bed in the centre, an old cooker on one side, a writing desk with an oil lamp on the other. She sat on the wooden chair and laid her hand flat on the writing desk. Her nails - at first glance, painted blood red - on closer inspection were spiders that unfurled forty legs and scurried off the tips of her fingers and away through the crack between the table and wall.

2. In the Aquarium: End of a Book
(Nominated by Daisy)

With a book there is a relationship. You carry it round with you. The words wrapped in its jacket. Holding it as you read, touching the pages as you turn them (with newspapers you want to touch them as little as possible - holding the edges so the print doesn’t rub off on your fingers).

3. Musings from Middle England: Not A Day For Cynicism
(Nominated by Mike)

I spent the night zapping between the BBC and CNN.
The BBC coverage was, as decreed by statute, in the increasingly bumbling hands of David Dimbleby. I’m not renowned for my sporting knowledge but even I, unlike Dimbleby, know the difference between baseball and basketball. He thought a basketball game had been played in the Chicago park earlier in the day until a colleague pointed out that basketball is played indoors.

4. ONEMANBLOGS: Work that needs done
(Nominated by Mike)

Turning the TV off I pause, considering the work that lies before me. I decide to have a coffee to get me started but, as I stand and start to walk to the kitchen, I realise that the clothes that were hung up a couple of nights ago will now be dry. I take my time folding them, sorting them into neat piles before taking them upstairs, ready to be put away.

5. private secret diary: Election 2008
(Nominated by Mike)

It used to be easy to recognise politicians, via the ham sandwich system. This puts you in a village in the third world, after a horrible disaster. Miraculously, an aid convoy has distributed food and water to all - apart from to one man, who missed out. He struggles towards you, desperate for food. All you have on you is a ham sandwich, the difference - for this man - between life and death.

6. The Truth of the World: Obama’s Challenges, Part 1
(Nominated by Anna)

“But what about my bills?” you may ask. We have all of this credit, right? Too much? Use it, baby! To paraphrase Palin, “Charge, baby, charge!” In abusing all of this credit we have now, credit lenders will realize how foolish they were to give us so much in the first place, thus preventing them from ever making the same mistake in the future. Besides, what’s more American than debt? Problem solved.

If you would like to vote on this week’s shortlist and be part of the decision making for the Post of the Week this week, please place all four posts in descending order of preference and mail them to bob@bobzyeruncle.com no later than 6pm on Sunday night (UK time).