The next Post Of The Week will be announced on Sunday evening.
Please note that nominations for next week cannot be accepted until then.

1. Anna’s (non LRB-related) running commentary on the first episode of “The Apprentice”
   They give little niblets of management speak to introdce themselves: ‘Ambitious!’ ‘Dynamic!’ ‘Thrusting!’ ‘Sleep when you’re DEAD!’ - which isn’t so much of a management niblet as a Bon Jovi song - ‘I’m aggressive!’ ‘Fresh!’ ‘Bring it on!’ ‘People come up and punch me all the time for seemingly no reason!’. Well, not that last one so much, but they will, they will.
2. Diamond Geezer‘s post Has Beans
   “After Stratford, the invasion continues. Another Starbucks has appeared, in another previously macchiato-free East End location, this time on the Whitechapel Road between Altab Ali Park and the East London Mosque. This is no throbbing metropolitan hotspot, this is an unimportant site beside a fume-choked bus stop on the run-down side of town. There may be a single McDonalds half a mile up the road close to Whitechapel station“…
3. Glitter for Brains talks about The Milky Bar Kid is Strong and Tough
   “I’ve never thought of him as being a sexual being before; for goodness sake, he was born in 1989. I can remember that year; I had taken to wearing waistcoats and ‘being eccentric’ in a push to be individual, little knowing that this was exactly what every proto-arty-gay was doing. He was still in nappies when I was learning exactly what my lecturer meant when he said I needed ‘extra credit’. So we thought we’d go and see him, large as life. It’d be rude not to, after all.“
4. Don’t Call Me Joe’s Sunday Morning (via rural Yorkshire
   “I am 17. It is a scorchingly hot day in late June in an otherwise unremarkable summer. I am wearing khaki shorts, gardening gloves and a backwards baseball cap.“
5. Overnight Editor writes about Learning Normal
   “Sorry I’ve been quiet. A lot has happened. I am slowly learning a new social and emotional vocabulary. The difficult stuff - the stuff that emotionally-gifted people pick up easily, as children, while the rest of spend the rest of our lives scratching our heads. Namely - normal behaviour, like normal men and women do.“
6. Unreliable Witness’s writer’s block, also known as Gatecrashed
   “There are bodies of words all over the place. As I slept - or tried to sleep - last night, they obviously invited themselves round for a party at my considerable expense. They are now sleeping in drawers, in corners of cupboards, behind furniture, splayed lewdly over every available surface.“

If you have a post you want to nominate, please leave a link in the comments below. The deadline for nominations is Friday March 30th

NOMINATIONS FOR THIS WEEK ARE NOW CLOSED.
The shortlist will be appearing shortly.

Confessions of a Psychotherapist: More on Therapy Culture…

‘…Yes, we sometimes use sex as a shortcut to intimacy. Yes, this is not always in our best interests. Yes, we often expect our relationships to transform our lives and feel disillusioned when they don’t. But I always thought this was a part of the human emotional landscape which may or may not require psychotherapy, depending on the impact on the individual. Silly old me. No, apparently this is a disease called sex addiction, which is soon to be an epidemic and – get this bit – requires an industry of sex addiction centres to make these people normal again. Ouch. Get thee behind me, capitalism…’

Read more…

Our judges said:

‘Just really well-written, intelligent, engaging, funny, mentions horse therapy and is quite rude about Ulrika Jonsson, although the last bit didn’t influence my decision. Not only would I want to go to the pub with her, I’d want her to be my therapist (in the pub, with beer).’

‘Interesting post, actually “about something”, which genre has been a little
sparse hereabouts on POTW.’

The next Post Of The Week will be announced on Sunday evening.
Please note that nominations for next week cannot be accepted until then. Just sit tight.

And without further ado, the shortlist!

1. Tears at Bedtime: Boob Pencil
“He pinches his nose and pulls the quilt back over his head. As I sing the obligatory bedtime songs he goes through an elaborate routine, getting as far away as possible and finding a succession of ever-more-ridiculous means by which he can cover his nose.”

2. More on Therapy Culture…: Confessions of a Psychotherapist
“The therapist stated the fucking obvious came up with the startling conclusion that Ulrika uses sex to feel better about herself. That she seeks a sense of completion through the sexual union with another. That her repeated ‘falling in love’ temporarily transforms her emotional world. No shit, Sherlock? Give her a cigar and call her Dr Freud.”

3. greavsie and some very sad news: greavsie!
“The speed of the early romance between myself and the guitar indicated that we were destined for great things: I would eagerly rush home from work and she would be waiting for me in her special place - the stand in the corner of the front room. The routine was always the same, I would admire her from a distance before eventually approaching and gently caressing her curves. I would then take her onto my knee and we would make some wonderfully rich, impromptu chords.”

4. Write the Theme Tune, Sing the Theme Tune…: It’s a Life
“It’s one of those things I thought everyone did, but Ashley assures me it isn’t. I have words for the theme tunes of just about every TV programme I watch - well, those that don’t already have their own lyrics. They just piss me off. And adverts? Yes sir, I do ads too. I get ad envy when there’s a really cheesy song in an ad. Everytime a really bad one comes on Phil enquires, “one of yours?”. Well, it passes the time.”

5. Dilli mein raat bhar baarish, phir se: Known Turf
“Adhchini, Gurgaon… the words patter with a sweetness, a slippery clayey texture that hadn’t been there before. And to your ears, ‘gurhganva’ is firm, a vagabond word with tight calf muscles and a checked vest. Gurh-gaanv-aa. Gurhganva. The word is like the sweet, heady smell of the first light shower on a hot afternoon in a dusty town.”

6. Day 252: I Receive a Mysterious Note: Non-Workingmonkey
“The story isn’t interesting, so I won’t tell it*. I had to go for a walk. I whistled a bit (for, as everyone knows, it is impossible to cry if you are whistling), and remembered that I was “a freelancer” and shouldn’t really care, and then realised I did care and looked at a canal a bit and wondered if my new suitcase would fit in the handluggage bit of KLM.”

7. Come Again Uncle Sue?: Ron Lyre’s Forked Tongue
“This sad state of affairs concerns my Uncle Sue, (don’t ask – changed his name by deed poll - suffice to say he was a fierce Johnny Cash fan) and his release from prison after a four year sentence for attempted robbery of a local Post Office. Attempted is an important word here, because it was actually his third attempt.”

8. Where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the gays are hypersensitive: sfbootdog
“Finally, I’ve just about had it with people who act all pissed-off about the “gay men are neat, fashionable, and [let’s face it] effeminate” stereotype, yet continually applaud “Queer Eye For the Straight Guy” as being empowering. Bullshit! It’s not empowering to reinforce the notion that gay men are fashion designers and chefs. It perpetuates the stereotype, as does representing straight men as being a bunch of slobs who are totally unfamiliar with the concept of personal grooming.”

If you have a post you want to nominate, please leave a link in the comments below.

The deadline for nominations is Friday, March 23rd.