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Archive for September, 2007

Post of the Week #34

Sunday, September 9th, 2007

This week’s winner is Suburban Hen’s “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone“.
It’s when you value something that you fear losing it. Thoughts of living without something you value or hold close might make you nervous. You may be attached to your computer. Your car. Your bed. Hot water; creature comforts.
Read more…

Our judges said:

“Moving and simple. I love reading these kinds of posts from blogs that are new to me … it’s what POTW is all about.”

“I loved this one. It was an easy read, simplistic but precise language, heartfelt and on a topic that all readers can relate to.”

This post was nominated by Swiss Toni.



Your shortlister this week was Wendz, with excellent judging by Bob Merckel, Dandelion and Caroline. The head judge was yours truly, Lyle D4D.

Shortlist for week ending 9th September 2007.

Saturday, September 8th, 2007

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.Diamond Geezer : The 5 Equations of Blog: Blog+Life>Blog-Life

(Nominated by Girl With a One-Track Mind)

Blogging, done properly, enhances your life. If there’s something you desperately want to tell the world you can get it out of your system, even if nobody’s listening. It’s a particularly useful tool for us single people. We have nobody to turn to during the news and say “who does that Gordon Brown think he is?” or “wahey, two up for the Arsenal!” or “blimey that Amy Winehouse is looking rough”. Blogging gives us an outlet, with the ever-present possibility of feedback.

2. Life on my Planet: Inner Peace

(Nominated by SwissToni)

You avoid the toilets because the smell of urine imprints itself into your brain. Everything has a smell. At work, a woman would get a nosebleed everytime one of the other girls had had sex. She could smell semen. She was allergic to semen. Her nerves would seek out male semen inside her colleagues and react. She would come into work with a nosebleed and she’d have been sat next to someone who’d had sex the previous night.

Right now someone is googling “How come she didn’t get a nosebleed when she interacted with males?”

3. Pandemian: Harold be they name

(Nominated by Edvard Moonke)

I am intrigued by the belief in the usefulness of continuing to pray for something that hasn’t been granted. This girl and her family must be the subjects of hundreds of thousands of prayers for her return by now. Presumably those who having been doing the praying have a good case for being answered; the parents are openly religious, the child is blonde, middle class and extremely photogenic and as we all know God hates paedophiles almost as much as men with long hair, sodomy and shops opening for more than six hours on a Sunday.

4. Suburban Hen: You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone

(Nominated by SwissToni)

Perhaps your house burns down. What terrible misfortune! You lose everything dear to you, all the things that you have collected over time, all your memories encased in paper or metal or wood. You favourite things are gone. All of them. Perhaps you are insured; a small consolation. But you rebuild and over time, little by little, you replace the things you lost.

5. The Misssy M Misssives: Excuse me, I’m NOT with the band:

(Nominated by Troubled Diva)

You will drive hundreds of miles in a van that only goes up to 50mph if the wind is in the right direction. You will empty your entire bank account into the pockets of motorway service station owners along the way. You would have brought sandwiches but how rock and Roll is a lunch box? Answer: Not very.

The van may also break down at various intervals. You will be expected not to whine on these occasions.

6. Woman of Experience: The Last Date Saloon

(Nominated by MisssyM)

Dressed up and with nowhere to go, Ms R made her way home feeling, understandably, unsatisfied. What would have been preferable is a place for disappointed datees, people like her to go to. A kind of Last Date Saloon where people gathered when their date had dumped them, they’d had an argument or they hadn’t got what they expected. Here they could tell their stories of woe and hopefully save the evening in one way or another. It would be like Cheers except nobody would know your name.

Call for nominations.

Sunday, September 2nd, 2007

If you have a post you want to nominate, please leave a link in the comments below.
The deadline for nominations is Friday September 7th.

If you’d like to help out with the judging for Post of the Week, please go here and get in touch.

Post of the Week #33

Sunday, September 2nd, 2007

In search of Adam: Grandma.
(nominated by Zinnia Cyclamen)

Coming out of the Tyne Tunnel.
I feel anxiety.
Turning onto the coast road.
My eyes scan buildings for familiarity.
I am hoping that grandma has evaporated milk.

Read more…

Our judges said:

“A poignant post all of us can relate to.
Short and to the point, and yet with a depth of feeling.”

“Makes you care about both the featured people, but then sadly lets you down a little. Leaves you empty, unsatisfied, unconcluded. What happened next? Is there a “to be continued?”"

“I like the short sentences. Very moving post. But not too much, I wasn’t booing my eyes out at the end which I appreciate on a Sunday night or I might never stop, Sunday night being the night when all things can get me down.”



Your shortlister this week was Sarah R, and your judges were Anna Pink, Mike, Peter and Sarah P.

Shortlist for the week ending August 31,2007

Saturday, September 1st, 2007

The next Post Of The Week will be announced on Sunday evening.

Please note that nominations for next week cannot be accepted until then.

Never an easy job, here are Sarah’s shortlisted posts for this week:

1. Complicity: Don’t edit this
nominated by miles away

I got a comment the other day on something I’d written elsewhere that made me think: “Oh, thank God, someone got exactly what I meant to say”.

2. Geese Aplenty:Sleep aid
nominated by asta

One late night is enough to put me in a daze the next day; doing it five nights in a row is enough for me to start speaking in tongues. I’m pretty sure this affects my system the way a series of knockout blows affected Muhammad Ali.

3. In search of Adam: Grandma
nominated by Zinnia Cyclamen

Coming out of the Tyne Tunnel.
I feel anxiety.
Turning onto the coast road.
My eyes scan buildings for familiarity.
I am hoping that grandma has evaporated milk.

4. My Mental Milkcrate: Don’t edit this (Milkcrate Mix)
nominated by An Unreliable Witness

I put effort into what I write, I know when I’ve put the words exactly where I wanted them, and dammit, I will take satisfaction in my work. But then, no one asked me to be self-effacing. It’s a silly leftover habit.

5. Not Just Hiding: Revelation
nominated by Ani

But here’s the thing. I am tired of trying to fit in where I simply don’t; the crowbar is leaving marks that refuse to heal.

This is not where I belong, and never has been.

6. Tom Coates: This is not a brothel
nominated by Mike

There has to be one place in your life where you’re absolutely resolutely not for sale. For me, that place is my personal site, the representation of me online. I’d no more let someone else compromise that voice than I’d let them tattoo their logo on my children.

7. The Cloudcutter Chronicles: Granny Dearest
nominated by guyana-gal

My grandmother could very well have been one of the worst human beings ever but I don’t think anyone else affected my life as much as she did. She was around more than my own mother and whether I like it or not, it changed me.

8. The japing ape: The secret policeman’s earpiece
nominated by MisssyM

He should remind his accusers that the woman he pleasured was two years his senior and had contacted him the day before on an internet dating site. If that isn’t prompt service in response to a call for assistance I don’t know what is. I can’t understand why she wasn’t called as a character witness in his trial.