Vote for Who The Fudge Is Benjamin Judge

Despite his crusade to belittle everything I like/believe in, he's a decent chap and a good writer, so please vote for him at the Manchester Blog Awards. If you see the pictures on the front page, hover over them with your mouse. I took them all, and some of them have cheeky comments (also by me) which pop up.

All hail the Manchester Blog Awards

I went along to the Manchester Blog Awards last year, to support Cynical Ben, who is now Who The Fudge Is Benjamin Judge? and a load of other sites of which I've lost track, because life's too short, although they're all very good. I was a little bit snarky at the expense of some of the crowd.

He didn't win, which was a shame, but some good blogs did. And some not very good ones. He's nominated again this year and I've a feeling it's his year. He's added lots of his literary work to the site, as well as the old favourites like winding me up. Surely that's a winning combination?

Perhaps it's time to start the Dark Place Bloggies?

Manchester Blog Awards - the main event

We're a snide bunch - well, I am at least. I'm also slightly hearing-impaired, which meant that my bon mots reached perhaps more ears than I intended. Add to that the fact that Bacchus had been particularly kind to us over the course of dinner, and you have the perfect conditions for some quality snarking.

Some features of the evening were all too predictable: barefoot comperes (Arts Council funded, naturally), berets and, well, students.

More photos are here.

A blog awards ceremony faced a simple epistemological problem: how to demonstrate the genius of the nominees? Blogs are, of course, extended chronological musings, differentiated from diaries, creative writing and other forms by technological means - primarily mixed media and linking. At the awards, some nominees were asked to read from their blogs, which in some ways suggested that what the awards were concerned about was simply good writing, rather than the generic characteristics of blogging per se.

Highlights were My Shitty Twenties, who has a witty, relaxed style which masks her ability to draw profundity from apparently quotidian situations, and Follow The Yellow Brick Road, who understood the value of concision as well as of erudition, humour and good writing. The former won two awards (full list here), and Cynical Ben was runner-up to her in the Best Personal Blog category.

It feels very strange describing Ben as 'runner up'. He's never, since I've known him, run up to anything other than a mound of cheese… though he has just bought a bike.

Blog of the year went to the anonymous Lost in Manchester.

Needless to say, I'd managed to dress as a Mark Corrigan impersonator and acted accordingly - too tongue-tied in the presence of greatness to make actual, y'know, conversation with anyone not connected to the Map Twats. Luckily, I had a train to catch…

So now, here I am in a darkened office, while Cynical and the other Map Twats are in Southport, birding and browsing secondhand bookshops, like apprentice Last of the Summer Wine characters.

Manchester Blog Awards - the prelude

Weirdly disconnected from the web for blog-related purposes, Neal and I set out for Manchester with high hopes for Cynical Ben.

My good wishes were somewhat leavened with bitterness after he suggested we meet in Vinyl Exchange, knowing very well that this is like scattering coke around in a Betty Ford clinic. By the time he turned up, I'd hoovered up two Kris Drever LPs and one of Cajun dance tunes. Don't worry, I can give up any time. £250 for a Meic Stevens LP? You must be joking. Rare in England perhaps, but they litter Welsh charity shops!

After a brief interlude while Neal bought trousers (yes, we lead a glamorous life), Ben took us to Oklahoma, a cool little backstreet bohemian coffee bar, then off we went to meet Mrs Cynical. Gradually acquiring more friends: the recently engaged Alison of this parish (romantic post not weakened at all by her revelation that this declaration of love was produced by a shambling drunk at three in the morning, clothed only in his boxers - it's the blogger's way), and Caroline, who invites you all to buy her house in Salford.

We dined, flatulently, in the Armenian Taverna near Manchester Town Hall. If you like flavoursome salads and meat as far as your intestines will stretch, it's definitely the place for you. It certainly pleased me mightily.

The dew has fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning

Morning! Not much blogging from me today! Ironically, it's because I'm going to support Cynical Ben and others at the Manchester Blog Awards. I'm too obsolete to have wireless internet on an iPhone, Blackberry or via a dongle (my Mac is 7 years old), so I'll just have to take pictures and notes to post tomorrow.

So I'm spending the morning doing the work that the university considers important: admin. All that boring old thinking, writing and reading has been put aside in favour of Excel…

The Montgomery Burns Annual Prize for Excellence in the Field of Excellence goes to…

…Cynical Ben. Well, I hope he gets an award: he's shortlisted for Best Personal Blog in the Manchester Blog Awards. Also nominated for Best Arts and Culture Blog is Follow The Yellow Brick Road, a stunningly literate and highbrow piece of work which conveys the excitement and variety of the arts world with delicacy and not a hint of the preciousness which so often permeates such affairs. I award them the Order of the Vole forthwith.