Thursday, June 28, 2007

[lost for words] don't stop yet!

I would like to thank all who contributed guest posts during my time away [which hasn't actually finished yet, in an oh so Russian way].

I also wish to thank all those commenters who added to what turned into a mini-festival. I'm gobsmacked at the quality and before you say "he would say that" - actually he wouldn't if he didn't think so. He wouldn't say anything about them at all.

But they were excellent.

I had no idea what would happen and to the commenter who thought it was in order to "up my stats", I can say with a completely straight face that that was the furthest thing from my mind. I confess I thought that if I invited 32 guest posters, if even half of these contributed, then there'd be a pretty interesting read for people.

It has been a fascinating read [I've now finished them all] and there is a favourite post or two but I'll keep that to myself.

What I think might be an idea in the long term future is to run a three day festival, say quarterly and invite certain people to post on certain days. No one would know when someone else would appear. Or else everyone would know - it would be scheduled.

But that gets into the Carnival idea which I'm not crazy for as I think the "made to order" post always lacks something unless the blogger is lucky enough to already have the idea half formed in the mind.

I must confess that when I'm asked to guest post, I always fear that I won't do justice to the blogger who invited me. One of our guest posters felt this and Lady MacLeod replied to her, I think correctly:

[Y]ou are a modest woman of excellent manner, however the above statement says more about our judgement than your modesty. I have a touchy trigger on this subject (we all have something), but I was given this lecture when I was quite young - the example being if someone tells you are pretty or smart and you say "No, I'm not." you just called them a liar or a bad judge of what is; how much better to duck your head and just say "Thank you." :-) there I'm done, I feel all better.

Now as to this EXCELLENT post m'lady……

I see guest posters as putting up pieces they might not normally get around to on their own blogs but the most important thing is that they must be left free to post virtually whatever material they wish.

Awards madness continues

Anyway, to those who posted from the 18th to the 29th inclusive and also to former guest posters, for you is this little award from me if you'd like to have it. Many, many thanks. Now there's one condition attached to copying and pasting the award - you must NOT embed a link directly to my blog but rather to your own guest post.

Similarly, for those who contributed more than one comment during this time, this award is for you and along with it also go my thanks.

Silent invisible readers

MyBlogLog clearly shows [haven't checked Sitemeter yet] that many people came in many times just to read and to you - if you'd like to use the second award also, I'd deem it an honour.

If you're interested, these were the stats I had up to Tiberius' problems with the words "aisle":

Guest Posters

L'Ombre [4]

Westminster Wisdom [3]

Shades of Grey [3]

The Last Ditch [2]

Sicily Scene [2]

Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe [2]

The Cityunslicker

Nobody Important [2]

Buckeye Thoughts [2]

Devil's Kitchen

Ruthie Zaftig

Flying Rodent

Lord Nazh

Trixy

Fabian Tassano

Imagined Community

Commenters

Welshcakes Limoncello [14]

lady macleod [7]

jmb [6]

Matt [5]

Colin Campbell [5]

mutleythedog [4]

Delicolor [4]

Mr Eugenides [3]

Ruthie [3]

FlyingRodent [2]

CityUnslicker

Hooker

Rev. Dr. Incitatus

Winfred Mann

Janejill

Reactionary Snob

Lord Nazh

Gracchi

istanbultory

Trixy

dirty dingus

Praguetory

Norfolk Blogger

Wolfie

Tin Drummer

I'm not really back yet. Tomorrow is a pretty Russian day with a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and so I probably won't post until late tomorrow or Saturday. The flat looks like new and in the process I've been lucky enough to score two new cleaning ladies who will keep it that way. They've just shown their wares now, we've come to an agreement and they've departed for the evening along with the other three ladies.

Oh, I forgot to mention that my cleaners are 37 years old [i.e. their ages add up to 37].

More tomorrow. Please don't stop posting until the 29th is well over. Pretty please?

7 comments:

  1. James, how lovely to hear from you, yourself as in YOU! We must have been posting at around the same time as I didn't see this when I checked earlier. Glad you said keep on till the 29th or I'd have felt guilty. I think it's all been very interesting but I'm sure I speak for all when I say we've missed you! Hope all the comings and goings tomorrow go well. Auguri from Sicily.

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  2. Welcome back James. Wow Finished on time. Very impressive.

    I hear that you are heading off to SL tomorrow. What is your name? or is that a secret.

    It has been an interesting experiment. The quality of the input has been very high and of course varied.

    Great testament to the readership that you have cultivated.

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  3. James personally it was an honour to post here- having said that great to hear from you that you are thriving and heading back to these lands of obscurity!

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  4. Welcome back James. I can't believe everything came to a conclusion on time. Did you resort to bribery and corruption?
    It certainly was a mixed bunch of posts here but interesting nonetheless.
    Thanks for inviting me, I'll add the banner somewhere on my sidebar and very fancy it is too.

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  5. The flat will have been the calm before the storm, you've got an awards event to run...

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  6. Thanks for the banner thingy by the way, I'll display it with pride (until the novelty wears off!)

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  7. Wish I could have blogged more for you James, but the others did spendidly... didn't blog myself much during your absence.

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