Donatello's David in thinking pose, minus figleaf, possibly reflecting on Gus Rodin's later snub
To be fair to the great Chris Dillow, he did preface his post on Thogging with: "I was hoping to avoid this meme," then he reflected that:
"Lots of blogs make me think. Iain and Guido make me think: are people really interested in this tittle-tattle? Harry's Place makes me think: don't these guys ever get bored of making the same point? I could go on ... Anyway, my five nominees are: Paul, Shuggy, Fabian, Matthew and Not Saussure. I've excluded those kind enough to nominate me. I've left out Norm, Samizdata, Civitas and Wat as they don't need the traffic. And I've left out US bloggers - though I find Bryan Caplan and Overcoming Bias, to name but two, very stimulating."
As one blogger who indulges in a bit of Blogfocusing a couple of times a week, I certainly noticed some new blogs from Chris' list but at the same time, my exclusion from his list seems to inidicate that I am not a thinking blogger. Ipso facto, I must be a mindless cretin and to shamelessly mix metaphors, [which I'm not doing as this is the only metaphor used to this point], I'll now take my bat and ball and go home. Hence the following exchange on Chris' site:
Delighted I was passed over. Think I'll start up the Mindless Bloggers Club.
Posted by: jameshigham March 17, 2007 at 06:54 PM
James - that was exactly why I was trying I avoid the meme. You just annoy everyone who's not in your list, for no very good reason. Sorry.
Posted by: chris March 18, 2007 at 04:50 PM
Thanks for the mention.
Posted by: Fabian Tassano March 19, 2007 at 05:49 PM
Chris, I wouldn't be annoyed with you, particularly as you were kind enough to link the Malcolm Marshall thing. It does create divisiveness though [speaking generally here, not specifically] and this is the big problem with my blogroll - how not to elevate some to the exclusion of others.
Posted by: jameshigham March 20, 2007 at 08:38 PM
I
should have added "… and how not to lose close blogfriends somewhere in the large lists of blog-humanity."
So, there it is. If I had come upon this post by accident, I would have left a comment: "Methinks the man [Higham] doth protest too loudly. Relax. Get a life." To which Higham might reply: "Welcome to the Mindless Bloggers Society, one and all."
Of course, the important issue is what to do about one's blogfriends, vis a vis listmaking.