[that's it] we've had enough

Ladies and gentlemen, some of us have had enough of it! Do you remember this, the reason why we formed in the first place?

So, time to do our own and there's a Cunning Plan:

The Annual Blogpower awards

Let's make them scathing as well as sycophantic. Let's run the whole gamut of categories we could vote for on someone - best "animal blog", "blog with the shortest posts" and so on. Let's think big and include the MSM in this thing. Let's allow everyone, not only Blogpowerers, to join in. Blogpower will just be the host.

So, here's the agenda:

1] One of us - me - cobbles together possible categories this week, based on either your suggestions in Comments or by e-mail to james higham at mail dot com. [Some people prefer to e-mail their thoughts.]

This plan of categories is presented in a new Blogpower post this Friday evening, June 1st, 21:00 London time, for your perusal and comment strictly for 24 hours.

2] On Saturday evening, June 2nd, at 21:00, London time, the categories are then presented in concrete at Blogpower and nominations invited for each category.

Nominations are welcome from the whole sphere, based on either your suggestions in comments or by e-mail to james higham at mail dot com. Anyone, not just Blogpowerers, are invited.

Each of you put something on your site [including all our non-BP friends out there] advertising that we are accepting nominations for one week, until the following Saturday evening. We must show we are not a closed shop - that this is the only truly international representative poll of its kind.

3] Nominations close on Saturday evening, June 3rd, at 21:00, London time and James gets down to work preparing a series of separate freepolls, inviting the whole sphere to vote.

4] On Sunday, June 4th, at 15:00, these freepolls are posted at Blogpower and then we'd like an onslaught of advertising on your sites, inviting everyone to come in and vote. I'll e-mail all my contacts to vote and hopefully you'll do the same.

5] On Sunday, June 11th, at 15:00, the freepolls are closed and I spend my last free Sunday, before my personal blog hiatus, writing up the results for posting, although these will be patently obvious from the running tallies anyway.

That's the plan to break the secretive pre-selection and non-representativeness of the usual Blog Awards. Your comments are invited.

Vote Pommygranate, Colin and the Englishman

Pommygranate's in some sort of antipodaean blogpoll just now. Could you get over there and give him a click?

UPDATE AND APOLOGY

I think I've made a huge mistake here and misled everyone. You see, late last evening, very tired, I went over to Pommygranate and there was a beleagured appeal. I didn't check it through but immediately saw one of our Blogpowerers in trouble, clicked on his link and saw him in a list and no one else we knew.

Hence the rallying cry to vote for him.

However, this morning I was posting on Blogpower, scrolled down and saw this on Colin Campbell's post:

Featured this time are Pommygranate and myself, along with some other Bloggy Aussies and the Englishmans take on nude car washes in Brisbane.

Penny dropped that perhaps this was the SAME poll as Colin and the Englishman and hence Colin's anguished:

For a libertarian, this is unmitigated ballot stuffing. That with envelopes of cash, we have the potential for a rorted election. All this in the cause of supporting our libertarian friend.

To which I, thinking Colin was only kidding, replied:

Unmitigated ballot-stuffing - all hail to corruption, Colin and I voted for him as a fellow blogpowerer, not as a Zambesi Liberation Force supporter or Golden Labrador Owners club nominee or whatever.

Now, in the light of what I know - that in this poll were also Colin and the Englishman, I'm looking for a giant hole to fall down and end my misery. Oh, woe is me! What have I done?

OK, to repair this, I'm heading over to Colins's and the Englishman's sites now to find out how I can register votes for them.

The question is, will you join me and visit these boys and give them your vote too?

UPDATE UPDATE:

Now it gets even more confusing. Lord Nazh and Pommygranate inform us that the polls are separate and anyway, I can't find anywhere on their sites to vote for them - no link. Can someone set me straight on this thing?

[obsession] 3rd chapter is up

The 3rd Chapter is uploaded for those kind souls who've been following the plot so far.

Click on the pic here for the book and then I find it easier to scroll a little down the sidebar and use the Blog Archive link for the chapter. Each page then has a "Home" link.

My main criticism and the reason it took 12 years to finish writing this book whilst the next one, Lemmings, took only two months, is that the first two and a half chapters are a bit slow and I simply didn't know how to speed them up.

I had to establish a fairly mundane, routine existence for the couple, in order for Miss Heathrow to come in and turn it all upside down. It does hot up near the end of Chapter 3 but the first flight from danger comes only in Chapter 4 and the first body doesn't appear until Chapter 5.

The first sex of an R rated kind only comes in Chapter 4. Actually, I like Chapter 4 a lot.

[whitsun] not just any old bank holiday

Today is the Second Day of Whitsun or Pentecost, a Christian holiday and a bank holiday in Iceland. Some people may go to church while others use the day for outdoor activities with their friends and families.

Pentecost or Whitsun is observed on the seventh Sunday after Easter. Whit Sunday commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit in the form of flames to the Apostles.

The recent adoption of a Late Spring Bank Holiday on the last Monday in May is an attempt to deal with the fact that Whitsuntide is a moveable feast, dependent on the date of Easter.

The general public still refers to this holiday as "Whit Monday." What did you do today? Any concerts in the park?

[bias in education] crooked toefl exam

This is one of the questions on the current TOEFL online practice exam:

9. Some of the oldest and most widespread creation myths are ________ involving the algiving "Earth Mother".

those them they their

Under the guise of a word usage test, the expression 'creation myths' is introduced but immediately deflected onto the earth pagans, who are clearly a soft target.

The Christian lobby seemingly can't attack Q9 because it doesn't specifically refer to them in 'some of the oldest and most widespread' and yet the very employment of the term 'creation myths', with that all important qualifying "s" at the end, at a time when intelligent design is an issue, negates the seeming innocence of the question composer.

Why wasn't the question:"Some of the oldest and most widespread theories are…"? Why "creation"? Why "myths" even? In a supposedly politically and religiously neutral exam, it is quite unforgivable.

Now it will be interesting how my blogfriends, who rail against blatant hypocrisy in other areas, will react to this one. Will they quietly pass this over or will they see the essential wrongness in it?

I wait with bated breath. Who'll lead off? Tiberius?

[politics 101] end of term finals

You have five minutes only for this test. Do not attempt to write in the sidebar or on your screen. Begin at N1 and work your way through to N7, unless you prefer to reverse that order or perhaps approach it in a random order, for that nice wavy effect or even, in fact, to look for Nos. 6&7.

Do not forget your blogger ID or that "little gifts sometimes go a long way with examiners".

Now commence:

1 Bill Clinton's greatest achievement was:

a. a near balanced budget

b. Whitewater

c. Monica

d. socking it to Fox Sunday

2 Jacques Chirac's greatest achievement was:

a. the Paris Olympics

b. new industrial relations policy

c. comments about British food

d. the referendum

3 Tony Blair's greatest achievement was:

a. the NHS

b. the education system

c. the Iraq War

d. honesty in government

4 George Bush's greatest achievement was:

a. the Iraq War

b. FEMA

c. spreading democracy

d. Wolfowitz

5 John Howard's greatest achievement was:

a. common sense industrial relations

b. the boat people

c. longevity

d. supporting Christmas

[enter the dragon] powered by oil

That's Japan sinking in the background, by the way.

Anyone just that teensy-weensy bit worried about China?

About 3.8 trillion cubic meters of natural gas deposits have been discovered in southwest China's Sichuan Basin, with verified exploitable reserves topping 600 billion cubic meters.

The reserves were discovered in Dazhou, a gas-rich city in Sichuan Province. By 2010, the newly found deposits will raise the city's gas output to 24 billion cubic meters and sulphur to more than 4.3 million tons.

Er - so it's not to supply the whole of China and half the damned world with then - this just concerns one city, does it? Now then, how many cities does China have? Let's see now ...

[segie] secret of those good looks

I have this theory about Segie, you know, that she's actually a ravening lizard who draws her youthful good looks from those around her. Bit fanciful? Then why do they call her "L’ancienne candidate", eh?

I don't insist on it but just where has she been these last few weeks? What's she been feeding on?

[honesty] wolfie apportions the blame

Predictable really:

The outgoing president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, has told the BBC an "overheated" atmosphere at the bank and in the media forced him to resign.

Couldn't really expect:

The outgoing president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, has told the BBC an "overheated" libido with his honey and his moral relativism and "general sleaziness" forced him to resign.

[men and women] the power of punctuation

Please punctuate correctly:

"a woman without a man is nothing"