Best British Blogs from the Guardian

Best British Blogs from the Guardian

Simon Waldman, chair of the judges, reports on the Guardian's 2nd British Blog Awards at The best of British blogging.

Their first choice for blog design is the blog The Big Smoker. I found this choice to be a bit of a disappointment - the blog pages are not even centered on the screen - which is just sloppiness in programming. Just because each blog posting has a nicely affixed graphic does not make a blog a design champion. We found this blog to be good, but it would never be our pick. Frankly we find the design stodgy and boring.

The Guardian placed The Bunker second in the design category, another blog which is not even centered on the screen. When the mouse cursor runs over the funny nearly invisible boxes at the top of the blog page, one is not sure whether these are links or whether the screen is just doing a blip. The colored text boxes are nicely done, but this blog too can not be regarded as a blog champion by any means.

The NYCLondon.com photography blog was chosen first in the category of best use of photography. In a day of color photography, I find it hard to select black-and-white photography as being top. Perhaps black and white mirrors how the Guardian sees the world, as the blog also has photos of anti-war protesters prominently displayed. We do not think awards of this kind should be jaded by political allegiances. Some of the photos are nice, but we would never have picked this blog for this award. As someone who has lived in New York, my view of the Big Apple is vastly different than this collection, although some of the photos are definitely good.

Camerantics (the URL given by the Guardian is false) was also considered for the photography award, commended by the Guardian and is surely the far more interesting photo site as each day of the blog is marked by a new unique photo resembling wallpaper - if that is one's bag.

Apparently Nothing.com was also commended in the photography category, with some good shots. It was a bit more than "apparently nothing" - I am not sure it was a lot more.

I am quite appalled by the backwardness of the Guardian's selections which bypass the entire emerging realm of mobile photosnapping (moblogging) which are a mark of our times and so I can only say that none of the above sites would figure in my selection of best photography on the web - they are good - but they do not represent what is going on in the mass of the new media and internet world.

Teenager blogs were also selected by the Guardian - I am not competent to comment on those. The kids themselves should decide which blogs they think are great.

In the "best specialist" category the Guardian considered the excellent London Underground Tube Diary, which has a nice design, good photos and readable text postings. One can see immediately that this site is "alive". Strangely, the Guardian did not give the award there but went to Pepys' Diary, a nice site but not even remotely comparable to the overall effort and quality of the London Underground blog. One can surmise that the Guardian is still engaged in a love affair with an age that is long past and perhaps it is time to give some more sensible priority to OUR own modern day.

Beyond Northern Iraq was the blog chosen as the winner in the category of "best written". I find the January 9, 2004 posting "juvenile" and would not visit this site again - as a lover of the "best" of British humour, this is the kind of somewhat off-color humour I can live without, thank you. Postings like that do not improve my life, nor am I interested in reading about the trails and travails of boarding or not boarding airplanes, the most recent posting at that blog.

Call Centre Confidential is humorous and informative but was only commended by the Guardian, as Belle de Jour, Diary of a Call Girl, took the blue ribbon. Selections like the latter convince me that your average Guardian reader must lead the life of a dullard, getting his vicarious kicks by reading about things he would not speak to mama about. Sex sells everywhere, but I am not sure that blog awards should be given for it.

A Special Award was given for LinkMachineGo, but I am not into mindless profanity and what is merely a link collection of news. See the December 18, 2003 posting at that site. Sorry, not my bag. Perhaps there will come a day when people will realize that gutter-level swearing is neither the mark of intelligence nor creativity, nor anything else positive for that matter - but I am not optimistic about that development in the near future.

Your average man, as Berlusconi stated, has the intelligence of a 14-year old. Perhaps this explains most of these awards.

All in all, we thought that a country that produced all that stuff that Paxman (The English) writes about could do better than what the Guardian has selected.

I am going to blogroll the London Underground and in the future will look elsewhere - other than to the Guardian - to other "best blog" lists for top new blog material. This brought very little.