Monday, August 18, 2008
Tons More Fun: The Best of Love and Liberty?
Inspired by Lib Dem Voice’s Golden Ton, last week I recklessly started a meme – wouldn’t it be great if Lib Dem bloggers picked out their own favourite posts they’ve written, so we could all marvel at just how good these blogs are (and have researching awards nominations made that much easier)? Amazingly, over ten people have already posted their own lists, which I’ll round up later. Though I’m usually rubbish at responding to memes, as it’s my own I really can’t get away with missing it, so here’s my own selection of my best ten from the last year. Thanks particularly to those hardy pioneers who’ve already contributed, so I’m not embarrassing myself as the lone egomaniac.
My picks aren’t necessarily ones that made it to the Goldens Dozen or Ton – they’re simply the ones I liked best. Should you be kind enough to nominate a post (or two) of mine, you’re not compelled to stick to these, either; I won’t complain if you like something else better. And if you’re coming up with a list of your own personal favourites from your blog (please do), you don’t need to restrict yourself to ten, or pick as many as ten, or put them into categories, or any other restriction. I’d just like to read them, and posts over the last few days suggest other people would, too. The lovely Alix liked my suggestion because I specified
Trying to cut through the negativity surrounding last year’s Leadership contest and work out exactly what a Leader’s for – with an hilariously wrong call on Vince (and in case you’re wondering, I get on very well with Linda Jackyll, whatever I wrote about Blogger Hyde):
1: Leaders – What’s the Point?
This was followed by companion pieces on Nick and Chris, if you’re interested.
If you want an historical perspective on just why the Labour Government is so eye-poppingly wrong, and an excoriation of a truly shocking corruption of the law that hardly anyone noticed:
2: Happy Birthday, Magna Carta (now lock it away)!
The Labour Government’s responsible for the worst data disaster in the world. Drawing conclusions about their competence in general, ID cards in particular and the moment when they lost the next General Election:
3: Lost in the Post: Why Postal Services May Prove Fatal For Gordon Brown
Just to show I can be even-handed, here’s my sympathy with a Labour Minister who’s clearly trying to do something good. It’s just a shame he was so utterly clueless about how to do it:
4: A Government of High-Quality Fantasists?
A much more personal post than usual as the Conservatives return to being the Nasty Party by giving the poor and the sick a good kicking:
5:Nasty ‘Nice’ Tories’ Latest: Back to the Workhouse
The repeat of an aspirational ’80s supersoap crystallises the difference between Tory and Labour narratives of the time:
6: Did the Tories Win Because of Howards’ Way?
If you like reading my blog for in-depth analysis, this is probably the most thorough argument I mounted in the last year (besides, I couldn’t disappoint Tom):
7: Rowan Williams In Detail: Deceitful, Demented or Naïve to the Point of Idiocy?
Just what went wrong with Aaron Sorkin’s follow-up to The West Wing, and how a supposedly ‘liberal’ US show deals with ‘issues’:
8: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Something different – a paean to history and the Cutty Sark (and a bit of a fisking), with a Liberal ‘moral’:
9: Missing the Boat
And finally for my personal top ten, if you’d rather read about Doctor Who than politics… Well, this selection isn’t the ideal post for you, but probably the best of my rather thin-on-the-ground Who pieces in the last year is another historical ramble that mixes old Who, new Who and Indiana Jones:
10: Doctor Who and the ‘Celebrity Historical’
Strange pop fact: I’ve been looking back through the last year’s Golden Dozen for inspiration (largely about other people’s posts and which ones I nominated), and rather oddly, it appears that when I made it there on popular click-through I usually hit number 4 in the chart, while when people nominated me instead I usually appeared at number 11.
Not very pop fact: I’ve noticed in compiling all this that I use way too many colons in my blog titles.
Oh, and don’t forget to vote in the Snabies!
Though I won’t be voting for me in that category – aside from wanting to vote for one of the other nominees instead, if that’s still an unfulfilled ambition for you past the age of about 14 you need taking in hand. Please vote for Millennium in the Best Political Blog By A Single Mammal category, though.
Despite telling myself (and you) that I’d keep strictly to ten in my list, I quite like this tongue-in-cheek one:
Tory Party Unveils Its Soul: Children and Small Animals Flee
…But you shouldn’t nominate it, as it’s not a patch on Millennium’s interview with David Cameron.
I’ll also add that this post is not by any stretch my best, but you might like to keep it to hand for reference now Michael Brown’s on the run from justice, the crooked git:
Dodgy Donors: Your Cut-Out-And-Keep Guide to Spotting the Difference
Newer› ‹Older
Now That’s What I Call, Um, Quite Long
My picks aren’t necessarily ones that made it to the Goldens Dozen or Ton – they’re simply the ones I liked best. Should you be kind enough to nominate a post (or two) of mine, you’re not compelled to stick to these, either; I won’t complain if you like something else better. And if you’re coming up with a list of your own personal favourites from your blog (please do), you don’t need to restrict yourself to ten, or pick as many as ten, or put them into categories, or any other restriction. I’d just like to read them, and posts over the last few days suggest other people would, too. The lovely Alix liked my suggestion because I specified
“No categories, no restraints, no compulsory number of posts to nominate, and best of all, I don’t even have to leave the People’s Republic.”I’m glad she did (and that she picked out seven such intriguing posts for herself, as well as being very nice to me), because that pretty much sums up my intention: pick what you want to for your own blog. It doesn’t even have to be to do with the awards – I’m looking at you, judges – just contributing to the general gaiety of the nation by letting people know about little nuggets of brilliance they may have missed. If you could do it sometime in the next week, though, that’d be handy. Anyway, here’s my list, ordered by vague subject heading rather than my opinion of their quality…
The Liberal Democrats
Trying to cut through the negativity surrounding last year’s Leadership contest and work out exactly what a Leader’s for – with an hilariously wrong call on Vince (and in case you’re wondering, I get on very well with Linda Jackyll, whatever I wrote about Blogger Hyde):
1: Leaders – What’s the Point?
This was followed by companion pieces on Nick and Chris, if you’re interested.
The Labour Government
If you want an historical perspective on just why the Labour Government is so eye-poppingly wrong, and an excoriation of a truly shocking corruption of the law that hardly anyone noticed:
2: Happy Birthday, Magna Carta (now lock it away)!
The Labour Government’s responsible for the worst data disaster in the world. Drawing conclusions about their competence in general, ID cards in particular and the moment when they lost the next General Election:
3: Lost in the Post: Why Postal Services May Prove Fatal For Gordon Brown
Just to show I can be even-handed, here’s my sympathy with a Labour Minister who’s clearly trying to do something good. It’s just a shame he was so utterly clueless about how to do it:
4: A Government of High-Quality Fantasists?
The Tories (Don’t Help Him)
A much more personal post than usual as the Conservatives return to being the Nasty Party by giving the poor and the sick a good kicking:
5:
The repeat of an aspirational ’80s supersoap crystallises the difference between Tory and Labour narratives of the time:
6: Did the Tories Win Because of Howards’ Way?
The Rest
If you like reading my blog for in-depth analysis, this is probably the most thorough argument I mounted in the last year (besides, I couldn’t disappoint Tom):
7: Rowan Williams In Detail: Deceitful, Demented or Naïve to the Point of Idiocy?
Just what went wrong with Aaron Sorkin’s follow-up to The West Wing, and how a supposedly ‘liberal’ US show deals with ‘issues’:
8: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Something different – a paean to history and the Cutty Sark (and a bit of a fisking), with a Liberal ‘moral’:
9: Missing the Boat
And finally for my personal top ten, if you’d rather read about Doctor Who than politics… Well, this selection isn’t the ideal post for you, but probably the best of my rather thin-on-the-ground Who pieces in the last year is another historical ramble that mixes old Who, new Who and Indiana Jones:
10: Doctor Who and the ‘Celebrity Historical’
Strange pop fact: I’ve been looking back through the last year’s Golden Dozen for inspiration (largely about other people’s posts and which ones I nominated), and rather oddly, it appears that when I made it there on popular click-through I usually hit number 4 in the chart, while when people nominated me instead I usually appeared at number 11.
Not very pop fact: I’ve noticed in compiling all this that I use way too many colons in my blog titles.
Oh, and don’t forget to vote in the Snabies!
Though I won’t be voting for me in that category – aside from wanting to vote for one of the other nominees instead, if that’s still an unfulfilled ambition for you past the age of about 14 you need taking in hand. Please vote for Millennium in the Best Political Blog By A Single Mammal category, though.
Despite telling myself (and you) that I’d keep strictly to ten in my list, I quite like this tongue-in-cheek one:
Tory Party Unveils Its Soul: Children and Small Animals Flee
…But you shouldn’t nominate it, as it’s not a patch on Millennium’s interview with David Cameron.
I’ll also add that this post is not by any stretch my best, but you might like to keep it to hand for reference now Michael Brown’s on the run from justice, the crooked git:
Dodgy Donors: Your Cut-Out-And-Keep Guide to Spotting the Difference
Labels: Blogs, British Politics, Conservatives, Doctor Who, History, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Memes, Personal
