With nine out of twelve (or 75%) of last week’s nominations penned by female bloggers, this is the first time that the gender split has been anything other than more or less equal. God, that’s not an easy sentence to write at 8:30 on a Monday morning. Let’s quickly crack on, shall we?
From the under-represented male wing, we’ve had sharp and timely political metaphor, a raddled former beauty-queen, and a football hero with feet of clay.
Meanwhile, from the ladies (hello ladies!), we’ve had cellos pushed into sternums (enigmatically), pianos dragged into the jungle (heroically if uselessly), rages so fierce that they have seen off tropical storms, murders in the neighbourhood and drugs busts in the home. We’ve eloped to London with lesbians, we’ve woken up with toddlers in Paris, and we’ve been out on a photo shoot with a disorienting new lens (discovering in the process what the word “bokeh” means).
All of which leaves the only post this week to have picked up votes from all three of our judges (myself, Anna and Green Fairy). Yes, this week’s winner – the fourth out of four from a female writer, and a piece which speaks for itself, without need of further justification – is:
Baghdad Burning: Conventional Terror.
Please leave your nominations for this week in the comments box below. Rules of engagement are here.
Patita will be helping with the judging, but there is still room for one more judge: if interested, please e-mail mikejla@btinternet.com. All applications welcome.
(nominated by guyana-gyal)The AA told us to get out of the car and wait on the other side of the barrier. They didn’t know about the panther either. Luckily we decided it was too cold for such nonsense, and we stayed in the car. After all, the AA said they would be at least an hour and a half, and it was the middle of the night for God’s sake. And cold. And foggy. Did I mention the fog? It was very foggy.
(nominated by mike)If someone passes me the document within the next few days I will be very happy to publish it in The Spectator, and risk a jail sentence. The public need to judge for themselves. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. If we suppress the truth, we forget what we are fighting for, and in an important respect we become as sick and as bad as our enemies.
(nominated by mike)The air in the car is getting a little stuffy. I’m already overdressed for this entirely-not-caused-by-global-warming 70-degree-almost-December morning, but I don’t even have the room the pull my arms out of my jacket and hold it. I can feel sweat running down my sides, in little sticky Pray Lady-hating rivulets. Of all days to be iPod free, it has to be today. On Pray Lady Day.
(nominated by patita)Environmental theater, you see, eschews such pedestrian trappings such as audience seating. No, in environmental theater, you, the audience member, wander like a bedouin around the spaaace, maaaan, being careful not to f**k with the actors who are totally right there begging to be f**ked with or to kick over their water bottles or anything. Exploooore the spaaaace! Whoops, not that space or that space or that space, though, because those are for acting.
6. Waitress Dreams: fear dot mom.
(nominated by Pam)Later, while washing her big blue sweatshirts, some covered in teddy bears, others in Christmas trees, I thought about how numb I’ve become to my mother’s emotional outbursts. I couldn’t remember where I was when I stopped feeling anything when she started her pointless praying, chanting, bitching, moaning. I couldn’t remember what triggered, or didn’t trigger, my flat response.
7. JonnyB’s private secret diary: Friday, November 25, 2005.
(nominated by Rob, who has also nominated the comments, even though that’s not really allowed, but they are rather funny comments, it has to be said)”I’ve backed the Land Rover right up,” says Short Tony, as I stand in the old kitchen, my bent finger covering my mouth in that particular way that has been scientifically proven to help you think. I decide that if I stare at the washing machine for long enough then it will become a bit lighter.
8. A Sorry Existence: Voyeurism.
(nominated by mike)I am considering baking a basket full of morning goods and popping over to the new residents, you know, just to do the neighbourly thing. I’d quite like to make friends with some gays, as they can be such fun.
9. Londonist: SCOOP: NME Album Of The Year.
(nominated by mike)
Post withdrawn: background here.
10. Spaghetti and Truthballs: Santa Claus is coming to town.
(nominated by Pam)His christmas CD collection now takes up a 200 disc CD changer… and I kid you not, they broke an artificial tree because they overweighted it with ornaments. We don’t just have one advent calendar for our household…. We have one for every room.
11. Tiny Pineapple: Colin Ithn’t a Firth-Rate Kither.
(nominated by Rob)…in this case, the director appears to have pulled Mr. Firth aside and said, “Look, Colin, your agent just called to remind us about the ‘no mandible movement’ clause in your contract, so in this scene just try to keep everything else moving, OK? Open and close your jaw, turn your head from side to side, clutch her skull in ever-more-awkward ways. Just do whatever you have to do to disguise the fact that you kiss like a haddock.”
12. A Hand Full of Stars: toxic parents.
(nominated by Green Fairy)It is 1976. I saw a man regretting his past actions and attempting to correct the course his young life had taken. I saw him cruelly desert his English wife and three children. For a few moments, he had taken a risk and stepped out of that circle his ancestors had drawn around themselves. He had married for love, the riskiest of all. And he deserted her for comfort, for tradition. For safety.