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Blog of the Year 2011

It’s that time of the year again; the time when I select what is, in my opinion, the best blog of the year. This eagerly awaited award is a bit of a poisoned chalice. Last year’s winner, Onesimus Online more or less went offline as soon as I gave it the award! I’m not sure if the two events were related, but if this year’s winner vanishes, then you know who to blame!

This year, I would like to make an additional award for the most useful blog of the year. From my perspective, there is one blog which stands head and shoulders over the all of the others in this category: Antony Billington’s blog. Though he doesn’t post a great deal of original material, Antony does an amazing job of linking to online theology and Biblical studies materials as they are published. My reading list gets bigger and bigger by the day, thanks to the wonderful job that Antony does. If you don’t follow his blog, then you should!

As in previous years, my criteria for judging the blog of the year are simple:

  1. They must post regularly
  2. They must be consistently interesting
  3. I must like them more than other blogs for whatever subjective reasons I choose.

A couple of potential winners were eliminated on the grounds that they don’t post particularly regularly. Simon Cozens, a missionary in Japan, writes a thoughtful blog which often flirts with controversy. Come to think of it, the same could be said for Jamie’s blog, too. Though Jamie and Simon write in very different ways, they are both prepared to take a long hard look at what it means to be a missionary and to criticise some of the sacred cows associated with mission work. These are two excellent blogs and I only wish that I wrote half as well as either of them.

However, there is one blog which wins hands down on all three of my criteria. The writers don’t post regularly – they post with amazing frequency. The blog is certainly interesting, either that, or it is barking mad – or both. And for some strange reason, I do like this blog an awful lot.

So, with no further ado, I award my blog of the year award to …

(long pause, while the camera dwells on the faces of the contestants and the music swells to a portentous crescendo)

The Beaker Folk of Husbourne Crawley.

If Archdruid Eileen and company stop blogging, or vanish into Hardy’s Wessex, it is probably my fault.

3 replies on “Blog of the Year 2011”

Ooooh! Centre! Centre!

I would like to dedicate this award to all my fellow Beaker-folk, especially Hnaef and Mrs Hnaef. And Young Keith, and Burton Dassett of course. And the Wodewose who lives (naturally enough) in the wood. And to our neighbour, the Revd Drayton Parslow, without whose boring sermons the bats would still be living in the Moot House. And I would like to pay a special tribute to our Trainee Druid, Charlii, as if it weren’t for her somebody else would have to wear the squirrel outfit.

And I would like to thank Mrs Rochester, who so kindly keeps my brother locked in the attic.

And thanks to you Eddie, for keeping on linking to the blog. I shall keep the award next to the statue of Mother Julian of Norwich. So I apologise if occasionally we accidentally ping a hazelnut off it when we miss her nose.

I wholeheartedly agree with your award choice! It was this blog that led me to the very thought-provoking/ entertaining Beaker Folk. Since then the flatmate and I have made ‘the reading of the Beakers’ a (semi) nightly custom. They have recently even passed up this blog in my reading frequency, but only because Kouya doesn’t post as prolifically! 🙂 Long may the tea lights twinkle

Hi Eddie – just came across my mention here and blushed a bit. Thanks a lot – very kind! When it comes to blogging, I consider myself more a curator rather than a creator (I think I first got that distinction from Scot McKnight), so I’m genuinely pleased as well as honoured that you find the blog to be useful. At the start of this year, I made a quiet resolution to myself that I would try to post the equivalent of one entry for every day of the year, and I’m gratified that I’ve managed to do that. I hope to carry on along the same lines next year, perhaps inserting a bit more of myself in every so often. Thanks again – Antony.

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