Blog off 2: the Manchester Blog Awards shortlist

Edit: To see how well I did since writing this post, see the results here.

You are reading an award-shortlisted blog.

Six years of forcing metaphors through a hedge backwards has led the Manchester Blog Awards to shortlist Fat Roland On Electronica for the Best Writing On A Blog category in the 2010 awards.

Previous winners include Day Of Moustaches, a Manchester author who once read an except of his novel Bird Room in a room plastered with bird wallpaper, Jenn Ashworth, who is don of the Preston lit mafia and if you disagree, she'd probably be too nice to break your legs, and My Shitty Twenties, a single-mum and double-winner in last year's event.

I've had a rotten year in some ways, with a huge financial bottlerocket at the start of the year and emergency surgery in the middle of the year. As a result of my hospitalisation in June, the usual things I find fun, mainly to do with socialising, have been a struggle. So it's nice to get this shot in the arm in the form of this shortlist placing.

I'm not in it to win it, mainly because I'm up against fellow music blogger The Pigeon Post, the uniquely beautiful Ribbons And Leaves, writing blog (and my favourite for the win) 330 Words and my apparent nemesis Who The Fudge Is Benjamin Judge (check his shocking exposé of me here).

You can vote for any of them - even me, if you must - on this page here. You have until the 19th of this month.

Having said that...

...no, I can't..

...must retain dignity... 

...oh, stuff it. If I don't win this, it would be like Shawshank Redemption missing out on an Oscar. Like Radiohead missing out on a Mercury Prize. Like Henman in the semi final again. Like the large hadron collider not quite causing the big bang. Like Moses not quite making it to the promised land. Like the whale dying in the Thames.

All these things were huge disappointments that should have never have been allowed. By voting for my blog, you can make amends for things like Top Of The Pops finishing, for The Wire coming to the end of the series, for Mark and Lard stopping making radio together, for S Club Juniors splitting up, for the Iraq War, for John Peel's sad demise, for Nick Clegg, for that blubbery dead whale in the stinking, shopping-trolley infested Thames, for Nick Clegg again, for Jesus not quite coming back yet, for the Gorillaz ruining the magic by revealing their real faces, for the subjugation of the Aboriginal people, for that whale again, for the awfulness of Live 8, for Nick Clegg, for the original sin of the entire human race.

You can make amends and you can do it today. Just one vote can help millions of starving chil-- wait, I'm getting a little sidetracked. What was I trying to persuade you to do? I can't remember. I fancy a biscuit so I'm going to stop writing now. Do whever it was you were meant to do. Meanwhile, I'll see you at the grand awards ceremony on the 20th.

Jump to the first half of this blog post about blogging here.