Honest Scrap Awards: yippee! More blog appreciation

Back from Cornwall and a virtual signal black hole to find Willis at Old and In The Way has been kind enough to have given me an Honest Scrap award. (Yes, it does sound like "honest crap" when said fast.)

Willis blogs from across the pond and hails from a generation for whom I have the greatest respect — 1960s hippies who had plenty to fight for. Hard-hearted would-be tuff-nuts who say they hate hippies should remember that many of these guys were in the thick of some real struggles; civil rights, segregation and the Vietnam war.

This blog being firmly opposed to deregulation, I'm pleased to see that rules is rules:
1. You must brag about the award.
2. You must include the name of the blogger who gave you the award and link back to that blogger.
3. You must choose a minimum of seven blogs that you find brilliant in content or design (not sure how I fell through the cracks on this one!)
4. Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with this award.
5. List at least ten honest things about yourself.

My seven favoured blogs:

1)  Harpy Marx. No surprise here, or any of my first three choices. Harpy is a committed leftie who refuses to check in her brain at the door and continues to be a thorn in the side for her Labour Party associates and their rightward drift. Terrific on both political and cultural matters, she's also a fine photographer, documenting current protests by ordinary people.

2)  Splintered Sunrise. This Northern Ireland-based blogger is perhaps stylistically the best writer on the left. Sensitive and choc-full of brainy goodness, he wields a shiv where so many on the left go at it with a baseball bat. More arch than Marlene Dietrich's eyebrows.

3)  Slacker Chic. Mrs M goes from strength to strength entertaining us with her caustic wit and imaginative turns of phrase at her showbiz and fashion blog.  She's now writing a book about her experience as an army wife with a husband in Afghanistan and wondering what the hell the war's for. Read it here.

4)  My mate Steve has just started the St Ives Cornwall blog having been running his informative One St Ives website for a couple of years or more. It's been amusing watching everyone else down there treat the internet like it was the monolith at the beginning of Kubrik's 2001: A Space Oddysey and they were all our simian ancestors. I think they're catching on at last. His blog is the best website covering St Ives and has been a must-read during the recent St Ives Arts Festival.

5)  Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan before he was sacked for blowing the whistle  on the unsavoury habits of our friend and ally in charge over there. He says he has seen the heroin factories next to army bases in Afghanistan that cast doubt on whether this war is really about drugs as claimed by the Western powers. Oh, did I mention he was sacked?

6) China Smack describes itself as carrying hot internet stories, pictures and videos of China – a popular tabloid look at the Waking Dragon. When you've had enough of midget grooms and "crazy haircuts" sported by the yoot, you can always try China Labour Bulletin for heavier fare. Plus brilliant China stories at East West North South blog. The inclusion of these alone probably guarantee I fall foul of the Great Firewall. Burn, baby, burn!

7) Lastly, Christina Martin, hilarious stand-up comic, and the first and, for all I know, the only woman to write for Viz. Sadly, I'm recommending her to you just as she announces her last Viz blog. Smart and always has something intelligent to say about religion and other social matters such as disability.

Ker-rist! It's half one in the morning and I still have to write out my life story, according to the award rules. Sorry, being a lifelong rebel I'm closing down for the night and getting some kip.

One honest thing — I miss my cat Trotsky. Second honest thing, if a Certain Person doesn't stop snoring I may have to do to him what I did to my cat.

G'night, all.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ...