the blogs of brighton

A slightly depressing evaluation of the Brighton blogging scene comes via Mock Duck, who found trawling through the Brighton and Hove Web Awards longlist "as soul-destroying as when I was following links from CVs of hopefuls applying for jobs". Elsewhere, she suggests that "I mean, a blog is pretty much a blog, isn't it, unless it's really remarkable, single-issue or has an unusual purpose" - but I don't think that's true.

There are, on the face of it, comparitively few blogs produced in Brighton which tally with my interests or approach a subject from a particularly groundbreaking subject. But blogging isn't, and needn't be, consistent. To get the best out of blogs you need to read several and find what interests you amongst all the detail. Perhaps some of the Brighton blogs are not immediately diverting, but there's plenty there if you look.

And there are actually quite a few Brighton blogs which contain very high quality content - largely the product of able and articulate writers or talented artists. Of course there are tons of blogs which focus on what might be loosely termed by some as 'boring subjects' or have approaches which might be considered amateurish, but there are blogs out there - I'm thinking of Zender Bender, Naked Translations, The World Is Full of Pisswits, Chicken Yoghurt, Free Speed Nation or Emilie Wood.com - all of which have exceptionally written content which I'd kill to be able to reproduce here. Sometimes excellent blogs have little more going for them than the commitment of the writer or the faith of the reader. But I was surprised to see the scene dismissed so quickly - there's more to local blogging than you might think.

On a similar subject, I note that I'm briefly mentioned in a nice article on blogging in Brighton from this month's Insight, although annoyingly my life's dream of being interviewed and being dazzlingly brilliant in a newspaper will have to wait a bit, as they asked pretty much everyone for a quote but me!!! And I have friends on that paper!! Bah. It's a great article, however, and I am vain enough to want to tell everyone about it and shout "Look! There!!! That's my name! See!!!".

So you can read it here, if you like. Thanks to Anne So and Jane for drawing that to my attention...