50,000 Votes But No Cigar

So the Brilliance In Blogging awards came and went last Friday and though yours truly was a finalist in the Lit category, I nevertheless went home a runner-up. In fact I didn’t even have to go home on account of never having left being too niggardly and anti-social to even attend the event despite the lovely Katy Hill being the compare and Ruby Wax also being in attendance. And of course, Ruby is undoubtedly lovely too.

I didn’t win.

Not a bean. Not a sausage. Close but no cigar.

I now know what it feels like to be the “also-ran” at an Oscar ceremony or The BAFTAs. The chin-up. The fake smile. The autopilot applause for the lucky individuals who did win.

Actually, I truly didn’t expect to win. And I mean that. I’m not just saying it to make out that I don’t care or to belittle the event (though of course I’ve maintained all along that I don’t do this for the accolades or the money or the loose women, sorry, the loose change; I do it for the art and the love and for you guys). This is no embittered lie to cover up a crushed soul fermenting itself into poison under the grinding weight of being passed over yet again at yet another award ceremony. I honestly didn’t expect to win.

My blog is too eclectic. Too unfocused. Too nonspecific and too wide ranging in its scope to pigeonhole neatly into any category. And yes I am trying to make a virtue out of a vice.

Of course, some might argue that this blog just wasn’t good enough and that is simply the hard, cold end of it.

And indeed that could be the case but for the fact that, to become a finalist, this blog had to receive over 50,000 votes.

50,000.

That’s a phenomenal number for a snipey little blog that doesn’t particularly sell anything or offer a worthwhile service.

I was gobsmacked when I discovered that 50,000 was the numerical threshold.

Who are these people? Do they read every day? Why don’t they comment? If I sold 50,000 copies of my novel, The Great Escapes of Danny Houdini (plug plug), I’d be laughing.

*sigh*

So 50,000 people like this blog.

But it is the diet coke of success.

Just not quite successful enough.

Come on, people. Give me some sugar!

Blue Plaque

I want one.

I’ve decided.

I want a blue plaque erected in my honour and attached to the wall of a house I’ve lived in or a pub I’ve drunk in or an alleyway I’ve relieved myself in somewhere in my home town.

Because – maybe it’s just Leamington – but there seems to be blue plaques being put up all over the place these days, to all and sundry for a whole raft of endeavours that, at best, often strain the bounds of remarkability and noteworthiness.

Lord Isambard Moolah invented the screw top salt shaker in this garret in 1846. Sir Ivor Permanent Backache invented skiving off from work in this bedsit in 1954. Captain Smartarse created the world’s first time machine in this domicile pod in 2539. Etc. Etc.

Forget Facebook or Twitter (or whatever it is you young un’s are using these days to avoid actually speaking to each other), a blue plaque is what you need if you want people to know who you are, to notice you and – most importantly – to remember you.

‘Cos being remembered is everything. If you die and nobody remembers you, well, that’s like you never existed. You were there but you were like dark matter... just holding the bright stars in their place. But if your name is still on people’s lips, still being bandied around backstreet pubs and used as a gross insult in the playground then you have at least achieved some kind or immortality. Future generations will carry your name forth like some kind of socio-biological seed and who knows? You may yet influence the children of tomorrow in some weirdly perverse manner which will either raise humankind to the heights of enlightenment or (more likely) see it damned to the lowest circle of hell.

But the fate of the species is unimportant compared with having had a hand in bringing that fate into being.

Because it doesn’t matter whether you’re remembered for good things or bad things. Just as long as you’re remembered. Fame doesn’t give a shit about morality. Fame doesn’t differentiate between top ten hit singles or the number of people you stuff into a mass grave. History enshrines Hitler and Michael Jackson both on an equal footing (though I know who I’d trust to babysit).

So all I have to do now is decide how I’m going to get my blue plaque.

Will it be for some kind of Nobel prize winning endeavour? Novel writing? Poetry? Blogging even? It would have to be arts based because I’m completely crap at science (if you’re waiting for me to invent a time machine you’d need a time machine just to cope with the wait).

Or shall I choose the dark path? Become a plague to my fellow man? Visit upon him sores and pestilence and endless irritation?

Hmm...

Blogging it is then.

P.S. Just make sure they spell my name right.

Vajazzle

I did something last week.

Something unexpected and amazing. Possibly even a little daring but in all honesty I can't recall what it was.

I just know I did something.

Something so hot and entertaining that half the world came round for a look.

My blog stats went (for me) through the roof. No more a mere 150 visits a day. We were talking 500+. And it went on all week. 7 days of mass(ish) interest. I felt like a porn site (but the wife was looking over my shoulder).

My God, I thought, I've bloody made it. I'm piloting my madcap moon rocket to the blogging moon. My blog has got vajazzled and everybody wants to come and get a slice of the action.

Man, I was shaking my blogging booty!

They'll all be coming to me now, I thought. Megabucks advertizing deals. Publishers. Film producers. The pizza boy from Domino's (I'd ordered a pepperoni special).

But then it all died away.

Just like that.

Zip. Nadda.

I have no idea why. It was like I was popular for about 7 days and then the halo of coolness floated away and found someone else's head to crown.

My vajazzle plainly wasn't good enough, wasn't long lasting enough. The slice of my pie wasn't tasty enough for a second sitting.

I'm back to a mere 100+ visits per day again.

Back to obscurity.

Back to my unadorned, unenhanced self.

Back to the way nature intended.

*Sigh*

Oh piss-flaps!