Wales Blog Awards

Congratulations on a deserved win in the "political" section of the blog awards last night go to Oggy Bloggy Ogwr from Bridgend. Caebrwyn and Y Cneifiwr took comfort from being the other two shortlisted blogs in that category, and the thought that our nominations must have been about as welcome in the Kremlin on the Tywi as a bucket of cold sick. In his acceptance speech Oggy Bloggy generously referred to the shenanigans in Carmarthenshire and the local authority's "growing rap sheet". The audience gasped and guffawed as he mentioned the evangelical bowling alley.

Some crumbs of comfort, then.

Cneifiwr cynically suspects that one handicap was that he once blogged about the Master of Ceremonies, ITV's Adrian Masters, in mildly disrespectful tones for revealing that a Plaid Cymru source had informed him that Labour and the "Independents" were in coalition in Carmarthen. Damn.

The judges' comments also gave Caebrwyn and Y Cneifiwr pause for thought. One of the strengths of Oggy Bloggy is that he paints on a very broad canvas, analyses problems and comes up with solutions. As Caebrwyn and Y Cneifiwr pondered what positive actions they might take, they concluded that all of them, including dragging barrels of gunpowder into the cellars of County Hall, would be highly illegal and therefore out of the question.

As the evening wore on and we skipped through categories such as Community, Multi-Media and Food and Drink, it dawned on the grizzled political bloggers that we are at the arse end of the business. Since we spend much of our time ferreting around in the sewage of our democratically elected institutions, that is probably quite appropriate.

Two things which the generous organisers of these annual awards need to think about are how to make the awards a truly national event, and how to reflect the linguistic realities of Wales.

If you were to put pins in the map of Wales showing where the nominated blogs are written, you would see a very heavy concentration in and around Cardiff. Apparently the howling wastes which make up the remaining 95% of our country don't produce much.

Only one Welsh language blog, Hacio'r Iaith, made it onto the shortlist (and won in its category). Llongyfarchiadau bois. There is some really good writing on the Welsh blogs, although some are not updated that frequently. Perhaps the more prickly examples sit a little uncomfortably in the suave, sophisticated environs of the capital city.

Sour grapes aside, the Awards are a shop window for the amazing range of talent that exists out there in the Welsh blogosphere, and for that they deserve praise.