A Vacancy

Like a bit of a pillock I quite zealously guard those spaces on the left hand side of my blog, the ones that come under the "blogs I read" category. Why?

Well firstly because they genuinely have to be blogs that I read, and they are. Every day, or thereabouts I check in to see what's been happening on them. I'm not up to scratch with RSS feeds, readers and things so that, and Kottu are my main reference points. Secondly it's because I feel as if I'm providing a bit of a service to you, my reader.

If I'm reading a blog and it has a list of hundreds of other blogs down its side in the "blogs I read" section I tend to pay scant attention to those blogs. I might have a quick scan but usually I can't be bothered and the sheer volume of titles makes me lose interest. So, on my blog, though I don't have a maximum number in mind, I keep the number of blogs to a level that I think might retain a person's interest.

I also have my own policy of adding new ones to the bottom of the list, with the remainder in anything but alphabetical order. Darwin's and Cerno's go second and first respectively, though that sentence would have been much cleaner if I'd written it the other way round like this:

"Cerno's and Darwin's go first and second respectively"

But, once the linking had been done I just got lazy. Sorry about that.

Either way, they go first and second, or second and first, because they are the last two years' blogs of the year, admittedly awarded by only me, but around these parts that means something. Then we have Java, whose blog just demands to be read. After that the order gets a bit random, loosely based on a combination of how frequently they update, how sexy they are, their taste in music and what I think of their writing.

It's important that I don't have "dead" blogs or dodgy links there too. As much as I like a blog, if it's not updated regularly I, and most others, lose interest rapidly. Lady Luck seems to have gone quiet and I don't know if she's stopped blogging or is just inundated with patients or something. It's a sad and disappointing state of affairs if she's now putting her work, that whole looking after people and curing them thing, ahead of blogging.

So, after some rambling, I've got to my point. Which is that N of Tiny Little Fractures is in retirement from blogging. As much as I like reading his archives this means that my link to his blog is going to go. It's harsh but fair and it's for the greater good. I have a few ideas on which blog I'm going to add in its place.

But what do you think? I guess you know a bit about what I like. Are there any blogs out there that you think demand to be included in my sidebar? Do you even care?

Answers on a postcard please.

Or a comment.

I'll be away for a week or so but I'll check in and be back before you can say "Yes, I remember that blog"

Laters.