Country Living: a few words on the 'columnist competition'

I was going to post this as one of my Country Living blog entries but decided not to add to the debate there. So I've added it here instead!

I rather liked the late Kurt Vonnegut's line about literary critics. "Like putting on full armour to attack a hot fudge sundae", or something similar. I always preferred a knickerbocker glory but I can see the point he was making.

It's just not worth the fuss. And what value has my opinion about someone else's writing?

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to friends about the Country Living columnist competition. I remarked that the "voting buttons" hadn't appeared on everyone's blog - probably, I hypothesised, because the CL IT department wasn't up to it.

I also said that the company was probably
(a) overwhelmed by the volume of bloggers,
(b) concerned that some bloggers were writing about entirely fictional lives,
(c) worried that some of the bloggers might be celebrities and/or professional journalists,
(d) kicking themselves that they'd not published any formal terms & conditions for entry.
Obviously, picking someone who wasn't what they appeared (or claimed) to be would end up with the magazine looking pretty daft.

I didn't think I had much chance of winning because so many other people were writing so well and so copiously... but it was fun.

And then Country Living changed the rules. Because "several people" - their ill-chosen words, not mine - had expressed concern about fairness, there wouldn't be any voting to create a shortlist. There'd be voting on a shortlist chosen by Country Living. The voice of the readers - with a final decision made by the mag - became the voice of the mag. Which of Country Living's three favourites shall we choose?

That, in my unrequested opinion, is why everyone's so annoyed. Because "country living" (in lower case) is largely all about community. And, for a glorious moment, that's what we thought the magazine was about, too.

This isn't sour grapes from me (or, as far as I can tell, from any other of the non-shortlisted bloggers). But I (and, I suggest, most of us here online) don't like rules being changed during the game. Our opinions about writing may vary - but our opinions about fairness don't.

Country Living: Our Man in Arundel

There have been a couple of times that I’ve almost given up blogging on Country Living. Not because of the subject, just because of the technology. Incidentally, I’m no technophobe – quite the opposite, because it’s a big part of my job – which is probably why I don’t have much patience when the Country Living blog service decides I’m not able to comment on anyone else’s entries. Or when it takes so long to load, I’m able to make myself a cup of tea, drink it and make another one before the right page appears.

It reminds me of the bakery we had in Arundel until recently. The bread was made and baked locally, so I – and, as far as I could tell, most of the town – didn’t mind paying a bit over the odds for it. Then one day, inexplicably, the bakers stopped selling individual cakes. No more Belgian buns. No more bath buns, no more rock cakes, no more Eccles cakes. My dentist probably threw a party, but that’s another story. They still sold bread – but no cakes. Now, I have no idea why it happened… but I can imagine someone thinking it wasn’t worth the effort because the bulk of their profit came from sandwiches and bread. Perhaps it did. But a few weeks later the shop closed. Was it because people thought it wasn’t a proper bakers any more?

I don’t know. But I do know that the “littlest things” (to quote Lily Allen) can make a big difference. Incidentally, there’s still ‘local’ bread available in town – a baker in one of the surrounding villages supplies a few loaves to the grocer’s shop. So that’s alright.