Just to say that the last week has been easily the best week so far. Most of you are now blogging with some confidence and that’s great to see. There is, moreover, a clear gender divide emerging. With a couple of exceptions (and it is a couple) the girls are racing ahead of the boys. Here’s why:
This week’s star performer is Zlata Rodionova who’s Islington Green is a good example of how a global issue (climate change) can be applied to a local area (Islington) to great effect. Snappy title too – a really effective but simple pun.
I know I’ve singled her out already, but Raj Sandhu is worth noting again. This time for a lively account of how local surveillance is affecting her daily routine. Raj has built a blog with a variety of different types of stories and different lengths. It is short of pictures and the blog title is not quite right but it’s building into a fine body of work.
I also thought that Hoa Pham’s brave work on childhood abuse is both technically accomplished and journalistically significant; Joanna Aniel Bidar‘s “Gaza through the open lens” is belatedly coming into focus and Laura Jane Thompson is motoring away, although I’m not sure if her most recent post re-cycling the names of the winners of the NME awards is on-topic. Why read it there rather than at NME.com?
Mentions too to the visually arresting “Murdered in South London” by Tamara Obeng; a first look at Beatriz Arroyo’s thoughtful elegy for the tropical rainforest; while Ylenia Lemos and her blog on student health care is also worth a look. In terms of writing flair, Kiki Pattison Smith’s look at animal welfare demonstrates a whole heap of potential. Note how many original turns-of-phrase she deploys, in each post. Indeed “more than you can shake a cattle-prod at”.
I would really have liked to have featured more boys in this list but, alas, they are being outflanked by more mentally agile and industrious girls. Come on lads, surely you can step up before Friday …
City Bloggers 09 