Recognition

Last evening the annual Yorkshire Pudding Blog Awards ceremony was held in exclusive Pudding Towers - a secluded designer mansion in the leafy suburbs of Sheffield. These highly prized awards represent the pinnacle of achievement in any blogger's career.

Guests arrived to a Tetley's bitter reception and the music of Beyonce Knowles wafting live from the mansion's glittering south ballroom. Introductory nibbles included miniature snacks inspired by Spanish tapas but with a Yorkshire theme - fish and chips, bread and butter pudding, toad in the hole, Wensleydale curd tart and of course tiny Yorkshire puddings in rich beef and onion gravy.

Lord Pudding gave the opening address recalling several readable bloggers who appear to have fallen by the wayside this year - Arthur Clewley of "Arthur Clewley's Diary" who now dwells in a residential home on the outskirts of Richmond, North Yorkshire, Reidski who is currently working in a haggis factory in Ayrshire, "Retarded Rugrat" who is too busy enjoying her first year of married life in Vancouver to bother blogging any more and "Arctic Fox" from Huddersfield who now resides in Armley Gaol, Leeds for unspeakable crimes in public houses.

Lord Pudding spoke of the need to maintain high standards in blogging - "Blogging is a new art form with much wider possibilities than staccato tweets on Twitter or email banter between friends. Regular blog building creates both a window on the world and an ongoing opportunity to freely publicise the words you feel like writing on any number of subjects. You never know who might be directed to your blog or who might simply stumble upon it. Bloggers make friends - not quite like the friends we treasure in everyday offline life - but nonetheless people who come to matter to us because we have connected with them..."

The ceremony's main sponsor droned on in similar vein for half an hour or so. Some light snoring could be heard from the middle rows before the awards were presented. In summary:-

PHOTOGRAPHIC BLOGGER AWARD - Steve at "Occupied Country"
TOP GRANDAD BLOGGER - Sam at "The Golden Hill" (Hard luck Steve!)
PROMOTION OF STORYTELLING AWARD - Farida at "Saints and Spinners"
MOST HISTORICALLY AWARE BLOG - Hadriana at "Hadriana's Treasures"
TOP AMERICAN BLOGGER - Robert at "Rhymes With Plague"
TOP NEW ZEALAND BLOGGERS (Joint First) Katherine at "The Last Visible Dog" and David at "Arcane Enigma"
TOP WESTRAY ISLAND BLOGGER - Malc at "Edge of Nowhere" (Stiff competion for this award)
TOP COUNTRY LIFE BLOGGING AWARD - Debbie at "Ramblings" (Mopsa)
THE SUSAN BOYLE AWARD for THE TOP TRANSATLANTIC JET SET BLOGGER - Ian at "Retirement Rocks"
TOP WELSH BLOGGER and TOP DOG WALKING BLOGGER - Jenny at "Demob Happy Teacher"
MOST HELPFUL AUSTRALIA BASED BLOGGER AWARD - Michael at "In Sydney with an Old Leica"
TOP OLDHAM CLOGGER Steven at "Crofty's Blog"
TOP NORTHAMPTONSHIRE BLOGGER and TRAVELOG BLOGGER- "JJ" at "All Cobblers"
SOUTH EAST ASIA BLOGGER AWARD - Mr & Mrs Reginald Booth at "Bangkok Booths"

Last but not least the overall award for "Blogger of The Year 2009" went to Daphne from "My Dad's A Communist" (see photo right). The judging panel considered her blog to be "humane, humorous and honest using carefully crafted but accessible English". Wearing an emerald green sequinned evening gown from "Matalan", fishnet stockings and platinum stillettos, Daphne floated to the stage to collect her award, recalling her impoverished childhood in the mean back alleys of south Leeds. "I never thought I'd come this far," she stuttered.

All award winners are entitled to copy and paste this exclusive 2009 widget into their own blogs at no financial cost to themselves! Any bloggers who feel cheated of richly deserved awards may send £50 to Pudding Towers and your award will be sent by return of post.