New Year Honours

Following my nomination for a Liebster award, I have been nominated for a Sunshine Award by the wonderful Jessica Hof, chatelaine of All Along the Watchtower.

Now, I have to do one or two things, so please excuse me for being boring:

Write 10 pieces of information about yourself.

Well, luckily these don't all have to be strictly true.

1. I now live in a dog kennel in Croydon with rather dodgy Wi-Fi.

2. My favourite Christmas Carol is probably "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing".

3. Yes, I really do like eating Eccles cakes with custard.

Yummmmm...

4. I do not speak Catalan, Samoan or Swahili. I prefer Masses in Latin.

5. I have just changed the name of my blog to "Eccles is saved" as a result of certain doubts about brother Bosco.

6. Unlike Nicholas Parsons, I was not awarded an OBE. But I do have a Sunshine Award.

An OBE won't save you if you're being followed by two unsaved persons.

7. Father Zuhlsdorf is thinking of renaming his blog "Reading Francis through Eccles".

8. My Auntie Moly hasn't quite got the idea of carol services: you are supposed to sing the same as everyone else sings. No wonder they chucked her out.

Probably not a Christmas carol.

9. Paul Inwood invited us round for Christmas. "Have you got a turkey for us?" we asked.
"No, but I can write another one in the next 10 minutes or so," he replied.

10. I do not play the trombone, but I wish I could.

Scientific research.

Nominate ten fellow bloggers "who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere."

Well, I'll avoid the well-known blogs with millions of followers, and go for the following:

Meadowsweet. Poems and paintings.

Ragazzagallese. The great Rhoslyn Thomas.

Linen on the hedgerow.. Catholicism and wit.

Mulier Fortis. Cats and Catholics.

Countercultural Father. Ben Trovato.

Men are like Wine. Traditional Catholic.

Battlements of Rubies. Catholic Midwife.

De Omnibus Dubitandum Est. Erudite.

The Catachesis of Caroline. By a star of TV and the press.

Catholic Lisa. Weird and wonderful. And the blog is too.

Brother Lapin's Pilgrimage. Catholic donkeys.

Yes, that's eleven, but I was one short last time I had to do this sort of thing.

Leave a comment on the nominees' blogs to tell them of the award.

Will do, if I can ever read those captchas. Or I'll contact them some other way, e.g. Twitter.

A particularly difficult captcha to solve.

I gets a Lobster award

Dis probabbly aint as spiritaully nuorishin as my usual posts, but Bruvver Ben Trovato has given me a lobster award, wot is sposed to help poeple wiv bloggs wot noboddy reads. Thanks, Ben.

A lobster.

O.K. Let's follow de instructoins.

1. Post the Liebster award graphic on your site.

2. Thank the blogger who nominated the blog for a Liebster Award and link back to their blog. Done that.

3. The blogger then writes 11 facts about himself or herself so people who discover his or her blog through the Liebster post will learn more about him or her.

(i) I is probabbly a saved pusson.
(ii) Bosco is my big bruvver, but he's a little crazy.
(iii) Anti Moly is my grate-ant from Austriala, and is very crazy.
(iv) I lives in Notting Hell.
(v) I writes a spiritaully nuorishin blogg, but poeple 
keeps findin jokes in it.
(vi) All my jokes is stolen.
(vii) I has got a secret crush on Tina Beattie.
(viii) I changes my socks once a month, whether I needs to or not.

De socks of a saved pusson.

(ix) My Latin aint bad, but my English sometimes has sutble erorrs.
(x) I has got a secretary called Ecclesiam wot corrects my 
spellin sometimes.
(xi) Richard Dakwins asked me to be his spiritaul director.

4. In addition to posting 11 fun facts about themselves, nominated bloggers should also answer the 11 questions from the post of the person who nominated them.

(i) What inspired the title of your blog? 
Being told by Bosco dat he was a saved pusson.
(ii) Why should people read your blog? 
Spiritaul nuorishment.
(iii) What is your personal favourite post on your blog? 
Of recent ones, I've got a little list aint bad.
(iv) What has been the most popular (most viewed) post on your blog? 
Not sure why, but Zany New BBC Comedies has had about 4,500 hits.
(v) Which post on your blog has attracted most comments? 
I don't get many comments, but Rent-a-troll has got 51 so far.
(vi) What other hobbies or interests (beyond blogging) are you 
prepared to admit to?
Being saved, taking baths, eating pizzas.
(vii) What are your hopes for the new pontificate? 
Dat's too profuond for me.
(viii) Where is your favourite place of pilgrimage, and why? 
St Pancras statoin, cos I likes it.

A sacred place.

(ix) Who is your favourite spiritual author, and why? 
Damain Thopmson, cos he knows all about custard.
(x) Which of these questions did you find it most difficult 
to answer? 
Number (iii) cos on second thuoghts I prefers anuvver one.
(xi) Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the 
Communist Party? 
Nope, but I once voted for de loonies.

5. The nominated blogger will in turn, nominate 9 other blogs with 200 or less followers for a Liebster award by posting a comment on their blog and linking back to the Liebster post. Well, some has probbably been done alreddy, and some may have more than 200, but how about:

Costing not less than everything, 
All along the watchtower, 
Brother Lapin's pilgrimage,
Ragazzagallese,
Sky-fairy myth believing cretins,
The path less taken,
Whistling sentinel,
Bara Brith,
One more to be chosen (currently Sede vacante).

6. The nominated blogger will create 11 questions for his or her nominated blogs to answer in their Liebster post.

(i) Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
(ii) How many roads must a man walk down?
(iii) How long is a piece of string? 
(iv) Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? 
(v) Why did the chicken cross the road? 
(vi) Who is the fairest of them all? 
(vii) What shall we do with the drunken sailor? 

A difficult question to answer.

(viii) To be or not to be? 
(ix) How much wood would a wood-chuck chuck if a wood-chuck 
could chuck wood?
(x) Where did you get that hat?
(xi) What's in a name?