It’s that time of year again, folks. And I need your vote. Twice. I’ve been shortlisted in the Blog Awards Ireland 2015 in two categories – Best Art & Culture Blog and Best Marketing & Communications Blog. (Well, not me, technically, this blog has, but why split hairs when none of you have any idea that my blog is actually written by a team of angry vegetarian pixies I keep suspended in a net bag, hanging from the ceiling of my pantry?)
Anyhoo, I need to debase myself yet again by asking a favour. In order to make the great leap from the shortlist to the final, I need your votes, and lots of them. Pleeeeeeease vote for me. Then get your family, your friends and your enemies to vote too. I am begging. I am prostrating myself in front of your mighty voting fingers. I am even asking nicely, and we all know how rarely that happens.
You can vote for me in Best Art & Culture Blog here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3GZTK6T
And also in Best Marketing & Communications Blog here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6YMVL68
Just scroll down the list until you see ‘Tara Sparling Writes’ and click in the circle beside it to vote. Voting is only open for 2 weeks between September 7 – 21 so please vote before it closes, because getting your fingers caught may not be pleasant.
There Is A Tenuous Link To The Title Of This Post
I thought long and hard about what to do to make it worth your while clicking on not just one, but two links, in order to give me what I want (oh yes). And I couldn’t think of a damn thing, so I thought I’d just threaten you instead.
With that in mind, here are 5 Reasons Why You Should Vote For Me In The Blog Awards This Year.
- If you don’t vote for me, I will kill this bunny. He lives in the park across the road from me. If I don’t make it past this shortlist stage, I am going to go right over there and read him E.L. James’ Grey until he tries to escape by running into oncoming traffic.
- If you don’t vote for me, I will find out which toy is going to be the must-have Thing this Christmas and buy every single one of them in the world so that the children of the world cannot have any. Christmas will be ruined. And it will be your fault.
- If you don’t vote for me, I will write the world’s most annoying pop song, and employ Chinese hackers to make it the permanent ring tone on your phone.
- If you don’t vote for me, I will tell your loved ones what you did last Friday. (You know who you are.)
- And finally, if you do vote for me, I will promise that when I am President of the World (2018-ish), I will not subject you to 23 tax audits in my first month of office.
Go on. You know you want to. Vote early and vote once, ’cause that’s all you’re allowed to do (they have this one nailed down in Blog Awards Ireland HQ). Then get your 2,304 Facebook friends to vote. Because I only have 6, and none of them are talking to me since the yoghurt selfie incident.
So there you have it, folks. If I get enough votes, I’ll make it to the final, and be judged by a panel of scary important people. If I don’t get enough votes, there will be dead bunnies, crying children, phone rage, broken families, and more tax hell than you can even contemplate. Thank you for your consideration.
Tara Sparling writes 
Tara! Channeling National Lampoon? http://www.bizpacreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/lampoon-dog-big-223×300.jpg
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Didn’t know I was, Jack, just had it in for the bunny really. But I’m delighted to be in such illustrious company!
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Sor-ted. There’d better be a two-day working week and a life-times supply of free EP also whenever you take the throne. Besta luck.
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Every weekend will be EP, Tenderness, although I will be imposing certain restrictions on attendees. Stay on the right side of me, is all I’m saying. And thanks, by the way.
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two categories! I’m only in one (diaspora).
well done. Voted.
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I know, Niall, I find it confusing myself. I don’t know where to aim both barrels! Off now to do you a wee favour let’s just say…
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🙂
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Snap, you got my vote Tara, best of luck 🙂
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Ditto, Ed, let’s hope we both make it to the final in Art & Culture, come at it from both angles so to speak!
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And may the best blogger win, if its one of us 🙂
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Absoloo-tely!
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I’ve voted in both categories, but I’d still like you to kill the bunny. I hate rabbits.
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We can come to a quiet arrangement I’m sure, David. It’s not the first secret I’ll ever keep…
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Voted, but under extreme duress. Rabbits and kids – couldn’t care less; don’t have a phone that plays pop songs; my loved ones (all one and a half of them) were with me last Friday so they’re as guilty as I am; and the promise of less tax to someone who doesn’t pay tax out of sheer bloody mindedness is a non-starter.
No, you made no promise of erradicating the following: cats, ditherers in shops, number plate thieves, coffee served at the wrong temperature, unmarked juggernauts, uneccessarily colourful road markings, bad trackpads on laptops, WordPress updates, and those things that stick out and go round and round without doing anything.
Add those to the list and I’ll feel vindicated and comforted by my votes. I’ll also tell my Uncle Padraig on the judging panel to go easy on you.
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Ah yes, Chris, but you let yourself down there. I didn’t promise you less tax: I promised you less tax audits. Which means for you, my threat would loom even larger. I’m a big miffed you didn’t give me your list of weaknesses before I wrote this post, but at least I know now. My team of angry pixies are working their way through it as I type.
Still, thanks for voting.
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Well, I might be able to endure the tax audits if you could do something about ditherers, bloody dithering about… (You can always spot them at protests shouting ‘What do we want? Action. When do we want it? Oh, well, you know. . . .’)
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There will be no ditherers in my regime, Chris. Mainly because there will only ever be one answer to every question and request. (Mine)
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Hooray
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Correct answer Chris
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Voted. Anything to spare a bunny from a fate more cruel than reading Vogon poetry…
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I don’t know what Vogon poetry is, Nick, but I’m assuming it’s got something to do with limescale in washing machines? Thanks for the vote!
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You mean, you’ve never read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Gasp!
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I have, actually, but I don’t remember that! I suppose I did read it when I was in college, and the less said about that period the better 😉
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Let’s make a deal: you don’t mention college, I won’t mention college. It’s kinda like the war. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it.
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That’s fine by me. After all, I can’t have any difficulty not mentioning what I can’t remember. Good times. Good times.
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The first rule of college: you don’t ment- ooh, free booze!
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That’s MY BOOZE. Gerroff it.
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Gerryar own, ya hag!
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(Feel free to go, “oh, *that* Vogon poetry!)
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When you put it like that, Tara… Votes made, bunny saved and hopefully no tax audits? A national week’s holiday celebrating Writers will be nice as well, when you’re president 🙂
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Good idea, Helen. I’ll be taking requests in brown envelopes along with the requisite bribes while I’m still mid-coup. Getting in early with good ideas, however, is always going to stand to you. 😉
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I’ll remember that.:-) Think I have a couple of brown envelopes in my desk drawer…
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You know I voted. Kill the bunny and deliver the carcass. We can make stew together.
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That was my plan ALL ALONG, Conor, you clever thing! I’m so glad you know me. I have the purple prose primed.
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I voted. For you
Even in spite of the threats. Lol! Best of luck Tara! 😊
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I’ll need it Ali, thank you. Fear is my only weapon 😀
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I’m sure you have a few surprises lurking up that long voluminous sleeve of yours, Tara!
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Indeed I do Ali, and fear is only six of them.
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Oh hahaha! 😀
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I voted. I did it for the bunny!
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The bunny is grateful. Pathetically so, I might add.
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Done and Done – and tweeted for good measure! 😉 Now – you HAVE to wear the lucky pinkey-orangey jacket again if you get to the final nominations again! 😀
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I’d wear anything you bloody asked for if it meant I got into the final this year, Jan, but sadly a marauding gang of fashion police seized it last year just before a propotiously-timed bonfire…
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DONE TARA – Now GIVE THE BUNNY BACK HIS LETTUCE or I’ll send my Naughty Chimps over to you 😀
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Thanks, Chris! And goshdarnit. I forgot about you animal lovers. That’s animal lovers, mind, not animal-lovers. Still. I’m more scared of your chimps than I am of the bunny. So okay. Have the damned organic cos and be done with it.
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👍😄😄😄
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Done! But I didn’t do it for the bunny, or the kids as I don’t do holidays. I did it because…urm…uh…well. And that’s a very powerful reason!
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And that’s more than enough said about last Friday, Baron. Thank you!
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I voted for you, I voted for you… twice!! Both categories!! Now put down the E.L. James and step away from the bunny!!
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But… but…. Oh Lorraine, I can’t have any fun! This is so mean. What if I just read him the bit that has the plot in it??
Oh, yeah. Hang on. I get it now.
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Yes, see how that works. Now, Fatal Attraction might be more of a nail biter for him. 🙂
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Not sure how his 2D vision is working, but yes, I’ll give it a go…
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Voted to save the bunnies – the pesky plant-munching and destroying creatures.
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Are you sure you want to save them? We could come to a salad-saving arrangement, if you like. I don’t really care, as long as you voted.
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I think you’ve killed Bugsy already! He looks ghostly… But I’ll vote for you anyway, only because I don’t think I could live without your blog posts making me splutter my coffee all over the bed of a morning. Tara Sparling Writes for President!
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I suppose no rabbit should be subjected to such bad photography, Carolann. This is what happens when you end up having to use your own images. Still, seeing as you’re voting for me, I might spare his life, having destroyed his modelling career 😉
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That was the most fun I’ve had being coerced in my life. 😀 I’d be a fool not to vote! Good luck!
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Thank you! I should threaten people more often. Who knows what I could end up with?!
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Ha ha. Buy my book or thee shall be cursed with the body odor of a teenage boy, poor golf scores, and pointy shoes, etc, etc, etc.
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Good grief, I thought I was harsh. But you’re just a hare’s breath (ouch, I know) away from wishing a wedgie on someone there…
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Done! I heart bunnies.
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And I heart votes, power, and threatening people! Good day all round, Trista. 😉
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I voted! #fearwins 😉
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Oh yes, Daniel. It most certainly does. Ask any Irish teacher from the 1980s.
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I hate to tell you, but I learned to skin and prepare bunnies for the pot when I was about eight years old. I did go and hit some buttons, though.
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You shouldn’t hate to tell me that at all Hilary. I had a healthy respect for you before, but now you’re officially awesome. 😉
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Since you asked so nicely…
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Did I? Dammit. I must be losing my touch.
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Depends on your perspective really. I just have a penchant for animal cruelty
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Oh great! Thank God. I thought I was slipping.
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Hmmm, I too keep vegetarian pixies but where are they? well growing vegetables of course. It strikes me as a cruel and unusual punishment to have them writing a blog. I keep an orang utang for that job and he seems to like it assuming i do not run out of bananas. As an added plus, his speeling is much better than mine.
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My pixies are highly insulted at the insinuation that simian hands could do their job. Now it’s going to take me all evening to calm them down. I’ll just say you can apologise by voting for me.
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You can’t do that to bunnies.
You can sic a pack of stray cats on them, dress up like a bloodhound and terrify them, place noise-canceling headphones over their ears and make them listen to Nickelback for hours. Hell, you can even use them to make delicious Paella Valenciana which can also be made using chicken but rabbits give more flavor because they’re just adorable, add a bit of thyme for that extra zing, it’s great.
But you CANNOT read them E.L.James’ anything. PETA should have you jailed for mentioning the name in the presence of any animal. You just might be the most cold-hearted person I’ve known all my life, and I know a lot of cold-hearted people.
And let me not get started on your threat to ruin Christmas for the children.
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Thank you, KJ! As officially the most cold-hearted person in the world, you couldn’t have said anything more gratuitously pleasing than that.
And I wouldn’t worry too much about the bunny. He never listens. The little git.
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Never listens? With those comically oversize ears? That’s too brave. I don’t like it. Maybe the bunny does deserve to find its way into a comically oversize pot making friends with comically savory marigold.
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There was never any maybe, KJ. Except maybe I lied.
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Lying, eh? I’ll be sure to add that to the list. This just keeps getting better and better.
Best Art & Culture Blog, Best Marketing & Communications Blog and now Worst Person Ever? It really is award season here. You are definitely a shoo-in for all three. I’ve already voted for the first two categories; where do I vote for the third?
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The third isn’t a vote, KJ, it’s a decree. But thanks for trying.
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You go girl, you have my vote.
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I am pathetically grateful. The bunny not so much, but he never learns.
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You horrible, smut-reading, bunny killing, Christmas-ruining fiend! 😛 I’ll vote for you anyway. 😉
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I don’t care if it is a sympathy vote, Alex, I’ll take whatever I can get.
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♡ All in good fun. I hope you win!
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So does the bunny 😀
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Done and done, Tara! All digits crossed for you – best of luck! 🙂
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I don’t usually get much of that, Book Nanny, so let’s hope it’s not all down to luck…
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Done and done again
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Thank you John! Good to see you can comment again, quite apart from the voting…
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Death by EL James?! What did the poor bunny do to deserve that torture?
Done and done. Best of luck in both!
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As soon as I read that, Donna, I thought ‘what a superb name for a story’. Death By EL James. We’ll call it Mummy Snuff. And thank you!
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I look forward to the blog post!
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So do I! Hope I write it 😉
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You have succeeded, I voted for you. Iminent guilt, the great motivator. Good luck to you. If you don’t win an award, don’t come crying to me. ~TH~
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What, you mean I can’t even blame you a little bit?? Spoilsport. But I’ll let it go, seeing as you voted.
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