One of the benefits of living in Manchester is that it’s a city that nurtures creativity.  From a legendary music scene to bold architecture like The Beetham Tower, it’s a city that recognises and celebrates its own natural creative lifeblood.  Even bloggers get support here; there are occasional blogger meet-ups and there’s an annual Blog Awards too.

The shortlist for this year’s awards have been announced and 14sandwiches has been nominated in the Best New Blog Category.  I’m up against some great blogs in the category.  Dear Kitty is a plain-speaking agony aunt (there should be more of those in this world), Coco LaVerne is a self-styled “fledgling glamour puss” putting the world to rights while Follow The Yellow Brick Road is Katherine Woodfine’s personal blog with an eye on the visual arts.  Interestingly, of the four mine is the only one not hosted by Blogspot.  Google’s Blogger service obviously has a long life in it yet even with strong competition from self-hosted Wordpress and the many other blogging solutions around today.

The winners will be announced on Wednesday 22nd October at an event at Matt & Phred’s Jazz Club in Manchester city centre.