I’ve recently started writing for The Next Web. It’s fantastic to be working for one of Europe’s biggest tech blogs but it does mean that most of the things I’d normally write here will be going there instead.

If you’re not already subscribed to The Next Web, do it – we’re putting up great tech content every day and if you enjoy what I write here it’ll mainly be there from now on. Of course, I’ll still be writing here too – just not as often.

[Image credit: Eggrollstan on Flickr]

With AudioBoo I finally have a way of getting those thoughts out there quickly and easily. Literally a couple of hours after I published my piece about AudioBoo last week they launched iTunes subscriptions for individual users’ recordings.

So, if you fancy a bitesize fix of 14sandwiches between the blog post meals you can subscribe using the iTunes link that you’ll find over on my AudioBoo account page. Let me know what you think!

Thanks to you all for reading, commenting and sharing my posts around the internet. Our two most popular posts this year have been the one about Japan’s mobile phone industry (which had loads of Stumbleupon love) and our story about the BBC’s Don’t Tell The Bride show, mainly because people keep finding their way here to find out how to take part. The answer to that question came in the comments to that post, by the way.

It’ll be quiet around here until the new year (there’s Christmas, my 30th birthday and New Year’s Eve all in the same week!) but 14sandwiches will be back to full power at the start of 2009. See you then!

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.

In the meantime, here’s the funniest picture I took while over there.  The island of Miyajima, near Hiroshima, has a huge population of wild deer that wander around trying to eat tourists’ maps.  They’ve already eaten all the grass in the village and some of them appear to be too lazy to walk up to the greener mountain area.

So, when the tourists go home at night what do the deer eat?  How about the rubbish from the ferry terminal?  They look like giant antlered rats!