Guilty, M'lud!

Hi all. Dublin Shooter here, delighted to be in the hot seat, summarising the response to LLCoolJim's Guilty Pleasures assignment. Previous guests who've occupied this seat have left a huge impression (pun intended), as we all know, and are difficult acts to follow, but I was thrilled to be asked to give it a go, and give it a go is what I'll now do.

Way back on 22nd June Blipcentral launched these weekly assignments and had this to say at the time: We'll run this for a few weeks and see what the response is like - if it's any good we may look at ways to make it a more permanent feature. Well, here we are now with the 20th assignment under our belts, and there's no sign that all you jolly blippers are losing interest.

The first things which sprang to mind when I saw the assignment were Food and Drink, and they've certainly featured strongly. Indeed, food-connected pleasures romp home well clear of all others, while drink, surprisingly, is only in the halfpenny place compared to blipping itself and a few others I'll mention later. When it comes to food, I suppose it wasn't surprising that Chocolate featured heavily. Pixel Smiths takes the biscuit here with a mountain of Crunchie bars, but we also had choccy admissions from Just Tryin' and Echo (that Chocolate Tasting Club sounds like a nice idea). Others with a sweet tooth included photofiend, who likes his cream buns a pack at a time, and My Angle, who stocks up with sugary Rattlesnakes whenever he gets the chance, even to the extent of topping up with petrol as an excuse. Away from sweet-toothed passions, Red certainly struck a chord with his fondness for Steak Bakes, while Scobes flew the flag for Scotland's finest, the haggis. (Scobes also takes the prize for the weirdest food combination known to mankind -- the Cheese and Jam Sandwich). A lot of you had problems when it came to blipping your favourite food-stuffs. ~kdoes : 365 project, for instance, was too quick for the camera when it came to a pack of crisps.

Some nasty people cheated just a little bit by pointing the finger at others rather than owning up about themselves, including Chick Flick, who outed poor young Henry's nose-picking (a pleasure shared by LLCoolJim, our assignment setter, who also admitted to a passion for girly magazines (Poor lad, he obviously had things to get off his chest). Unbelievably, some blippers really plumbed the depths and even held their pets up to scorn. The Laws took it out on the adorable Talisker, The Life of Bri snuck up on Nevis while he was resting, and A Canterbury Tail caught Cousteau while he was innocently exercising his teeth.

I would have expected Retail Therapy to feature more strongly, but only a few plumped for this particular pleasure. Among these were Just Getting Started (designer sunglasses), BuddyYamaha (books of the Pulp Western type), Croz (Adidas footwear) and Simply The Hesse (Nike Trainers -- not his own obsession).

Another topic that featured less than I'd expected is Blipping itself. There were some, and among these were Rodents rule etc., etc., for whom blipping in general is a guilty pleasure, Alan James Ross, who thinks he enjoys sunrises too much, a pinhole sky explodes out, for whom the problem is sunsets, and (three)56, who steals the odd ten minutes to shoot macros. Of course, we all know benek's insatiable predilection for photographing grungy numbers. The most original approach when it comes to considering blipping a guilty pleasure, though, has to be Look, who gives us a little playlet and finishes with a brilliant punchline.

I mentioned the demon Drink earlier and expressed surprise that this didn't feature more heavily as a response to the assignment. As many blippers know, when it comes to drink I can take it or leave it (and I generally do one rather than the other), and Drink would definitely have been in my mind as an assignment blip if I'd done one. Fortunately, there were some others who kept the alcohol flag flying, and I really must draw your attention to three in particular. In strictly alphabetical order, there was BuddyYamaha's 'hair of the dog', which attracted a rake of comments which had more to do with a particular film than with his gorgeous-looking White Russian; grandmama's very posh-looking bottle of wine, and Sonata Lover's tribute to Scotch Whisky (I had to remind myself not to put in the 'e' there which we add to our version of this tipple).

LL asked for honesty when he set the assignment: did we get it? Any baring of souls? People were generally restrained, really (perhaps because of Blip's own rules about content). Still, stindingsjournal left us to wonder what exactly goes on in his very posh tub while he worries about the amount of 'lecky it takes to heat the water. Others were more direct when it comes to energy wastage and electricity in particular. Joe Blogs himself, as well as Personal Playground and Escaping Erebus went as far as naming the 'lectric as their guilty pleasure. On an equally serious note, Matt989 made us stop and think about Britain's drug problem. For real honesty, though, S2 - Another Day Abroad and The Laws richly deserve everyone's admiration.

And that's almost it! Before I wind up and sound the fanfare which goes with the announcement of the next assignment, there's still a few notable offerings which don't fit into any neat category. wingpig treated us to two pleasures, neither of which he feels too much guilt about, and (three)56 regaled us with a heart-warming tale about a wedding ring. Which leaves the quirky ones to the end. First was Chick Flick (or Beastie Woman as she's known to all her closest friends), whose talk of Four Balls set off a storm of comments, and then there's benek, who likes to spend time in large metal containers and whose Guilty Pleasure #17 sent me racing to a dictionary of Aussie slang before I figured out what it was all about.

So, we've finally reached the last act. Thanks for making it this far (assuming you have, of course). It's been a great experience viewing all 105 offerings for this assignment, and I'm grateful to Blipcentral for asking me to go through them. Before I vacate the chair, I need to pass the baton and set the next assignment. So, without further ado (cue fanfare) -- your next assignment is That reminds me ...

Make sure you tag your entries assignment21. That's me done. Now I'm off for some kip.