The administration here isn’t changing, but we are doing a little cleaning up. At the moment, it’s confined to the blogroll. First, I’ll be pruning the blogs that have gone on hiatus. Then, probably some time next week, we will add new ones. We always want to hear about good blogs writing about Europe, but now is a particularly good time to let us know. Comment here, or drop me a note at the address under “Contact” to the right.
Category Archives: General management
Interrupting our usual glacial wonkishness
London gets a visit from AFOE founder David Weman. Here’s a photo of him and fellow long-time fistfulist Matthew Turner, at the Prince of Wales, Highgate.
Bloggers
A Moment of Blatant Self-Regard
Five years, one month and one day ago, A Fistful of Euros went live with its first posts.
Thanks to David, for getting the ball rolling and keeping it rolling; thanks to Tobias for keeping the back end running and the front end looking good; thanks to all of the writers; thanks to the commenters, for keeping us on our toes; thanks to the advertisers for keeping this little venture self-financing; thanks to the politicians and other public types for giving us such rich material to work with; and thanks to the readers, hope that you keep coming back for more.
Request thread
We’re borrowing a page from Matt Yglesias (who borrowed it from Ezra Klein). Put your suggestions for topics in the thread, and I or someone else will try to write something the next day. What would you like to read about?
afoe now running on WordPress 2.5
Gentle readers, afoe’s backend has been updated to the latest wordpress. So far, the transition seems to have worked well. Over the next couple of days, the frontend will also receive a little facelift – and make the site a little faster. So, in case you’ve got the feeling that something doesn’t work as it did before, that’s probably why.
The Fourth Annual Satin Pajama Awards
I hereby announce The Fourth Annual Satin Pajama Awards. You can nominate blogs in the comments to this post.
The purpose of the awards is to recognize the efforts and contributions of Europe’s many talented bloggers, to maybe help build a sense of community among us, and, more than anything, it’s a chance for people to discover lots of new good blogs.
A blog is eligible if it’s written by Europeans or has a European (Czech, Catalan…) theme. Our own blogs aren’t eligible. Finalists are chosen based on the number of nominations as well as editorial discretion. So you want to nominate a favorite blog even if someone else already mentioned it.
Please specify the category and provide a URL or link. We don’t have the time to track down blogs.
The polls will open sometime in April.
Nominees for Best Southeastern European Weblog
Nominees for Best CIS blog
Nominees for Best Writing
Nominate Best Culture Weblog
Nominees for Best Personal Weblog
Nominate Best New Weblog
Nominees for Best European Weblog Overall
Nominate Best Political Weblog
Nominate Most Underappreciated Weblog
Nominees for Best Humor Blog
Nominees for Best German Blog
Nominees for Best French Weblog
Nominate Best UK Blog
Nominees for Best Expat Blog
Nominate Best Academic Weblog
Best Political Weblog
Best Non-European Weblog
Best New Weblog
Best Humorous Weblog
Best Weblog By An Expatriate:
Best Culture Weblog
Best Expat Blog
Most Underappreciated Weblog
Best Writing
Best Personal Weblog
Best Expert or Scholar Weblog
The 2008 Satin Pajama for Lifetime Achievement
Best Weblog in Europe
Best Weblog From North Western Europe (The British Isles and the Nordic countries)
Best Weblog From Continental Western Europe
Best CIS Weblog
Best Southeastern European Weblog
Best Central European Weblog
Best French Weblog
Best German Weblog
Blogroll bleg
We’re looking for a few good blogs.
If you’ve been paying close attention, you might have noticed our blogroll is changing. We haven’t cleaned it in a while, and link rot has set in — some blogs have stopped posting, some have moved, some just aren’t around any more.
Cleaning the links is the first step. The second is to find exciting! new! blogs to add to the roster. For this, we could use your help.
So: we’re looking for interesting blogs about matters European. Cast your nets wide, readers — we’d rather have too many links than too few.
For your convenience, our categories are listed below the fold. Continue reading
Emergency operation from Bondi Junction
A happy new year to all of you, gentle readers. You may have noticed that afoe has experienced a certain number of technical glitches over the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately, no one was able to figure out what exactly caused the problems, CMS, our Javascript, or changes our host made to the php implementation used, since there was no real pattern of occurence, just annoyance. Since I am usually taking care of the technical side of the afoe operations, but currently on a longer trip through Australia, I decided that some emergency operation was needed to keep the boat afloat for the immediate future.
What you are seeing now is the result thereof – it’s a temporary design that will be replaced by the familiar afoe theme as soon as I have figured out what exactly has been causing the problems for both the frontend and the backend themes.
Winners of the Third Annual Satin Pajama Awards
Here are the winners of the Third Annual Satin Pajama Awards.
Best Writing: Le Blagueur à Paris
Best Weblog from the UK: Johnny Billericay
Best Weblog about Southeastern Europe: Balkan Baby
Best Weblog about the CIS: New Eurasia
Best Expatriate Weblog: Isoglossia
Best Personal Weblog: Petite Anglaise
Best Political Weblog: Slugger O’ Toole
Best Weblog from Germany: Ahoi Polloi
Best Weblog from France: Eolas
Best Culture Weblog: DA…NCE
Best Non-European Weblog: Pharyngula
Best Expert or Scholar Weblog: Real Climate
Best Economics Weblog: New Economist
Best Food Weblog: Chocolate and Zucchini
Most Underappreciated Weblog: Kosmopolit
Best New Weblog: Not Saussure
The 2007 Satin Pajama for Lifetime Achievement: Mick Fealty, founder of Slugger O’Toole.
And finally…
Best European Weblog of 2007: Petite Anglaise
You can still see all the finalists and their share of votes on the poll page. They’re all worth a visit.
I again thank Michael Manske and Clive Matthews for helping out.
Congratulations, everyone!
Satin PJs
Hey, the polls are open.
Update (by Tobias) – here are some banners for all nominees who would like to graphically display their participation in the Satin Pajamas 2007.