Let's get this over with as quickly as we can, shall we.
With a sense of mounting horror I realised yesterday how many more rounds of Lovely of the Year there needed to be before I finish work this year on Wednesday 19th December - this one plus one final round in the first stage plus four quarter-finals plus two semi-finals plus the final. Then I realised I could just change the format, and make the next round the final, or whatever, so it’s with great relief that I can now announce
Our first and somewhat unlikely contestant in Pool Whatever The Hell It Is is Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Robert was nominated by publicansdecoy, whose Arsehole of the Year competition it has twice been Bob's privilege to win, and in which he - Bob, not publicansdecoy - is currently in the running for an unprecedented third consecutive victory. But this is Lovely of the Year, and so we'll ignore for the time being Bob's rape camps, or the fact that life expectancy for women in Zimbabwe is 34, or that to buy a packet of six sodding sausages now costs twenty million dollars. No, let's look on the bright side; this December Robert celebrates twenty years as President, and - short of massive voterigging and violent intimidation and mass arrests of the opposition and what have you - there's no way he could have done that without being at least quite Lovely. This picture shows Robert shaking hands with similarly Lovely Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose surname I think I might finally have learned how to spell without googling for it, although probably not. Look at Mahmoud's twinkly eyes, all because he's meeting Robert Mugabe.
The next contestant is Tottenham striker Dimitar Berbatov, nominated by darkmarcpi "for both his dashing Slavic looks and his performances for Tottenham in a football shirt for at least the first half of 2007. He could flop on the pitch and make it look......beautiful and balletic". Even if, unlike darkmarcpi, you are not obviously head over heels in love with Dimitar, nobody can deny his Slavic good looks. Unfortunately here I have chosen to use a photograph in which he sports a quite catastrophically bad hairstyle, although please bear in mind that he was playing in Germany at the time this picture was taken, where the standards for having good hair are that much lower, and where this look is probably considered immensely chic and desirable.
Next is, oh who is it, oh yes, Warren Buffet, nominated by juggzy, whose reason was his - Warren's, not juggzy's - pledge to give away 85% of his 44 billion dollar fortune. Fortune magazine writes that "five-sixths of the shares will go to the world's largest philanthropic organization, the $30 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, focused on world health - fighting such diseases as malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis - and on improving U.S. libraries and high schools". There's an interview with Warren here, where he explains his reasons, but I couldn't be bothered to read it, but for Christ's sake, if anyone deserves to win this tawdry bauble then surely it's either Warren, or me, for having given away one pound of my fortune to a homeless man with a dog outside Waterloo station the other week.
Or perhaps you prefer contestant no. 4, Ian Holloway, nominated by socialist_cook, "for tirelessly managing Plymouth Argyle and being very funny". Ian is no longer manager of Plymouth Argyle, having abandoned them for the glitz and glamour of Leicester City, but he does remain very funny, at least by football managers’ standards, which I know isn’t saying a lot. This is probably his most famous interview. In addition to tirelessly managing Plymouth Argyle - before he abandoned them for the glitz and glamour of Leicester City - and being very, Ian has nursed his wife through lymph cancer, and is the father to three deaf children, although if I'm being perfectly honest I think this is not so much Lovely as just Massively Unfortunate.
Our final contestant in this round is Jon Snow - not his arch-enemy John Thaw, he's dead now, stop thinking about him. Anyway Jon was nominated by giro_playgirl, who "saw him* riding around Manchester on a bike and he was lovely. Plus he shouted at his boss on air and I like his ties". Presumably giro_playgirl isn't including in Jon's lovely ties the monstrosity he's sporting in this picture, which I chose because he appears to be performing the actions of a man in a bad 1970's sitcom whose only dialogue is "ooh, ducky", or "seems like a nice boy". Jon once bought a Christmas tree at the same time I was buying a Christmas tree at the same garden centre in Camden. But is this enough to make him Lovely? Whatever, I'm done for the week.
You're voting for who you think are the biggest two Lovelies in this group. If you tick more than two, you will go to HELL. Voting closes at Evensong. Any votes cast after Evensong will not be valid, much like james_weekes's late vote for Christina Aguilera which was unable to prevent her defeat by James Ward. Of all people. I do not vote in these polls myself, but in the event of a tie I will cast the deciding vote.
Poll
* Jon Snow - not his arch-enemy John Thaw, he's dead now, stop thinking about him
Our first and somewhat unlikely contestant in Pool Whatever The Hell It Is is Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Robert was nominated by publicansdecoy, whose Arsehole of the Year competition it has twice been Bob's privilege to win, and in which he - Bob, not publicansdecoy - is currently in the running for an unprecedented third consecutive victory. But this is Lovely of the Year, and so we'll ignore for the time being Bob's rape camps, or the fact that life expectancy for women in Zimbabwe is 34, or that to buy a packet of six sodding sausages now costs twenty million dollars. No, let's look on the bright side; this December Robert celebrates twenty years as President, and - short of massive voterigging and violent intimidation and mass arrests of the opposition and what have you - there's no way he could have done that without being at least quite Lovely. This picture shows Robert shaking hands with similarly Lovely Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose surname I think I might finally have learned how to spell without googling for it, although probably not. Look at Mahmoud's twinkly eyes, all because he's meeting Robert Mugabe.
The next contestant is Tottenham striker Dimitar Berbatov, nominated by darkmarcpi "for both his dashing Slavic looks and his performances for Tottenham in a football shirt for at least the first half of 2007. He could flop on the pitch and make it look......beautiful and balletic". Even if, unlike darkmarcpi, you are not obviously head over heels in love with Dimitar, nobody can deny his Slavic good looks. Unfortunately here I have chosen to use a photograph in which he sports a quite catastrophically bad hairstyle, although please bear in mind that he was playing in Germany at the time this picture was taken, where the standards for having good hair are that much lower, and where this look is probably considered immensely chic and desirable.
Next is, oh who is it, oh yes, Warren Buffet, nominated by juggzy, whose reason was his - Warren's, not juggzy's - pledge to give away 85% of his 44 billion dollar fortune. Fortune magazine writes that "five-sixths of the shares will go to the world's largest philanthropic organization, the $30 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, focused on world health - fighting such diseases as malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis - and on improving U.S. libraries and high schools". There's an interview with Warren here, where he explains his reasons, but I couldn't be bothered to read it, but for Christ's sake, if anyone deserves to win this tawdry bauble then surely it's either Warren, or me, for having given away one pound of my fortune to a homeless man with a dog outside Waterloo station the other week.
Or perhaps you prefer contestant no. 4, Ian Holloway, nominated by socialist_cook, "for tirelessly managing Plymouth Argyle and being very funny". Ian is no longer manager of Plymouth Argyle, having abandoned them for the glitz and glamour of Leicester City, but he does remain very funny, at least by football managers’ standards, which I know isn’t saying a lot. This is probably his most famous interview. In addition to tirelessly managing Plymouth Argyle - before he abandoned them for the glitz and glamour of Leicester City - and being very, Ian has nursed his wife through lymph cancer, and is the father to three deaf children, although if I'm being perfectly honest I think this is not so much Lovely as just Massively Unfortunate.
Our final contestant in this round is Jon Snow - not his arch-enemy John Thaw, he's dead now, stop thinking about him. Anyway Jon was nominated by giro_playgirl, who "saw him* riding around Manchester on a bike and he was lovely. Plus he shouted at his boss on air and I like his ties". Presumably giro_playgirl isn't including in Jon's lovely ties the monstrosity he's sporting in this picture, which I chose because he appears to be performing the actions of a man in a bad 1970's sitcom whose only dialogue is "ooh, ducky", or "seems like a nice boy". Jon once bought a Christmas tree at the same time I was buying a Christmas tree at the same garden centre in Camden. But is this enough to make him Lovely? Whatever, I'm done for the week.
You're voting for who you think are the biggest two Lovelies in this group. If you tick more than two, you will go to HELL. Voting closes at Evensong. Any votes cast after Evensong will not be valid, much like james_weekes's late vote for Christina Aguilera which was unable to prevent her defeat by James Ward. Of all people. I do not vote in these polls myself, but in the event of a tie I will cast the deciding vote.
Poll
* Jon Snow - not his arch-enemy John Thaw, he's dead now, stop thinking about him