Today I won a Bad Taste Award for a staggeringly awful post I wrote this year in the Archers newsgroup UMRA.

Throughout the year, UMRATs compete with each other to say the most awful things, and if you are caught doing it, a fellow reader will pounce on your post and say BTN! which is Bad Taste Nomination.  These are all carefully collected through the year by the BTM (Bad Taste Monitor) known as the Purple Potter. (In addition her duties on UMRA, she’s a talented ceramacist.) At the end of the year, they are judged against each other, and the BTAs are awarded at a glittering ceremony on Usenet.

My solecism?  A person had been grumbling that you can’t move a foot in France without being taxed for it; at the time, body parts had been washing up on a North American beach and, well, I’m sure you can see the link I made. 

In Canada, you’re supposed to call the police before moving a foot off  the beach.

The sad thing is I wouldn’t even have realised if it hadn’t been for a friendly nudge on my wall on Facebook.  UMRA generates a lot of messages, and I seldom have time to read them all – these days, more of my online time is taken up with blogs than usenet, and every other group I’m in has more or less withered away.