We are off on a nice start. And I am scrapping my original plan of blogging the challenge on Muse-Day only because I wanted to highlight that a few readers/bloggers have taken up the challenge and posted their answer to question 1. Read about Kelly’s reasons to try out blogging here on her blog NowhereinparticularRA. Perry’s post nearly slipped under my radar – she adds a few deliberations of her own. Worth reading and discussing on Armitage Agonistes here. I’d also like to encourage you to read through comments because that is where our reader-commentators are replying to the challenge with their own stories. Check out Kathy Jones here, and I warmly welcome recently de-lurked commentator snowyjo’s comment here.

Before I launch into question 2, let me just reiterate that there is no pressure on anyone to take part or to disclose stuff they don’t want to bang on about publically. But part of the challenge is to not only (re)evaluate your approach to your own blog, but possibly the fandom at large, by looking at motivations, processes, topics, joys and tribulations.

The Significance of my Blog’s Name

Regular readers of this blog know that the when it comes Richard Armitage, this blog’s author is openly Guy. Unfortunately that snazzy little slogan did not come to me when I was looking for a name for my blog. “Openly Guy” – now, that would’ve made a nice funky title. As it was, when it came to naming my initial tumblr blog, I wanted a title with a clear reference to Guy of Gisborne. I literally put the letters “G U I” into a Scrabble word finder and looked for words. Disguise. Ambiguity. Languish. Guillotine? Nah. Somehow the whole concept of a guilty pleasure I was pursuing with my ogling blogging crept up in the back of my mind: And since I am a great believer in all pleasures, I settled on that.

Time has proven that I was not really that clever with the name. For starters, the reference to Sir Guy in the spelling of “Guylty” kept interfering with the pronunciation of “guilty”. I read it as the adjective guilty, but some of my friends pronounce it modelled after the eponymous Guy as guy-lty, which has unfortunate aural similarities with the German word geil, meaning “horny”. Ahem. Stop laughing. That pun was *not* intended however close to the bone it may be… But I hung on to it when I started on WP because I wanted to keep all my Armitaging activities under the same name. Call it cross-platform branding 😉 I also sometimes wish I hadn’t chosen it because there is something negative about the word guilty, and I am an inherently positive person in case you hadn’t noticed it yet 😀 But hey, that all gets balanced out by the pleasure in my name, so it’s all good. So there we are. The usual half-baked, not-quite-thought-through sort of stuff you have come to expect from yours truly. Still love Guy, though, and I have become so attached to my nick that I did not even blink twice when I was addressed thus by fellow fans whom I met last year in London.

What about you? What was the thought process behind naming *your* blog? And reader-commentators – I’d love to know what made you settle on the name you are commenting under.

Before I go, I have another point on my agenda. I’d like to report on the status of the “Yankee Candle Rush”. Remember this tumblr post where someone had discovered the perfect YC  scent to describe Richard Armitage? And then someone bought it and this happened:

Well yeah, I finally went out to the local YC store today. I have to report, however, that us unfortunate European fans of Richard Armitage (and pleasant scents) are deprived of the olfactory onslaught that “Mountain Lodge” apparently is. The manly “Mountain Lodge” scent, made of cedarwood and sage, and reminiscent of waking up in lumberjack plaid-clad, muscled arms in a snowed-in mountain cabin, is not for sale outside of North America. Boo! The knowledgable and sweet (male!) shop assistant in my local YC store went to great lengths to find me similar scented candles from the European range of Y Candles. Oh, he laboured so earnestly – while I was secretly (and figuratively) pissing myself at pretending to search for a “nice, masculine scented candle for a good friend of mine” *ahem*. Yeah, right. Anyhow, after much sniffing and smelling, I came away with a little sample candle of a suitably masculine scent that will act as the next best thing.

There it is, creating some atmosphere in my drawing-room, illustrating that delicious image of Armitage by Leslie Hassler from a couple of years ago. It’s called “Midsummer’s Night”, although the French name “Nuit d’été” does unspeakable things to me. That’s down to too much Guy talk, probably. According to YC’s marketing blurb it is “an intoxicating and masculine blend of musk, patchouli, sage and mahogany cologne”. Ahhh. Science has proven that odours are more effective at triggering detailed and arousing memories than music, for instance. And boyohboy, is it effective!! Not that I have any memories of our man, or his scent for that matter. But the mixture of a fresh, clean, soapy smell and the invigorating scent of a musky after-shave sure inspires fantasy… I imagine a rustically informal Armitage taking his coat off after a roll in the hay and lulling me with a soft waft of male presence. ‘Nuff said. Try it out. I can’t stop lifting the candle to my nose to take a whiff.

PS: This infotainment post has been brought to you by Guylty Pleasure. I am open to offers of compensation for further promo posts for YC. Fee also accepted in kind.