Social Media | Steve Woods

Counting to three

21/07/2022 Steve WoodsMedia, Politics, Social Media

According to Wikipedia, Tatler is a British magazine published by Condé Nast Publications which is targeted towards the British upper-middle class and upper class and those interested in society events. The topics it covers include fashion and lifestyle, plus high society and politics.

Its coverage of politics cannot be said to be well researched if the following from its Twitter account is to be taken at face value.

Second-ever female PM, Tatler?

Try counting again; and this time engage your brain!

If the Tatler’s staff can’t even count to three, it has to be wondered how accurate the rest its coverage of politics actually is.
The tweet has since been deleted.
Dorries goes to war – again and again and…

24/06/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics, Social Media, Tech

In the beginning was World War One (1914-18), then World War 2 (1939-45).

There have been various conflicts since 1945, but none has qualified being counted as a World War (note capitalisation) and their number has remained stuck firmly on two.

Until today.

Step forward one Nadine Vanessa Dorries, inexplicably elevated way beyond her subterranean ignorance threshold to serve as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, concerning whose appointment former Tory Party chairman Chris Patten is on record as saying: “And nobody should ever see the words ‘Nadine Dorries’ and ‘culture secretary’ in the same sentence”.

Following yesterday’s humiliating by-election defeats in Tiverton & Honiton and Wakefield, Nadine fearlessly took to social media as cheerleader in chief for the Cult of the Boris, tweeting the following.

World War 11?

That’s nine more than are acknowledged by the generally accepted historical record.

Whether Nadine was tweeting under the influence of digital dyslexia, innumeracy or something psychoactive has yet to come to light, but remember that part of Nadine’s brief is matters digital and the above tweet shows she cannot even use a mobile phone app – an iPhone Twitter client – competently, which bodes ill for this country.
Good riddance, Internet Explorer

17/06/2022 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Social Media, Tech

Two days ago (and not before time. Ed.) Microsoft ended support for Internet Explorer (IE) 11, the final version release of its web browser first introduced in 1994.

Over the years, Microsoft has been steering Windows users away from IE and towards Edge, its newer browser which is based upon the free and open source Chromium browser.

However, for those that still use sites and or pages that exploit the standards-ignoring qualities of IE, Edge does have an IE compatibility mode.

IE’s inability to adhere to standards had in the past created lots of extra work for web developers who had to code work-arounds for IE just to get their pages to work in what was then the world’s most popular browser. It was the world’s largest browser mainly due to Microsoft bundling IE with its Windows operating system and integrating it deeply into the structure of the OS. This led to lots of angry comments in the code of webpages and style sheets, frequently employing intemperate language.

Media – and social media – reactions to and reports of the news have been mixed. Business Matters on the BBC World Service got all misty-eyed and nostalgic earlier in the week. However, my favourite response to date is from the Twitter user known as beConjuror, drawing attention to the ‘not responding‘ feature of many of Microsoft’s fine products.
Unemployable

09/06/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

Party-time alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson survived a vote of confidence on Monday and is clinging to office despite 40% of his party colleagues voting against him, a higher proportion than previous no-confidence votes against former Tory premiers Margaret Thatcher (of sainted memory. Ed.) and Theresa May.

Since then Johnson and his supine cabinet have tried to appear competent with a flurry of policy announcements of the expired feline variety, including a ludicrous extension of the disastrous right to buy scheme to housing association tenants, including those on benefits.

Among those also spinning pointlessly – unlike a child’s top – is Penny Mordaunt, MP for Minister of State for Trade Policy, who tweeted a link to a piece (complete with a photograph of Rabid Dog [posts passim]. Ed.) she’d written for the Telegraph, house magazine of the Cult of the Adoration of the Boris and favoured reading matter of the Blue Team.

However, Mordaunt’s use of social media did not develop necessarily to her advantage, that of fellow members of the government of none of the talents or that of the party-time alleged prime minister, as the following exchange shows.

Yes, you read that correctly. One of the country’s leading fast food suppliers would not trust any current government minister to deliver their products, not exactly either a highly skilled or highly paid job.

Now that’s what your ‘umble scribe would call a proper vote of no confidence.
Trolling the government

05/06/2022 Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities, Politics, Social Media

Whilst your ‘umble scribe has done his best to avoid the jubilee jollities, he cannot help noticing that, in addition to the usual criticism found on social media, two of the pillars of the British establishment, namely the Church of England and the monarchy itself, have been indulging in some very subtle digs at the government nominally under the supposed leadership of party-time alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

After being booed by a flag-waving, pro-Establishment crowd on his way into a thanksgiving service for Elizabeth Mountbatten-Windsor, Johnson gave a bible reading. The text chosen by whoever in the Church of England devised the order of service was a master stroke as it included the text of Phillipians 4:8, which reads as follows:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Johnson’s lack of integrity is a matter of public record that extends back at least as far as his time as the Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent, when he would regularly tells lies and fabricate stories about what horrors the European Commission was hatching, thus adding further fuel to the xenophobic fire that eventually kindled into Brexit. Johnson has twice been sacked for lying, in addition to which he’s lied to his wives, his mistresses, parliament, the public and even to Elizabeth Mountbatten-Windsor herself. One of his employers, Max Hastings, is on record as saying: “Boris is a gold medal egomaniac. I would not trust him with my wife nor – from painful experience – my wallet.”

There is nothing pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy about the moral vacuum that resides beneath the superannuated blonde toddler haircut.

However, Johnson was not the only cabinet minister to be subjected to derision and ridicule.

Step forward please Priti Patel, a woman unfit to clean a public toilet inexplicably promoted way beyond her competence to the post of Home Secretary.

Patel’s choice of Barbie pink outfit to attend the jubilee thanksgiving service drew plenty of unpleasant comparisons on social media with Dolores Umbridge, a fictional character from the Harry Potter canon, who is described as “a fat, toad-like woman, with a wide, slack mouth, and a large bow usually in her hair and “one of the most hated, as well as the most compelling, villains in the series“.

Any resemblance to a cruel, inhuman and racist cabinet minister is purely coincidental.

Nevertheless, it was not only wags on Twitter who mocked the alleged home secretary. Buckingham Palace also joined in the fun.

Although the queen did not attend yesterday evening’s jubilee concert in person, she did appear in a specially commissioned video, as shown below. Here Paddington Bear who hails from ‘darkest Peru‘, arrived in this country wearing around his neck a label stating ‘Please look after this bear. Thank you.‘, and is perhaps this country’s best known fictional refugee (classified by the home secretary and her department as an illegal migrant. Ed.) is shown having tea at Buck House.

Patel would no doubt have the ursine migrant on one of her much-vaunted deportation flights to Rwanda.
1977 and all that

31/05/2022 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Politics, Social Media

1977 was allegedly a year for celebration as Elizabeth Mountbatten-Windsor had spent 25 years as unelected head of state of the English Empire (which some still call the United Kingdom. Ed.).

At the time I was in the final year of my degree and well remember derelict buildings in the town centre being draped in bunting in preparation for a drive-by the queen.

All the sycophancy at that time helped turn your ‘umble scribe into a lifelong republican, i.e. someone who would like to see this country abolish the monarchy and switch to having an elected – not hereditary – head of state. This is not to be confused with a right-wing US political party spelled with an upper case first letter.

Come right up to date and Elizabeth Mountbatten-Windsor has now been minding the shop for 70 years, a record for the country. However, support for the monarchy is not as widespread or whole-hearted as it was in 1977 and in Scotland support for the monarchy is now down to 45%, as reported by The Guardian.

However, that does not mean that republicans are having an easy ride for their beliefs, which they allegedly have a democratic right to express, as illustrated by the tweet below from the account of the Jeremy Vine show on Channel 5, a low point in daytime TV.

I have no intention of being quiet. Indeed, yesterday I found the Stuff The Jubilee badge I bought in 1977 and am already wearing it with pride as per the encouragement from my ex-wife.

Your correspondent won’t be the only one in east Bristol not celebrating this momentous non-event. News of three of our local pubs organising a F*ck the Jubilee punk festival has not gone down too well with some sections of the city’s populace.

At a national level, Republic, the organisation campaigning for the abolition of the monarchy, has organised a petition to make Elizabeth the second the last monarch.
And finally, now for something completely different…
A guide for the rest of us

18/05/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

The For Dummies set of reference books/instruction manuals has for years been sold as a non-intimidating guide for ordinary mortals and in its early days used to feature the wording in the title as a reassuring means of gaining sales from Joe and Jane Soap (or John and Jane Doe for readers on the north Atlantic Ocean’s eastern shores. Ed.).

The series’ follow the bouncing ball style of guidance has over the years been ridiculed and that ridicule in turn used to good advantage to mock those clearly out of their depths in their chosen profession or – heaven forbid – the public office to which they have been elevated.

Which brings us to the alleged government’s current Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, one Elizabeth Mary Truss.

Liz, as she prefers to be called, has the reputation of not being very bright, but that is no obstacle to high public office in the kakistocracy presided over by party-time alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

She is however, a fully paid-up member of the two clubs to which all government ministers and Tory Party loyalists are now supposed to belong, the Cult of Brexit and the Cult of the Adoration of the Boris.

And it is in relation to the first cult that this post is being penned.

In the mid-18th century a song was composed exhorting Britannia to rule the waves. Since Brexit one is more likely to see Britannia waiving the rules – as is currently being threatened by the British government in respect of the Northern Ireland Protocol, a treaty between the English Empire (which some still call the United Kingdom . Ed.) and the European Union, which has the status of international law.

Reading between the lines, it is obvious that Johnson and his government have no intention of honouring by the Protocol and are currently seeking to tear it up, with Truss making a statement to this effect yesterday in the House of Commons.

Which brings us once again the Dummies and the inspired piece of parody.

As regards the references in the image to pork markets and a limited and specific way, a search engine is your friend. 😀

Needless to say, the antics of Johnson and Truss have not been warmly received by the EU Commission.

Truss’ plans will also send a clear message to states with whom the government may seek to conclude a trade deal that the British government’s word is not to be trusted.

To hark back once again to another phrase coined in the 18th century, perfidious Albion is alive and well.
Common touch? Out of touch

09/05/2022 Steve WoodsPolitics, Social Media

It has long been a source of amusement when high-ranking politicians try to show they have the common touch and end up making fools of themselves.

Such an instance happened yesterday when the death of actor Dennis Waterman was announced.

Step forward Nadhim ‘Stable Genius’ Zahawi, the Downright Dishonourable Member of Parliament for Stratford Upon Avon and current Secretary of State for Education, who clearly showed why education is not safe in his hands, taking to Twitter and expressing his condolences as follows with no style at all.

RIP Pete. A great actor, grew up watching minder.

Zahawi had clearly confused 2 Watermans in the public eye, namely Pete Waterman, purveyor of pop tunes for the likes of Kylie Minogue and the late Dennis.

Pete Waterman
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Dennis Waterman
Image courtesy of Garry Knight

Zahawi’s foul-up did not go unnoticed and is being widely mocked on social media, of which the following is an example.

Pete Waterman and Harry Cole really made Minder the hit it was. Shame they’re both dead now.

Some while later Zahawi noticed his mistake and tweeted the following.

Made a mistake, RIP Denis Waterman
Note finally Zahawi did not have to the good grace to include an apology for his earlier error as any normal mortal would have done.
A short history of tractors in Tiverton & Honiton

01/05/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is a humorous novel by Marina Lewycka, first published in 2005, which went on to win the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize at the Hay literary festival, the Waverton Good Read Award 2005/6 and was shortlisted for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction, Over one million copies of the novel have been sold in the UK.

On the other hand, A short history of tractors in Tiverton and Honiton is a sordid, grubby little tale of unacceptable behaviour in the workplace, plus the lies proffered as explanations of such conduct, which first came to light in late April 2020.

The main protagonist of the more recent tale is the now disgraced former so-called Honourable Member of Parliament for the constituency of Tiverton and Honiton (up to now a safe Conservative seat. Ed.), one Neil Quentin Gordon Parish.

Our tale starts in the final week of April 2020 when the media reported that an unnamed Tory MP was accused of watching pornography in the chamber of the House of Commons.

The allegation was made at a meeting of Conservative MPs at which attendees shared stories of sexism and sexual harassment at Westminster, including the claim that one MP had watched sexually explicit material in the chamber and was spotted doing so by two female colleagues, one of whom is a government minister.

This prompted an investigation being launched by the Tory Chief Whip with the outcome of Parish being suspended from the party.

Before he was revealed as the guilty party, Parish even had the nerve to appear on right-wing “news” channel GB News (aka GBeebies, Ed.) to remark that when discovered, the accused MP should be “dealt with and dealt with seriously“

As pressure mounted, Parish referred himself to parliament’s Standards Commissioner, who likewise initiated an investigation.

By this point any reasonable and rational human being would have realised that their position was untenable and written a resignation letter. Not Parish. He dug his heels in.

As reported by The Guardian, Parish gave the BBC’s Politics South West programme the following totally lame excuse:

The situation was that – funnily enough it was tractors I was looking at. I did get into another website that had a very similar name and I watched it for a bit which I shouldn’t have done.
But my crime – biggest crime – is that on another occasion I went in a second time.

It’s the kind of mistake any can make isn’t it: looking for tractors online when one encounters pr0n, especially with all those closely related domain names?

Well; actually, Mr Parish it is not.

Parish was rightly ridiculed for this pathetic excuse, including by Deputy Labour Party leader, Angela Rayner, a frequent target for Conservative sexism and misogyny.

Yesterday, Parish resigned as an MP and the Liberal Democrats are once again looking to overturn a 20,000-plus parliamentary majority, as they did in December 2020 in North Shropshire (which had been a de facto Conservative one party state since 1832. Ed.) when the disgraced grifter Owen Paterson resigned after being caught breaching advocacy rules.

Time to get comfy with a big bowl of popcorn, politics fans… 😀
Humour and social media

29/04/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics, Social Media, Tech

I’ve been on Twitter for 13 years now and there’s never a dull moment on the platform.

One of my old college friends told me earlier this week he’d left the platform, describing it as a bear pit.

Twitter can indeed by a rough and unforgiving place if one discusses politics and especially when one tries to debate with those with views diametrically opposed to one’s own. However, your ‘umble scribe has noticed over the decades that public discourse has become less respectful and courteous.

Nevertheless, the Twitter is not all ursine-baiting gloom and doom. There are those who post photos of nature, their gardens, pets and the like which leavens the gloom and doom.

Furthermore, there is a lot of humour on the platform too. Some of the best political quips I relate in other places have usually originated from Twitter.

However, the humour extends to other fields than politics and its practitioners and can be gentler in such areas, as per the example below, which will appeal to lovers of language and English in particular.

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