Fat boy bursts; Ranter fined.

Last Thursday, the exit polls having shown that Labour had lost, I prepared a post lamenting the fact. I was going to publish it as soon as the Cameroons and Cleggites had reached an agreement. Late yesterday afternoon, when I received a text from Pat while I was walking the dogs saying ‘Gordon has resigned’, that moment seemed to have arrived. However, by the time I got home everything had changed: Gordon’s resignation was not with immediate effect and it looks as though a Lib-Lab pact is a real rather than a merely theoretical possibility. Unfortunately I’d missed seeing fat-boy Boulton being wound up by Campbell on Sky News: it had reduced Pat to tears of hysterical laughter. However, thanks to the Guardian I was able to read a transcript this morning and, even better, thanks to You Tube  I was able to see a recording of the interview. 

   We watch quite a lot of Sky News and it’s a fairly depressing experience. First there’s the underlying Murdoch agenda: there was a good example the Monday before last. I got home from walking the dogs to find Pat very excited by Gordon’s barnstorming speech at the Methodist Central Hall she’d just watched on Sky. Unfortunately, the next, and every subsequent, time it was reported all we saw was a shot of a heckler. The initial report was at 5pm BST when hardly anyone would have seen it. But this will have allowed  Sky to reject any claim of anti-Labour bias: we showed the speech in full - it’s not our fault if no one was watching. 

  Secondly there are the dismal production values. Thirdly, there’s the collection of weirdos who present it. Martin Stanford, a cross between Mr Pastry and an ineffectual Classics master, is the least objectionable.  Jeremy Thompson, perpetually narrowing his eyes as he pauses portentously between syllables is merely amusing. But then there are the zombie lookalikes: Jeff (sic) -pity his parents couldn’t spell - Randall, all synthetic anger, and the genuinely terrifying sports presenter whose name I can’t recall so sparing the reader the traumatic experience of a googled photo.

 I don’t normally have much sympathy for people who use Twitter. They have taken narcissism to a whole new level beyond us sad folk who blog. At least we know that our bowel movements and how much marmite we put on our toast today is unlikely to be of interest to anyone. And we have the ability to expand an idea beyond a hundred and forty characters. The only time I’ve ever agreed with Cameron is when he described someone who tweets as a twat, though I suspect, despite his expensive education, he had no more idea than Browning of  the word’s dictionary definition. However,this morning I was astonished to read of some poor bloke getting fined, and consequently losing his job, for sending a tweet saying he’d like to blow up the airport where he was stranded. The nanny state in a good mood is bad enough but when she’s lost her sense of humour she’s a monster. All Paul Chambers was doing was having a very brief rant. Heaven help me if the authorities ever find their way to this site.