Tag: twitter

Putting it Bluntly

Posted on

James Blunt (as mentioned previously here and here), continues to respond to his critics on twitter with wonderfully dry humour:

 

 

As that bottom one suggests, he does have a new album out. You might want to be brave, swallow your preconceptions and give it a listen. No-one has to know. And who knows, you might like it.

The problem with South African Twitter right now

Posted on

@TheAndrew40 nails it in two tweets:

Looking at twitter, is our thinking being informed by the opinions of quite a few not so credible media /media aligned individuals? Most of them are self-proclaimed (not actual journalists or intellectuals) and have built a “personal brand” on Twitter.

Absolutely. And I’m getting rather fed up of being told what I must think by a handful of people (and we can all easily name some names) whose opinions – despite their lofty beliefs and/or follower counts – are worth no more to anybody than mine are.
So: no, thank you.

We’d all do well to remember that these high and mighty individuals aren’t special. They must voetsek.

 

 

Wait. Unless he’s talking about me, of course.

Hmm.

Royal Baby Excitement: An Explanation for (some) South Africans

Posted on

There were a lot of people getting very excited about events at a London hospital yesterday. And there were a lot of locals here who didn’t seem to understand why there were a lot of people getting very excited about events at a London hospital yesterday and they actually got quite annoyed about the people who were excited.

I’ve never really understood why if something doesn’t interest people, they feel that they have to aggressively criticise it. To me, it suggests some sort of insecurity. Who knows?

Anyway, I fell into the middle of the two of the groups. I wasn’t hugely excited about the birth of the royal baby, but equally, I didn’t have a problem with the people who were.

So here’s a way I thought of explaining it, in a journalists outside a hospital kind of way.

Compare this line (much used yesterday as a reason to belittle those excited people):

“It’s just a baby. Hundreds of women have babies every day.”

with this line:

“He’s just a patient in a heart hospital. Hundreds of people are patients in heart hospitals every day.”

Which is a pretty ridiculous sentiment for anyone* in South Africa to accept, because Madiba has almost deity-like status here. He’s a special person. His is a public interest story. So yes, there are many other heart hospital patients around, but Madiba is South Africa’s heart hospital patient, and that’s why his hospitalisation is different.

Well, the birth of the royal baby is Britain’s version of Madiba’s hospital stay. You can see that it matters to “us” in the same way that Madiba matters to SA simply by looking at the similar scenes outside the Pretoria Heart Hospital and St Mary’s in London.

It’s not an ideal analogy, but it’s not far off.

Live and let live: whether it’s babies, former presidents or excited punters.

 

* 99%+ of people, anyway.

Astronaut problems

Posted on

I have no idea of the veracity of this*, but I think it’s great anyway.
Gravity wins again:

hadfield

Hadfield returned to earth this week after 146 days in space on board the ISS. And while there were other astronauts up there with him, he was the one who kept us updated with the goings on aboard the vessel and gave us brilliant pictures like this.

* actually, now I do. Real tweet, but not the real man. 🙁