8454/21373
To think if the Nobel committee had just sucked it up and given him the prize, they could have won next year's Nobel Peace Prize.
I think it's time for a World War where America turn up at the start. And whilst I appreciate the Americans finally acknowledging that kings are best after all, I think that fact alone means that the people of the UK are within our rights to take back what rightfully belongs to us. And all the other bits of America that we never had too. And I reckon we're going to need Greenland too. Easy to see how this stuff escalates once you get into it.
It's amazing what happens when you just decide to not obey any rules. You'd think someone would step in to stop you, but it turns out there is no one. I would assume that billionaires were the last people who'd want to expose this fundamental truth. If enough of you get together there's nothing to stop you just going up to their houses and taking all their stuff and putting their heads on poles and their eyes in jewellery (Guy Fawkes cross ref). It's even better if you can put someone in charge who will just pardon you later if you do get into trouble.
I am just so pleased that American democracy has all those checks and balances. Just no one to check them or rebalance them if they balance goes wrong.
Eventually these people will all get their comeuppance, you might just not be alive to see it.
I understand some of the European nations are a bit put out by all this too. I reckon we might be able to form some kind of union with them to sort it out.
I finally decided to quite Twitter (call it by its name) today, only partly because it's a horrible cess pool, mainly because I feel like I am not getting as much out of social media as I once did. I was going to shut down my account, but thought that left me open to someone hijacking my valuable Herring1967 handle, so I have just logged out on my laptop and deleted the app on my phone. I supposedly have about 300,000 followers on there, but it's telling that my final message saying that you can find me on Substack has led to maybe 60 new subscriptions. Either no one cares what I say (fair enough) or the tweets don't get through to the people who follow me. Let's say it's the latter. Either way, twitter is of no use and causes a lot of aggravation. I saw someone saying that going on viral on social media was like winning on a fruit machine which instead of giving you money, shoots out wasps. The future might turn out to be a boot stamping on a human face forever, but it's definitely a fruit machine that pays out in wasps. If Orwell had said that then we could have taken him seriously. Otherwise he got everything wrong. I haven't seen a single farm run by pigs standing on their hind legs yet. Just saying, Eric. 1984 was a relatively good year. I got 11 O levels and a girlfriend (who admittedly didn't put out). I was only locked in a room full of rats about four times.
Anyway, it does feel a bit of a relief to turn off one of my social media outlets. Am I going to do the others too? I do want to try and beat my addiction to screens, though feel something else on line will take the place of Twitter (which I hardly went on any more except to check football scores, like some kind of Lord Sugar - we turn into what we once mocked). Stopping playing internet poker hasn't yet opened up a world of real life experiences. Even though I only use Instagram to post links to podcasts, I spend a lot of time looking at the things it suggests to me (it seems to think I like plane crashes and large breasts, though actually I only like plane crashes involving large breasts, so it should just be showing me that bit in Airplane that I liked as a kid where the naked woman runs across screen).
So goodbye Twitter. Thanks for all the friends, thanks for helping me get the podcasts off the ground, for helping me raise funds for projects and for charity, for making sure I never forget when International Men's Day is, for Stephen Fry trapped in a lift, for Me1 Vs Me2 Snooker, for the night that Michael Jackson died, for being a notepad for new jokes, for giving me three days of Hell when I tried to suggest we should think about our use of disablist terms (I think the only time that social media actually made me cry and only after it was basically over), for making me laugh and offering me solace on the day I lost a bollock, for giving me a gig at your HQ where I got paid more per minute than I've ever been paid in my life (I only did ten minutes) and for making it easy for me to contact celebrities I didn't personally know (basically all celebrities) so I could ask them on my podcast.
It only started going wrong with that sink joke that didn't make sense. And the bloke holding the sink, who thought he'd made a joke and that also it'd be good to totally fuck up something, that to be fair was a bit fucked up already by that stage.
I am as sad as I am relieved to leave. And I am not doing it to own the fas or the antifas. I can cope with being on a platform with people I disagree with and to be honest the people who agree with me are sometimes worse. It's just time to go, whilst leaving everything I'd done on there in tact as a testament to the many, many hours I've wasted on the internet since 2010.
Bluesky next.
