Inspired by @Chislehurst, this is the first TwitWatch UK post.. if all goes to plan and you like them, I will make them weekly all year 🙂
Coalition raise VAT to 20% – Twitter plot’s to scupper the extra tax on biscuits by pledging to buy Jaffa Cakes instead of HobNobs.. mwa ha ha.. (I had trouble finding Jaffa Cakes today, they were sold out in a lot of stores #TwitterWin )
1st Anniversary of the day a man made a stupid joke – A year ago this week, Paul Chambers sent the #TwitterJokeTrial tweet, which led to a conviction and him losing his job. Paul (with the help of fantastico lawyer @JackOfKent aka David Allen Green) is taking the case to the High Court in a bid to clear his name. To help Paul, please donate what you can to the Trial Fund or buy a fab T-Shirt or Mug 🙂
I Am Spartacus!
Kenneth Tong, You’re SO Wrong.. This week also brought us the joy that is Kenneth Tong, a man with the plan to make all women a size Zero. I have NEVER been a size Zero in my life, certainly not going to try it now.. pass the Jaffa cakes..
RIPs – Twitter mourned the loss of Gerry Rafferty and Pete Posselthwaite this week and for an hour or so, that of Gabrielle Giffords, the US Senator who was critically injured (first thought of as dead) in a horrific shooting for which the Tea Party are seemingly responsible.. if only indirectly, which left 6 people including a nine-year old girl, dead.
Expenses Scandal MP Jailed – On Friday, Labour MP David Chaytor was rightfully imprisoned for 18 months over his £20,000 expenses fraud. This news was somewhat overshadowed by sordid revelations by my MP!
Hashtaggery – A silly hashtag #LameToFame gave us all a laugh this week, my contribution was the fact I have a pair of Johnny Vaughn’s discarded long-john’s.. long john’s/long story.. !
Jaffa Cakes – In support of the splendid Jaffa Cake and inspired by last week’s TV special #StarGazing presented by Professor Brian Cox, Humph revives the wonderful “Eclipse” advert…
Someone take the hanger out of my mouth, I haven’t stopped grinning since last night’s Golden Twits awards show. I am SO proud of my two awards, Pictures and Private Individual, which were both voted for by YOU LOT, which means far more to me than if I had won a “voted for by Judges” one.
I’d thought on Monday that I may have won something as the hosts emailed me to confirm they would “really, really like it” if I could go along. So then I had a real dilemma as to whether to attend or not. The journey to London alone was daunting, without the thought of sitting through the show itself. So, after badgering the lovely hosts into promising to look after me properly, I bought my ticket : )
What to wear?? Do I go as “Humphrey”, “Ms Cushion” or plain old me? I picked a bit of everything in the end!
Although I had dreaded the journey, I thoroughly enjoyed driving through the London streets, passing all my old haunts of yesteryear. I used to work in the “Old Smoke” and had forgotten my absolute love for the place. I also got to see my first “Barclay’s bike” !
Met by the lovely @Feisty_Onion and @Jaloopa23, we went in and down the stairs to the basement of Bar 1920, Great Sutton St. The bar is long and narrow,with seating mostly around the walls. There isn’t a stage as such so the organisers had set up a screen with a microphone in front, at the far end of the room. I read some of your tweets but pity the poor, poor comedian a little.. not only did he have an audience made up of US.. Tweeters who are lucky enough to read the most up-to-date, side-splitting and tea-spitting-out jokes on Twitter every day but he was also battling with no stage and the audience spread over a long, noisy space. (I do think he was a little mis-cast though as his material depended heavily on finding drug abuse and Canadians funny.. )
Some men were evicted from their seats next to the “stage” so that I didn’t have to move far to make a pratt of myself accept the awards – I know I said recently “nobody puts Humph in the corner” but I was really grateful to be put, although it stopped me socializing 😦 I was hoping to have a chat with fellow “public” winner @Konnolsky’s erm, “representative”, who was suspiciously Konnolsky-like but his secret is safe with me.. best offer for his pic? ; )
A live stream was set up, if it was recorded and be available for me to link to I ‘ll do so but it hasn’t appeared anywhere yet. Probably just as well as I think my first “140 character acceptance speech” went down fairly well (although only a handful of people in the bar “got it”, I read out the #TwitterJokeTrial tweet – what a rebel!) but my second was disastrous.. I hadn’t banked on winning twice! I waffled on about thanking my manager, hairdresser, costume designer, photographer etc.. but as nobody really had a clue who I am or what I “do”, it went down even worse than the first one!
Until the footage is available, this is a pretty good version of how I looked whilst accepting my award ; ) (ht @dickmandrake )
Part of my “award” is that I am now a BRAT (British Academy of Twits)… which means that I get to vote as a Judge next year : ) Maybe I can add B.R.A.T after my name as Doctor’s do? Its funny, my dear old Dad often called me a brat and a twit, I expect he is looking down laughing now in the knowledge that his prophecy was fulfilled ; )
I hope that I can also have some input into the event itself next year as I think it would have been much improved by a larger audience and more information about each nominee or winner. Most of the awards were to business people, not “ordinary” tweeters like me and @Konnolsky and I suspect that the £23 ticket price put a lot of tweeters off of attending. I’m not complaining though, we were well looked after and given free drinks tokens (even though I was on the coke!)
My Drinkies..
Not my drinkies..
( Spot the Knob)
Although I crawled along for an extra hour on the M1 on the way home that should have been spent in bed and I’m in pain today, all things considered I’m glad I went – I’ve never won anything before in my life and didn’t have @DianaInHeaven’s excuse not to attend.. . I got to laugh a few lovely hours away with my favourite root vegetable (@Feisty_Onion) and I have my awards and a big goofy smile. Thank you SO much Twitter, you made an old bag very happy 😀
For full details of the awards and winners, visit the Golden Twits website : )
Have been thinking a lot about Twitter over the past few days. Since the ridiculous verdict in the #TwitterJokeTrial, it is apparent that the majority of people still don’t “get” Twitter.
I could be talking to the afore-mentioned judge Jacqueline Davies, the Jeremy Vine show (who still don’t let tweeters join in the live debates, despite promising to do so) or to YOU, yes, YOU… OK, so you have a Twitter account, but do you “get” it?
A family member came to see me recently and asked “What is Twitter anyway?”… then, when I explained it roughly to her said “Well, *I* won’t be washing *my* dirty linen in public anyway… She has it SO wrong. Yes, some people do use Twitter to discuss their day-to-day events with total strangers “I’m having roast chicken sandwiches for lunch”.. “my boyfriend dumped me” , “have to go on the school-run, bye”.. etc but there is SO much more to Twitter : )
Twitter is the world’s biggest Chat Room.. a place to exchange greetings, jokes, advice and news.. Twitter is a veritable circus tent full of interesting people and topics including; Celebrities, Politicians, TV and Radio shows, Newspapers, photos from space, satire accounts and especially US, the general public, who keep it lively and constantly updated : )
What you get out of Twitter really depends on who you follow.. I don’t tend to follow celebrities, politicians etc now as they generally seem to use Twitter for self-promotion, not engagement. I keep some of them in lists on my Tweetdeck though, I have lists open for all sorts of topics. Splitting tweeters into lists makes it easier to follow larger groups of people and also helps to keep topics such as “labour tweets” in one, easy to see view.
Breaking news spreads within minutes round Twitter, we knew about the sad passing of Alex Higgins over half an hour before Wikipedia and almost an hour and a half before the news channels reported it. Sometimes people spread false RIP rumours though, Twitter’s most recent “victim” was Cilla Black, who IS still with us and shall no doubt be appearing in panto very soon lads and lasses.. Speaking of which, still havent ordered my wigs ; )
In short; Twitter is for chat, debate, sharing news, music, sandwich recipes, videos.. jokes, awareness about issues, raising charity funds, friends..
P.T. Barnum had the right idea.. fill a massive room with the most weird and wonderful attractions on earth, he called it Humbug , I call it Twitter : )
“I’ve joined the circus like I wanted to, when I was a kid. Climbed aboard before it moved on and you bet your life im glad I did. Went to bed in Minneapolis, woke up in PA. Packed my roll, my brush and my comb again, Ready to roll again, ready to stray. Bless my soul; I’ll never go home again, When the circus comes my way…”
I’VE ORDERED THE ONE WITH THE ORIGINAL TWEET ON IT AND HOPE TO ATTEND THE COURT WEARING IT : ) *I* AM SPARTACUS!!
Que?? Yes, you heard it right.. this picture by @Crispian_Jago :
Lead to this idea.. we print “I Am Spartacus” T-Shirt’s up and sell them to raise money for the #TwitterJokeTrial fighting fund.. While the “powers that be” discuss the legalities and finer details of the finances etc, lets chuck a few ideas around shall we?
Please add your comments and I will update this page with the best suggestions etc as we go…
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