It's Saturday night in lockdown and I'm on my 2nd glass of wine. So, going to do something I've not done in many years
1 like = 1 #ff entirely-fabricated ridiculous recommendation
Basically, I make up a ridiculous claim about you. For no reason, beyond my own amusement
#ff@fergup
He made a sex tape and accidentally leaked it online in the late 2000s. Despite not getting much attention in the mainstream, for various convoluted reasons, it ended up being the inspiration for Gangnam Style.
Has been banned for life from Graceland after kicking in every bathroom door and yelling "Is this the one he died in? That's how I want to go!", which violated the T&Cs of the official guided tours.
Was once mildly jabbed by a radioactive cactus, and now has some of the powers of a cactus
It was only a mildly radioactive cactus and it was only a small jab, so it's not that impressive. Mostly means he gets thirsty 13% slower than typical humans.
Night watchman at a shoelace museum. Tends to livestream his 2am patrols. Has accumulated over 3m YouTube followers and is in talks for a movie deal, because people are weird.
Holds the world record for drop kicking the most Christmas puddings over a portable toilet in under an hour. It's a hotly contested title, leading to him experiencing 6 confirmed assassination attempts (thus far).
He keeps it in a jar in his shed. Tourists can see it for the reasonable sum of £3. If they want a photo, it's £5, or £3 and a Curly-Wurly (other nostalgic confection considered upon request)
Has a chronic habit of ordering random stuff from eBay when drunk. Most intriguing purchase thus far is the rare Lego set of Up the Elephant and Round the Castle, complete with spare Jim Davidson figure for when you inevitably set fire to the first one
Producer of some of the finest organic wines in Europe.
Owns no agricultural land and employs no staff. Actually lives alone in a high-rise flat. No idea how any of that works, but seriously, it's *very* nice wine.
Due to a very convoluted and frankly ridiculous chain of events, his left shin is officially a sovereign nation. His trousers are technically a tax haven. Apple are currently in negotiations to set up their HQ in his sock.
Inventor of the ball pit. Was going for something else entirely, but there was a miscommunication at the patent office and it ended up becoming something waaaaaaay more child friendly.
A genuine real-world superhero. You've not head of him before, because vigilantism is illegal and he understands that but wants to keep doing what he's doing.
Member of the Illuminati. Mid-level member, though. Deputy HR manager, that sort of thing. Can't tell you anything about the shadowy plans for world domination, but will occasionally slip and reveal who's going to win Great British Bake Off ahead of time.
Extreme-knitter. Does very interesting but hard-to-replicate instructional videos on Tik-Tok. Not sure if anyone actively wants to know how to knock up a decent scarf in 15 minutes while suspended over a chasm with only a rabid sheep for company, but if you do...
You know when you see the face of Jesus in burnt toast/spills/tortillas etc? 35% of the time, it's not Jesus. It's @popsramsey. Some sort of legal settlement that got wildly out of hand, apparently.
Inventor of approximately 98 different flavours of crisps
None of the 'famous' ones, admittedly. It's only a matter of time, though. There's a lot of underground buzz about 'Hazelnut and marmite-coated pinecones' at the moment.
Food blogger, specialises in recipes involving the skins of poison arrow frogs. It's actually a very long winded assassination plan, but honestly, 'Toxic beans on toast' is a game changer.
Abstract artist. Her current project is a long-term installation where she does no abstract art and denies all knowledge of being an artist if and when people asked, even getting quite angry about it
74th in line to the throne of Ireland. The fact that Ireland hasn't had a hereditary monarch for centuries has not at any point stopped him ordering dedicated business cards
One of those Canadians. Coincidentally, has 1000 times the strength of a normal human. Can crush the average skull with one hand. But doesn't, because of Canadian politeness.
Stereotypes can sometimes be helpful, it turns out.
Flower arranger. She specialises in arranging dead or mouldy flowers into insulting forms and phrases, for making unpleasant ex partners feel bad. Would normally do Valentine's day specials, but she's booked solid for those for the next 11 years
Estranged brother of Craig David. Not as charismatic as his younger sibling, but will stick with you for longer than 7 days. 'Chilling' is not rigidly scheduled.
Currently live-tweeting his attempts to count every grain of sand on Brighton beach. Usually manages to get up to the high 10 thousands before falling asleep and having to start over again. Surprisingly soothing to follow in realtime.
Philosophical heavyweight, regularly tweets about how to use Uchlides's concepts of personal ambiguity to decipher modern day ideology through a socio-zeitgest lens.
Or it may be stuff about dogs. I'm not sure. I was never good at philosophy.
Professional procrastinator. Hasn't even tweeted yet. But it's a *deliberate* absence of content, and that makes all the difference. It's bespoke silence, you know?
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OK, so, seen many people sharing this image online today, often supportively.
YMMV of course, but based on my own understanding, rather than being insightful or 'right on', this is completely vile, and actively harmful, on multiple levels
Where to even start?
/1
First and foremost, there's the breath-taking entitlement. For a bloke to assume that not only should people send you nudes, but that that's the absolute bare minimum*, and is in fact an insult to your far more refined expectations? Good lord almighty
* = pun intended
/2
Different for women, obviously. Unsolicited dick pics are constant problem and a whole other thing. This doesn't say that, though. It's a bloke, talking about nudes. And literally puts his name to it. So original point still stands, I think
/3
OK, so what I learned from doing this thread is that when I tweet stuff, some people might actually read it. I should really keep that in mind in future
FWIW though, my thread was never meant as an all-out condemnation of the Guardian. Yeah, they really ballsed up here, but you know what? I still got my rebuttal published, and nobody else was giving a random Welsh science nerd clown his own blog on a major platform
/1
Yeah, Hari had (has?) a lot of had/defenders there, but they were definitely in the minority. That they wielded enough clout to promote his dangerous conclusions is very bad, and needed to be called out, hence I did. But most there were were very much on my side
/2
I've also been accused of some pretty far-out things by Hari fans in the intervening time, like I 'violated an embargo' or 'orchestrated a campaign' against him, as well as the usual 'big pharma shill' stuff.
All BS
Here, from my perspective, is what happened
/2
In Autumn 2017, I received an email, via my work account (still had Psychiatry lecturer day job then) offering me an advance copy of a new book all about depression, by one Jhoann Harri (name misspelled on purpose because of name searchers and honestly who has the time?)
/3
Seeing this picture doing the rounds lately, the one of Johnson 'Doing Science'
I'm not being facetious here; in my experience, that's exactly what media types call it, "Doing Science". It's a personal bugbear. Probably because I was once on the receiving end of it
[Thread]
/1
Back in the 'aughts, I was part of a TV show about the Welsh (well, Cardiff) comedy scene. It was for BBC Wales. If you've not seen it, don't worry about it
I was working on my PhD at the time, as well as doing stand-up. Which probably says a lot about my academic prospects
/2
The show was a sort of part X-Factor contest, part Fly-On-The-Wall documentary. I learned a great deal about how the media works by being part of it
Not in any way that was intended, of course. More a series of "...seriously? This is how it's done?" revelations.
/3