John Bull Profile picture
11 Mar, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Your periodic reminder that "just asking questions" in someone's replies doesn't make you Aristotle. It makes you a wanker.

There's a LOT of it going around right now.
Don't be a Sea Lion lads. It's fucking toxic behaviour. Wondermark comic describing...
No harm in GENUINE questions. But things to think about:

1) is this about THEIR experience, not mine?
2) Will answering add to THEIR emotional labour, not mine?
3) Am I lazily asking them to be my Google?
4) Would they have to be stupid to not have already thought about this?
Also, obviously:

5) Am I just being an irritating wanker?

The people who SHOULD ask that last one never will do, obviously.

But you can always go for:

5b) Will it make me LOOK like one of those guys who is an irritating wanker?

Because they have the same answer.

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More from @garius

14 Mar
Your morning "how London government works" reminder, ahead of the inevitable terrible takes:

The Mayor of London is prohibited BY LAW from getting involved with/dictating police operations beforehand.

It's not a devolved power. It sits with the Home Secretary still.
This won't stop the "Look, I'm not a racist, but Sadiq Khan could have..." types.

But I figured I should alert those of you who are sensible people to this.

Because I get that the quirks of London political devolution are unfamiliar to most people, who have actual lives.
UPDATE TO ADD:

Home Secretary actually has limited ability to do anything either in advance. Thanks to @foot_on_foot for the clarification here:

Read 15 tweets
12 Mar
Decided to overthrow Hitler.

How's your morning going?
Gonna try and unlock Victoria 3
Who doesn't love a good pocket full of Nazis? HOI4 screenshot. Nazi force...
Read 23 tweets
11 Mar
How to write an About section if you have no choice. A thread:

1) DECIDE WHO IT IS FOR:

- Users who need to understand who you are as a team or individuals
- Regulators, because you're legally required to show your creds
- Your staff. To make them feel valued

/1
2) WRITE IT FOR THAT AUDIENCE AND THAT AUDIENCE ONLY

- Think about the tone of voice they would expect it to be in.
- Do an actual list, with a pen, on paper, of the things they actually need to read.
3) GET TO THE POINT

Keep the the content short and to the point, using your written list. Your About page is not fucking Lord of the Rings. You don't need to open it with several paragraphs waffling on about the amazing tale you're about to weave.

No elven poetry, either.
Read 10 tweets
8 Mar
No argument there.

I'm not making a moral judgement on the way the Queen has wielded the monarchy she has created. I'm just explaining how she's done it. And that she's done it WELL.

But the model comes with a cost: It means you HAVE to defend the individuals within it.
Because The Firm has to stick together. If you follow the rules of patronage and public behaviour, you get 100% backing. That's the price for it.

But the UNWRITTEN rule she built in was that you should do anything TOO awful in your private life.
And 'awful', in this model means anything outright criminal, or which makes you look too normal. You need to be relatable, but aloof.

Don't do ANYTHING that you wouldn't want to see on a commemorative plate.
Read 8 tweets
8 Mar
Agree.

The Queen has saved AND destroyed the monarchy. She forged it into something fit for the 20th Century by linking it to generational support of an individual, not the office.

But her long reign has robbed Charles AND William of their chance to build generational bases.
The Mail/Tabloid response right now is all:

BUT THE QUEEEEN!

That's fatal for it as institution, in its current form. The Sussex disaster has highlighted that keeping the EXISTING generational support (Boomers, high-end Xers) is incompatIble with support from Xennial and below.
You can't build a new form of monarchy when your powerbase is the Daily Mail comment section. You can only prolong the old one.

And that means when change DOES come, you have no control over the direction it takes.

The Firm got gifted a chance to pivot, and missed it.
Read 6 tweets
6 Mar
A tail has been placed upon me. This means I am not allowed to move. Kitty sitting on footstool....
This is the evening visit. He has arrived, distinctly perfumed, and is claiming he has been out hunting sparrows all day and definitely doesn't have an actual home that he has been snoozing in. No siree.

Also, are there any Dreamies? He believes he could force a few down if so.
Failing that, if everyone in the house could instead go to bed immediately so he can snuggle up on a duvet, then this would also be acceptable.
Read 4 tweets

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