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Conversation is a dying art so don’t forget... it’s
good to rant!
C
onveration is a dying art, soon to be mates? Do me a favour. Can’t anyone else see that And then along comes Twitter. Like penicillin, it’s
obsolete if we carry on at this rate. Think these so-called ‘social networks’ are in fact the social another great leap forward for mankind, a micro-
about it. Isn’t it ironic that the majority of anti-Christ, stripping away the convention of a good blogging service that enables people with too much
people now use a mobile phone for old natter, blasting the private out of private life while time on their hands to send and receive utter drivel —
everything apart from its original use? Texts, alarm simultaneously sucking the productivity of the world known as tweets — via the internet or SMS from their
clock, calendar, emails, sat nav, games, zillion-pixel down the plughole? No wonder no-one spotted the mobiles.
cameras, short video fi lms and social bloody network economic collapse looming — in offi ces around the “Twitter is a service for friends, family and co–workers
applications… who actually calls anyone these days? world everyone was too busy updating their Facebook to communicate and stay connected through the
status. exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple
Text messaging seemed harmless enough when it was question: “What are you doing?” Here’s another simple
introduced in the mid – late-’90s. With everyone all question: “Who gives a fuck?” Are you really so
fi ngers and thumbs, it was a novelty that would surely Then along comes egotistical that you think I’m interested in what you’re
wear off, right? Like fuck it did. In 2000, 17 billion text
messages were sent worldwide. Today, you can forget
Twitter... another great
doing at any given point in the day?
‘Comic’ Stephen Fry informed 100,000 people via tweet
Swine Flu; texting is the real pandemic that has the
leap forward for
that he was stuck in a lift recently. Rivetting. “We’re
world in its grip with one billion text messages sent
EACH WEEK in the UK alone, a debilitating disease
mankind
free!” he twittered later. Hmmm, that’s a shame.
Meanwhile, that irritating git Ashton Kutcher won a
that’s turned us into a nation of utter shitbags, a race against the news station CNN to reach one million
population of cowards. followers, which speaks volumes for the kind of world
Admit it. We all hide behind text messages, using SMS “Facebook helps you communicate and stay in touch we’re living in these days. And the number of MPs
as a protective shield from any kind of confrontations with all of your friends.” No, picking up the phone or using Twitter has doubled since Christmas, apparently.
no matter how slight. Can’t meet your mate as arranging a session down the boozer does that. And “TweetMinster promotes more effi cient and open
arranged? Send a text. Can’t make a birthday party? for “all your friends” read “every fucker you’ve struck communications between voters and MPs by allowing
Text your excuse. up a drink and drug-fuelled conversation with at a people to fi nd and follow their MP, and by fostering
Texting your boss to say you’re ill is always a good one. party”, who may have been your best mate for a few open conversations, sharing of opinions, online
Particularly on a Monday. It doesn’t raise any red fl ags hours but can frankly do one in the cold light of day. Or campaigning and greater transparency in public life.”
at all. Doesn’t make your boss’s eyebrow arc in worse. Old school ‘chums’ who’ve tracked you down to Which means it must go something like this…
suspicion faster than the UK government can ask a brag about how they’re really going places in their Joe Public: “What are you doing?”
Gurkha widow to leave the country. At least have the brand new Ford Mondeo. MP: “Diddling my expenses.”
front to call in and throw some coughing and There’s a reason I’ve lost touch with these people and Joe Public: “What are you doing now?”
spluttering into the conversation delivered in a I’d rather poke my eyes out with a rusty fork than MP: “Choosing another chandelier that you’ll pay for.”
pathetic weak voice. Do it properly, for Christ’s sake. catch-up with them. Picture the scene: Them — But it’s not just celebrities and people in high places
Been struck down ill have you? With what? Yellow unhappily married, living in an identikit home in using Twitter. Using his mobile phone, an American
fever? suburban hell, with three snotty nosed kids clinging to student arrested in Egypt managed to tweet ‘arrested’
A teenage girl from California stunned her dad when their legs. Me — still putting it about a bit, boshing Es, to his followers. Picked up around the world, it soon
her itemized phone bill dropped through the door in shoveling shit up my nose and spending far too much lead to his release after a lawyer was hired by his
January — listing the 14,528 text messages she’d sent time in dingy basements listening to techno. Let’s step university back in the States. Oh right, so it’s not a
in one month. I’d have chopped her fucking hands off. back and make way for the tumbleweed, shall we? load of wank at all then but a vital lifeline.
Even if she was mute. Same reason I never signed up to that Friends Reunited So if I’m ever snatched walking through the dark
According to some shrinks in the States, if you text too shite. streets of East London I’ll just tweet ‘kidnapped’ from
much you may have a mental illness, while in the UK my mobile and wait for the cavalry. Who may be some
people have even been admitted to The Priory for text People actually agonize over whether to accept time, as naturally my friends will translate that as “off
addiction. You’d wanna keep that quiet. Being ‘friends’ or not on Facebook and simply do because to an after-party with some randoms”. While ‘mugged’
admitted for sex, drugs and drink gives you a wild they’re riddled with guilt! Just send ’em a big ‘fuck-off’ (naturally any would-be muggers wouldn’t think to
streak. Admitted for texting? Wet. tablet and be done with it — brutal but direct. While take my mobile) would be translated as a complaint
being ‘de-friended’ is apparently some major diss. about the drink prices in Miami or Ibiza clubs.
If you’ve got a club, music or project to promote, then Handbags at dawn, call me when your balls have
yep, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and all that malarkey dropped. Not quite sure how I’ve reached the age I am with out
are valuable tools. But just to keep in touch with your Twitter in my life. Oh yeah, I do… easily.
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