Twitter Watch: Vol 2
A drunken Politician’s Wikipedia page and why a Robin Williams quote stands the test of time.
A drunken Politician’s Wikipedia page and why a Robin Williams quote stands the test of time.
There I was, rocking gently and in a Radiohead listening reverie when I heard what I can only describe as a guttural roar of laughter coming from the other room, and a room filled only with the presence of my Politics Editor. I tried, in vain, to drift back into A Moon Shaped Pool with those alternative musical geniuses from Oxford but my Editor annoyingly burst my bubble with her babbling and incessant cackling laughter. “She’s as pissed as a newt” she cried, and quite literally too as streams of tears rolled down her rosy red cheeks, and cheeks, lest we forget, that have often been reddened themselves by the wine of the Gods on more occasions than she chooses to recollect. I couldn’t tell this afternoon whether or not my Editor had already tasted the alcoholic nectar of a well lived life, but then again, I struggle deciphering fact from drunken fiction these days and anyway, I was transfixed on the video of the apparent drunken woman that had brought my Editor to her knees screaming with her ear piercing laughter.
So I started laughing too.
You see, the lady in question is a Member of Parliament for Mid Bedfordshire here in the UK and her name is Nadine Dorries and she is the recently appointed Minister for “Digital, Culture, Media and Sport”. And she’s clearly drunk as a skunk! Or, just high on life. Very high. And why not? Let’s just have some honesty from these wraiths with the expense driven tastes clad in expensive suits. Why not have a good tipple and a slurp of the sauce before being interviewed for the nightly news? Indulge in the powder and smoke so much of the green grass that God has provided that you dissolve into a different astral dimension. What harm could it do? Let’s stop being so coy and secretive, otherwise it leads to this particular tweeter to suggest that this clearly drunken lady is only rocking back and forth and acting like a petulant child because a 5th dimensional being is possessing her and screaming “LET ME TALK TO THE EARTHLINGS!”. So I vote that all Politicians can imbibe as much as they wish before they exit the vaunted chambers of democracy and conduct their tear inducing interviews live to the watching world. Smoke enough marijuana to put an elephant to sleep, I couldn’t care less. But you have to wear the sponsors jackets that Robin Williams alludes to above, or you’re, literally and metaphorically, barred.
Then we can all rest assured, as you stand there swaying from side to side perhaps or rocking back and forth like a drunken sailor home on shore leave after spending 37 claustrophobic years at the bottom of the ocean in a submarine, who sponsors you, who you represent and what your vested interests are. It wouldn’t be as spleen splittingly funny as this current video is, a politician let’s not forget, and in the Houses of Parliament too, rocking and rolling, talking over the reporter’s questions, dismissively and childishly repeating words and stock phrases and obviously being a little too drunk. Oops! And on this day too, this historic day in the history of the UK when a report has been issued, albeit a hugely redacted one but a report nonetheless into the scandalous parties and consumption of cake (CAKE!) at 10 Downing Street, and when the country was under a dystopian lockdown. This seat of democracy, the seat my Political Editor is so drunkenly protective and passionate about, this Mother of All Parliaments, has been thrown into yet more disarray as that ghostly figure in the ill fitting suit and dreadful haircut had parties, (PARTIES!) ate cake (CAKE!) and enjoyed clandestine gatherings in his garden whilst the rest of the country was under his lock and key. Yes, Nadine Dorries chose this occasion to appear in front of our television screens and besmirch all that is sacred with our rule of democracy as we tried to decipher the full extent of our politician’s disregard for their own rules as well as their ginormous appetite for both cake and indeed, parties.
A pissed politician defending some other pissed politicians? What’s new I hear you ask? But I have the solution: Rather than condemning this lady as a petulant child (Me) or “car crash interview” (iNews), “Disaster” (The National) or compared to a surly, abhorrent 15 year old (The Independent), let them get absolutely steaming, us too, and with whatever gets you through the night (John Lennon) and then we’ll all be too pissed to realise we can’t change our own Wikipedia page!
Nadine Dorries' car crash interview shows we must be aware of those who defend the indefensible
Of all the noxious images that have accompanied the unravelling of this government - Matt Hancock's closed-circuit…inews.co.uk
Everyone is comparing Nadine Dorries' defence of Boris Johnson to Catherine Tate
Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number Must be at least 6 characters…www.independent.co.uk
WATCH: Nadine Dorries 'disaster' as Tory minister defends PM in car crash interview
The Culture Secretary came out to bat for the Prime Minister after a bruising session in the Commons in which he was…www.thenational.scot
Thanks to “Magnumificent” for this posting today and a post that made me titter and squeal like a cake demanding pig. I don’t follow the poster (a Leeds United football fan and a bit of a “lefty” according to his Biography) but I was rather amused as it tumbled onto my timeline. The phrase “Boxing Day turd” is so damn quintessentially English/British and whilst I’d never seen this phrase before today it evokes images of a cold bleak Christmas winter and so in keeping with the unprofessionally professional politicians of today: cold, distant, soulless, inanimate objects of vacuity. The rub of course is that Mrs Dorries cannot change her own Wikipedia page, a fact lost on many of us and one I’m only aware of due to my podcast listening tastes and of the frustrations of several comedians who rail against being unable to correct or edit their own page. I’m sure a colleague or friend will have deleted this entry on Mrs Dorries page by now and whilst I am never going to trouble Wikipedia with a page created about me it does raise the obvious question as to why you can’t change or edit a page in The Matrix that’s squarely about you. There’s an error or a fabricated lie, for example, but you can’t edit and correct a page that’s about you? How does that work? And as Wikipedia are fond of passing around the collection plate for donations, who owns Wikipedia? Who funds them? Why, if it’s a “free encyclopaedia” (and one which I use) can you not change your own page? It’s open to anyone to edit entries and “facts”, but it’s not open to the individual concerned to conduct their own editing?
“The Prime Minister tells the truth”
So proclaimed Nadine Dorries and presumably whilst still rocking back and forth, glaring ominously and hideously, and so unbecoming of a Member of Parliament, into a televisual lens. This is true, caught on camera and anyone can now enter this statement into her Wikipedia page. But is it the truth? The actions of the bumbling and dangerously unhappy buffoon that is the Prime Minister would tell a rather different story. True or truth, I’m sure those lovely chaps at the “Fact Checkers” will be on the case. They usually are.
Perhaps we need these checkers of facts as well as Wikipedia to wear sponsors jackets like the politicians? Be rather more entertaining than watching a drunk lady defend her Boss about cakes and parties.
Wikipedia:Editing Your Own Page - Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia There is no official way to correct information on your own Wikipedia page…en.wikipedia.org
Thanks for reading and I do hope it fired a neuron or three. If it did, please consider the first volume in the series below:
Twitter Watch: Volume 1
An ode to Hunter S Thompson and are Neil Oliver and Elon Musk going to save the world?medium.com