Leaders Debate III : Lead Harder

The third in the trilogy. Tonight was about the economy and stuff.

@mrchrisaddison "We've got to start making things again in this country." Um. I'm sorry. Didn't you destroy the manufacturing base in the 80s?

@charltonbrooker Double Dip Recession sounds like a grim economic porn movie

@viceuk Brown's mouth is going nuts! He's like a beleagured carp...

@warrenellis Someone has polished David Cameron's chin into a shining Failure Bump

@mrchrisaddison Sky poll just in! David Cameron won the debate!

@aagb1884 'HELLO, I'M GORDON BROWN! YOU'RE NOT GOING TO DIE OF CANCER! LOL!'

@mrchrisaddison "I've had enough people in tears in my office..." Clegg trying to be more like Gordon Brown.

@viceuk Everyone under 25 will be given a job Gordon? What are they all gonna do? Massage your face?

@viceuk Clegg wants to get criminals into the hands of the taxman. Not the police.

@robdelaney Cameron: "I will personally shave all your mothers." - Another impossible promise...

I am angered by the unemployment stuff. Giving young people from deprived backgrounds a better chance of employment is great, but you've got a middle class of graduates on your hands who are utterly fucked.

Cameron keeps going on about forcing people to take jobs when they are offered, but what jobs are these? It took me 6 months to get a fairly average position starting on 11k, after graduating from The University of St Andrews with a 2:1 and a raft of extra curricular experience.

I know young people through my work who have spent the past 16 months trying to get apprenticeships of the type Brown is advocating, and failing because they are incredibly competitive and there just aren't enough of them. The last time the library service advertised, ostensibly for the two posts of full and part time library assistant, they got over 450 applications.

Where are these jobs people must be forced to take?

@samjordison When born millionaires like David Cameron talk about working hard and saving, I do sick in my hand.

@iainmhepburn So, who was the winner tonight? Fulham, clearly.

@davidschneider Turn your mike off now, Gordon. Turn it off. Turn it off!!

Dwell In Possibility?

Flash fiction competition here.

This is a piece over at the Dean which is also arguably an example of what flash fiction is. I have no evidence of that being the intention behind it though.

Free Music

The Winning Sperm Party is a delightfully named website that releases music by independent artists in Scotland, both in free download format and paid-for physical manifestation format. Have a look.

I came across it as part of blog research. The reasons for said research are twofold and follow, now.

1) I am trying to get an online magazine project off the ground at work, which will take the form of a blog. Sites I found when looking for ways to engage young persons with this included Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber, and the prolific campaign to stop Zac Efron self tanning. I probably won't be using them as examples.

2) I am doing a course with CTJT so that I can sit NCTJ exams. Part of the course blurb was about having a professional writing blog with a target audience and an angle. Daddy Long Legs is not such a site, it's more of a scrapbook of things that catch my interest. So I was having a think about what my niche could be, and I wondered about local music. Turns out there are about 8 million Edinburgh music blogs, some of which are very good and are now linked to at the side of the page.

I know what I'm going to do instead, and will post about it when it's up and running.

In the meantime, what do you think of The Edinburgh Reporter, the news site I contribute to? The editor would like some constructive feedback!

A Message

She isn't anymore. But this makes me laugh.

Politics: The Sequel

A lot of the people I follow on Twitter are at the Scottish Press Awards tonight. But some of the more vocal ones have been watching leaders debate round two...

@AIanucci - Now's the time to burgle Nick Clegg's house.

@Paul_Cornell - Cameron talking to camera tonight, not to studio audience as last time. I do like this format: no applause really shapes it.

@charltonbrooker - The set looks like a collection of sawn-off BA tailfins.

@AIanucci - There'll be a headline in tomorrow's Mail about how Clegg's mother met the Nazis

@mrchrisaddison - Clegg plays anti-paedophile card as pro-European argument. That should confuse the Daily Mail.

@AIanucci - Comedy! Big laughs at 'nutters'. Then Brown. Cameron now needs a zinger or he's the worst politician since Chamberlain

@mrchrisaddison - "I have been to Afghanistan a few times. Every time you're blown away." Nice phrasing, Dave.

@charltonbrooker - Great jogging anecdote from Cameron there.

@viceuk - What the hell is Gordon doing with his mouth?

@aeonofdiscord - Securing our future, for the future, which we know will come, tomorrow.

@charltonbrooker - How about giving each of us an actual trident?

@Banderbear91 - Well in 40 years time the world will look very different if nukes get involved

@viceuk - Why does Brown crack up every time someone interrupts him, and why is he so pleased with 'going on trains all the time'

@mrchrisaddison - Cameron's purple tie, if you're wondering, is because he is still technically in mourning for Queen Victoria.

@mrchrisaddison - Ooh, no tax on freight planes. We didn't know that. That's a canny factbomb right there.

@AIannucci - Brown says 'guys and girls'. Could be tarred with the Saville brush, which is a minefield.

@charltonbrooker - Cameron should come back from that 'hanging out with climate denialists' zinger by pointing out that some of his best friends are climates.

@aeonofdiscord - 'I'm not a man of faith, but my wife is.'

@charltonbrooker - They should all prove how homophobic they're not by forming a daisy chain, right now.

@AIannucci - Brown: 'I was speaking to young people only yesterday.'

@MitchBenn - ... and we're blaming single mothers. Welcome to the 80s.

@thestephmerritt - FUCK YOU, CAMERON. FUCK YOU WITH A FUCKING WIRE BRUSH. I'D LIKE TO SEE YOU BRING UP A CHILD ALONE, YOU SMUG CUNT.

@mrchrisaddison - "Women, and you are one of them." Gordon's good eye working fine tonight.

@JeremyJHardy - Cameron is banging on about expenses when he used taxpayers' money to remove a unicorn from his family crest.

@simonpegg - David Cameron just told an 84 year old woman he was going to do something in 2016.

@gregoryclark1 - this is the worst kraftwerk gig ever!

@charltonbrooker - If it's disgraceful to frighten people in an election campaign, why all the hung parliament scaremongering?

@aeonofdiscord - I drove the economy ALL THE WAY through this recession and NOBODY SAID THANK YOU.

@AIannucci - Just time for the funny question at the end.

@mrchrisaddison - Question on immigration from immigrant. Wasn't expecting that from Sky.

@pictishtrail - I fucking fucking HATE Jeremy Clarkson.

@mrchrisaddison - "No unskilled worker from outside Europe can enter our country." Yep, clinging onto the bottom of a lorry is quite a skill.

@AIannucci - Nick Clegg going after criminal gangs would be quite a good Sunday night drama.

@aeonofdiscord - Gripping this problem, gently but firmly, like a warm artichoke.

@mrchrisaddison - "You can't deport 900,000 people - you don't know where they live." That's genuinely funny.

@charltonbrooker - Next time, to provide a dramatic visual metaphor for 'change' from the old style of politics, Cameron should turn up dressed as a bee.

@Paul_Cornell - I like Gordon breaking from 'let's all work together' and attacking.

@aeonofdiscord - NC: 'Something really exciting is beginning to happen: me.'

@viceuk - Clegg reminds me of my dad when I was 8 and found his porn. "you don't need to tell your mum, we're pals, right?"

@JeremyJHardy - I made that up about the family crest. But you can lie about Tories because there is a higher truth: they're cunts.

@JeremyJHardy - They're saying Cameron won the debate! He looked like a puppy surprised by it's own farts.

@charltonbrooker - Can't wait for the YouGov poll proving the existence of unicorns.

@simonblackwell - It's a dangerous game YouGov/Sky/The Sun are playing, surely? To misreport something that 10m people have just watched with their own eyes.

@carriequinlan - So, the pollsters that are employed by Murdoch's The Sun are being reported by Murdoch's Sky as saying Cameron won. Right.

Housekeeping

So I was hanging out at Boots Opticians (only marginally blinder than I was this time 2 years ago, hooray); whereupon I spotted this publication sitting atop the pile of Bests and OKs and Hellos.

Lady Golfer sounds like a euphemism to me. Like, 'And then ee kicked me, right in the lady golfer.' Ew.

But it isn't one. In fact, Lady Golfer magazine rather boringly does exactly what it says on the tin. And what's more you can follow them on Twitter, where they tweet the pertinent questions of the day. Things like, "anyone playing golf today?" Right on, sistaz.

In other news, I wrote some TOPICAL COMEDY*. And I'd do it again.

*or that was the general aim, at least.

A Plug!

If you have an interest in comics or illustration, you might want to check out a comics workshop being run in Edinburgh at the end of May by the very talented artist Aurora Osaki, also known as Nekocherry.

In a world where autobiographical comics are very much in vogue (Persepolis, anyone?), this event comes not a moment too soon. But there are only 12 places, so you need to get in quick! Express your interest through the facebook event or email Aurora on the address here for more info.