Book Review - How To Leave Twitter

How To Leave Twitter is a hugely pointless book. But then, it's a book about a hugely pointless subject. Grace Dent makes you realise what an enormous waste of your life twitter really is (as if you didn't already know) but despite the title, she has no intention of actually leaving. She's a twitter addict. And like any addict, she's tried to quit, gone cold turkey, sometimes actually managed to walk away... but she always ends up falling off the wagon and going back to twitter's safe, comfortable, welcoming womb. Twitter is her castle and she is its queen. Why would she ever want to go back to being a lowly commoner?

My own relationship with twitter followed a similar trajectory to Dent's. Longterm readers of this blog will know that I, like most people, went from mocking anyone who ever tweeted to being sucked into its gaping, Sarlacc Pit maw. For a while there I was an addict too, though never quite to the level of Dent... because a) at the end of the day, I'm just an ordinary Joe, not a celebrity journalist whose followers number the tens of thousands; and b) I just don't have the time or energy to devote myself to it like some people do. Nor would I want to. That's not to mock anyone who does. Twitter's great for multi-taskers (if I tweeted while watching TV, I'd miss half the show) and those who thrive on a sense of community.

I found myself nodding in agreement at many of Dent's amusing and pithy insights into the society that spawned social networking...

It puzzles me how many people still believe 'friendship' or at least bonhomie conducted in cyberspace isn't a valid form of social contact, but, say, being thrown together at an NCT group, or in halls of residence, or because your desks at work face each other, is. Or that anodyne small talk with a neighbour is 'genuine social stimulation', whereas chatting with twitter with someone 6000 miles away who loves Top Gun and Jefferson Airplane as much as you do is just lonely, dysfunctional nerds clashing in cyberspace.

Given the nature of this blog, I could hardly argue with that... and I've been online long enough to recognise the horrible truth of this...

...arguing on the internet is like pulling a drunk's trousers back up for him in public.

In the end though, I wonder how long it'll be before the twitter bubble bursts and the site becomes as forgotten as myspace? Grace Dent is surfing the zeitgeist here, but will she too look back in five years time and wonder what all the fuss was about? And what will she - and the rest of us - be doing to waste our time on the internet then? The mind boggles...

This Blog Is Not For Sale

A couple of interesting emails have plopped into my inbox lately. I guess this blog has been going long enough, gets enough daily hits, and ranks high enough in Google Analytics (or whatever) that it has a certain perceived value. I never understand how you value a website - how Facebook or Twitter can be sold for billions for example. I know it's got something to do with the evil industry, but as my own relationship with the evil industry is such a painful one, I prefer not to delve too deeply. Anyway, while Sunset Over Slawit isn't quite at the stage where Aaron Sorkin is penning a screenplay based around my life, it's obviously been noticed by somebody. To wit, email #1...

We have a client who would like to pay you for the opportunity to post some of their content on your website. All of the content is professionally produced and you can select from pieces relevant to your audience.


The result is you get some free, interesting content for your readers while getting paid.


In return our client is asking for one link that they specify at the bottom of the content (no porn or gambling). Feel free to contact me with any concerns or clarifications you may have.

My first reaction to this was... really? What client? How much?

My second reaction was... hang on, WHY? Why would someone want to use this silly little blog to hawk their filthy wares? OK, so I'm now getting about 200 hits a day (though I have no way of knowing how many of those are spambots), but many of those hits must be the same people coming back again and again. Hell, half of them are probably just Steve. Surely there are more cost-effective ways of blowing your marketing budget than throwing it at me to squeeze the occasional ad for Pepsi or Apple in between My Top Ten Furniture Polish Songs and Why I Hate Audi Drivers post #463?

(Neither Pepsi nor Apple - nor Audi - gave me any money to mention them in the paragraph above. I actually prefer Coke, Microsoft and any other form of vehicular transportation ever invented to the brands in question... which I why I chose them. To avoid favouritism.)

My third thought was... surely those people who visit this blog every day do so exactly because they want to read content written by me? Which, given that my goal in life is to be a writer - and have my writing read by others - fills me with joy and pride and a buzzing in my nether-regions equivalent to Kate Winslet brushing past me in a negligee with a mint condition copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 tucked in her armpit. (In short, thank you all.) BUT if the reason you come here is to read me... why would you want to read some "free, interesting content" written by somebody else with the sole purpose of getting you to click a link and buy something?

So, thanks, but no thanks. If you want to pay me to write something, even something that promotes your wares... I'll give it a shot. I've gratefully received some nice free books, graphic novels and music as a result of writing this blog - and written about them whenever I had something worthwhile to say. But just copying and pasting someone else's words and using the goodwill of Sunset Over Slawit to peddle some old bollocks I have no interest in whatsoever... thanks, but I get enough of that in the day job.

But wait... we're not done yet! Because then comes email #2...

I represent a firm that purchases entire blogs, that is, the URL as well as the content of the blog. We use these blogs to improve the search engine rankings of our clients.


Our firm requires that the blog has correct English and grammar. It must have original content (not duplicate content from other blogs or websites) as well as having no pornography or other distasteful content. In addition, the blog must be able to be found on Google.


If you are interested in selling your blog(s), please reply with your URL(s) as well as your asking price(s). An actual offer for your blog would happen after a detailed analysis of it that showed that it met all of our criteria.

The email then goes on to suggest that, given the right t&c's, and based upon my current Google Ranking, I could make around $500 from this deal. Which isn't to be sniffed at, I suppose - especially when you're as skint as I am.

Except...

Well, my first thought was "bollocks".

My second thought was... WHY? Why would you, as a legitimate business, wish to purchase a blog with an unsexy URL of http://moviebookreview-s.blogspot.com/ (hardly Audiscumbags.com, is it?), the content of which varies most weeks between misanthropic short stories, reviews of crap Nicolas Cage movies, and My Top Ten Songs About Global Thermonuclear Destruction? I just do not get it.

But, as we already established earlier this year when I considered moving this blog wholesale to posterous, I'd lose a good chunk of my readers if I wasn't where I've always been, and you all mean far too much to me to piss you off like that for a measly 500 bucks. That's not to say I wouldn't be open to a better offer...

If you enjoyed the free, interesting content above, please consider clicking on this link and spending a stupid amount of money on the aspirational, life-affirming products available there. If you didn't enjoy the free, interesting content above... go take a long walk off a short pier. Who needs you?

Friday Flash - Love Song

First #fridayflash short story of 2011... and I've actually managed to keep below the 1000 word limit. I'm sure that won't last...

Love Song

I’m in your bedroom, writing this song, trying not to make an obvious rhyme like ‘but I keep getting the words wrong’ because I know you wouldn’t respect that. You called me “the greatest lyricist of our generation” after all, do you remember, Evie? Of course you remember. It was the day we met. Well, the day we first communicated. The internet’s an amazing thing, isn’t it? That it could bring us together like this. How could you have known when you tweeted “I love Terry Tribeca, I want his babies!” that I’d be sitting there in my peeling wallpaper hotel room after that piss-bottle gig in Newcastle, late and lonely, just looking for someone to make me feel worthwhile... that I’d see your message and think: ‘thank you’?

You became my muse, I’m apt to confuse, the thoughts… the thoughts… the thoughts… This new album, Evie, it’s all about you. You had such a shock when I replied, you couldn’t believe it was me. Even though it had the verified tick next to my picture to prove the account was genuine, you were certain it was just my manager or somebody in my entourage mucking around. “Entourage”, ha. I guess my world seems a whole lot more glamorous from the outside. The crazy thing is, 15, 20 years ago, I probably would have had an entourage. I’d have had a record company that threw money at me, I’d have had stylists, publicists, photographers, hangers on… but those days are gone. Like I told you that first night we chatted, I don’t do this for the money. I do it because I have to. Because the songs are inside me, screaming to get out… and if I don’t have that release, well, I think I’d just go crazy, you know? Lose it completely. The songs keep me sane.

Not everything’s an accident, sometimes you have to be provident, if you want to make a start, in matters of the… The following night, when we bumped into each other at that club in Coventry, that wasn’t just coincidence, you know. I can tell you this now, we’re close enough that you won’t think... I went there to find you. I saw you talking to your friends about it on Facebook and as I didn’t have a gig that night and it was only a couple of hours on the train and I thought it’d make for a good song… Knock-Outs, remember? You said you didn’t think someone like me would be seen dead in a place like that. Didn’t I get recognised all the time? The truth is, hardly anyone ever recognises me. Your friends certainly didn’t. They didn’t even believe it was me. Yeah, I’ve been on the cover of the NME and my face is all over the internet – but everyone’s face is all over the internet. Unless you’re actually looking, you wouldn’t notice me. I’m not exactly a pretty boy, though “my unconventional look matches my unconventional lyrics,” says Alex Petridis in The Guardian. Though I guess since meeting you, my songwriting’s become a whole lot more conventional. You know I almost wrote a ‘swim any river, hike any mountain’ song last night? Maybe I’ll have a pop hit and flush my indie cred with it. That shit doesn’t matter anymore. I want to take you to Paris and Rome and New York, and not in the back of a fucking tour bus, Evie. I want my own private jet, like Bono. I never wanted to be Bono, but for you, Evie, for you I want to be Bono. I want to be whatever you want me to be.

I saw you in the arms of another, I went to pieces, then and there. I knew I wasn’t your only lover, just don’t tell me more for him you… Clumsy. That’s fucking clumsy, man. What’s happened to my writing? It used to come so natural. My mind’s on other things right now. That second time was a mistake, I admit. You were with your fiancée at that restaurant in Nuneaton. Not the classiest of establishments, but Michael wasn’t really the classiest of guys, was he? When I saw where he was taking you for your anniversary… I wanted to show you how much better you could do. That’s all. Crispy duck and a cheap Merlot? Is that really all you were to him? Caused quite a scene that night, didn’t he? Your ex… I know, I know it’s an adjustment, thinking of him in that way after all those years together, but you need to try. Part of you still expects him to walk in the front door any minute and start whinging about his shit day again. How much he hates his boss, wishes he could find something else, always wanted to be a fireman. Of course I read your blog, even though you don’t use your real name, enough of your friends know about it, leave messages on it, link to it… it’s hardly a secret. That post you wrote about me, long before we even met, that was what convinced me. You understood. And yet, by him, you were misunderstood. “Shame he’s not hunky enough to be a fireman - LOL!” That’s what Rachel wrote in your comments. She was right, of course, Michael was hardly a body builder. He couldn’t even fight me off.

You can’t have her, Mike. You’re not the man she really likes. I saw you leaving your office at night. My alibi is airtight. Mike. I know you don’t want to hear the details, Evie, but it’s done now. You don’t need to worry about him any more. We can get on with our lives. Come on, Evie, open the bathroom door. Talk to me. I’ll turn the music down if you promise not to scream again. Please, Evie, don’t be mad. Open the door. Don’t be like all the others…

Friday Flash - You Can Say Anything You Want On The Internet

Although I didn't exactly plan it that way, this week's #fridayflash story works as a reaction to the whole IAmSpartactus scandal on twitter. Coincidentally, I also owe the massed hivemind of twitter a debt of gratitude for helping me write this. You'd be amazed how many tweets you get back when you ask for a little advice on kidnapping...

You Can Say Anything You Want On The Internet

You can say anything you want on the internet. That’s why Lydia loved it so much. She could say how her boss was a lazy bitch who always parked in the handicapped space because that meant less distance to carry her donuts, which she never shared with anyone else in the office, and which made her backside look increasingly like two hippos wrestling in a tent. Lydia could say this without compunction or any fear of redress because not only could you say anything you wanted on the internet – you could be anyone you wanted too.

Online, she was a completely different woman. She wasn’t meek, mild-mannered Lydia Charles, she was TheLady72: blogger, tweeter and social networker extraordinaire. With more than 4000 followers and over a hundred comments every time she posted, TheLady was witty, insightful and far more gregarious than her alter ego. Her opinions were sought and valued on a wide range of topics – from the perils of working for a tyrannical she-whale with moustache issues... to how to deal with a lazy slob of a husband who never emptied the dishwasher and thought clitoris was an island off the Greek mainland. She wished she could be TheLady all the time, in the real world as well as the virtual, but the consequences were far too grave to consider. Unemployment, divorce, children who hated her even more than her own kids did right now. She wasn’t sure she could do this without a safety net secret identity.

Recently though, she’d been spending more time online than ever before. She’d become a feedback junkie, only truly happy when replying to comments or savouring her retweets. She saw how her hits increased in direct correlation to controversy, and so became ever more outspoken, not just on her personal life (Barry wanted her to dress up as slave girl Leia every Saturday night; The Whale had hit the menopause – hot flushes and moodswings all over the sales office; Tess had been grounded after simulating fellatio with a giant Smarties tube during her best friend’s Sweet 16th) but also on the world outside her window. The government were condemning future generations to a student debt they could never repay… anyone who condoned torture ought to get water-boarded themselves and see how they liked it… who gave a toss about the Royal Wedding?

The more forthright she became, the more she rose up the google rankings, the more her addiction grew. She craved that attention now, it was all she thought about – at work, at home, in bed… whenever she was away from her computer, she hungered to get back online and indulge herself in the world of TheLady…

And then came the abduction. She was leaving the house when they grabbed her, late for work as always. Barry had already gone, taking Tess and Adam to the bus stop on his way. Tigger had coughed up a furball on the kitchen floor and Lydia had been tempted to just leave it, but she knew the kids would trample through it when they came in tonight, and it’d still be waiting when she got home herself. She hadn’t even wanted a cat. TheLady was much more a red setter kind of gal, she reckoned.

They came at her from behind, taking an arm each and pushing her forwards so her cheek grazed the garage wall. She heard the tearing of the tape and tried to scream as they slapped it over her mouth. They bound her wrists behind her back with cable ties. She tried to turn to see their faces but then the sack pulled over her head and she was dragged backwards, down the drive to the road. Where were all the neighbours, why did nobody help? How very typical of our look-the-other-way society – nobody wanted to get involved! She'd have something to say about that. A hand pushed down on the back of her head and she was bundled into a vehicle, some kind of enormous four wheel drive vehicle, she guessed. Suddenly she remembered the post she’d written about how all 4x4 drivers were selfish, planet-raping road hogs. This couldn’t have anything to do with that… could it?

“Mmm-mmm—mmm!?” she screamed through the masking tape. Who are you? “MMm-mm-mmm-mmmmmm-mmm?” Where are you taking me?

“Just shut up and enjoy the ride, lady. You’ll find out soon enough.” It was a man’s voice, from beside her on the back seat. He sounded all gruff and nasty, like Ray Winstone but without the accent. She remembered that post where she’d fantasised over Ray Winstone’s manly hands, concluding she couldn’t let them anywhere near her until he’d some kind of elocution lessons. A bit of rough on the side was one thing – but not if he sounded like a cockney barrow boy! She was a lady, maybe, but not a Chatterly.

Oh. Oh no. "Lady." That’s what he called her. Was it just an expression… or did he actually know? And if he knew… was that what this was about? Was it something she’d blogged? About how the police shouldn’t be allowed to use the sirens on their cars in a residential area unless it was a matter of life or death? How anyone who wore culottes should be hung, drawn and quartered in the street outside Dorothy Perkins? How every parent had a right to know that a sex offender was living anywhere in their town, not just if they moved in on the same street? Or was it something closer to home? Had The Whale been tracking her internet usage at work? Had Barry stumbled across her blog while searching for porn and put two and two together at last? No, no, this couldn’t be personal. Nobody she knew in real life would resort to tactics like these, no matter what she’d written. Her blog was only words… this was serious.

The journey lasted longer than Lydia expected. She could tell by the changing sound of the engine that they were on the motorway now. She didn’t think she’d ever been so frightened, but TheLady kept her from losing it. If I survive this, that voice said, if I come out the other end in one piece… what a story I’ll have to tell! This’ll make the news – the papers, the TV… and they’ll all have to mention my blog. My hits will go through the roof!

So her identity might be compromised in the process... that was OK. She wouldn’t need her stupid old job anymore – she’d be a full time professional blogger! Advertisers would be lining up. And if her family didn’t like it… well, they could either come with her on her bold new adventure or carry on without her. Screw the fear – it wasn’t Lydia Charles bound and gagged in the back of this petrol guzzling monster, it was TheLady72. And TheLady would not be silenced!

At last, the engine slowed and the vehicle pulled to a halt on crunching gravel. Cold air swept into the car and then Lydia was swept out. Her shoes slipped on wet tarmac but the arms held her steady and pushed her forward.

“Mmmmmmmmm!” she screamed through the gag.

“You’re wasting your time now, love,” said gruff Ray. “No one’s gonna help you here.”

A blast of air-conditioned heat came next and then she felt the sack being lifted from her head. She was inside, blinking under artificial lights: the reception of some huge office complex. A thin man with a dark suit and receding hairline stood before her, early 50s, Lydia thought, very official-looking. She turned to see the faces of the men who’d brought her here. The one on the left must be Ray, the other was just a boy. He was a bit of a hunk actually, Ray… though it wasn’t Lydia Charles thinking that. Lydia would have been too busy peeing her pants. The line between real and virtual was blurring more with every passing second.

“Mrs. Charles,” croaked the official, his voice as weedy as his physique, “good to meet you at last.” He waved a hand and Ray reached over to tear off the masking tape. The other man clipped at the cable tie to free her wrists.

“Owwch!” Lydia reached up to touch her smarting lips. Was that blood, or just the last traces of her Clarins Clementine?

“Welcome to HM ID HQ, Saffron Walden branch. I hope you’ll be very happy here.”

“Happy?” said Lydia. “I’ve been kidnapped, manhandled, bound, gagged, denied my civil liberties… and you work for the government?” A plaque on the wall spelled out the initials the man had spoken earlier. Her Majesty’s Internet Division. Knowing this was somehow official made her predicament both better and worse. Better to be up against sinister bureaucracy rather than some unhinged psychotics or terrorist splinter cell. Worse because when your adversary is officialdom, the law is generally on their side… and if it isn’t, what’s to stop them changing it? Still, she was TheLady now. She wasn’t going down without a fight. “I demand to see my solicitor!”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible just yet, Mrs. Charles," said the G-Man. "Or, perhaps, ever.” He led the way into an office with a huge windowed wall. Beyond lay an enormous, endless office - row after row of computer workstations, as far as the eye could see. The man took a seat and beckoned Lydia to do the same. “In the meantime, we need you to sign some papers regarding the terms of your new employment…”

“New employment?” Lydia was confused but TheLady was incensed. “What are you talking about? I’ve already got a job! Which, I might add, I’m already about two hours late for - thanks to you and your thugs.“

Out of the corner of her eye she caught Ray’s face. He looked almost hurt. She was about to take it back when the official started talking again.

“Don’t you worry about that,” he said, “your previous employer has been made fully aware of your change of circumstances.” He took a folder from his desk and began shuffling contracts.

“Just… just wait a minute,” said Lydia, staring through the window at the open plan office to infinity. Hundreds of heads, possibly even thousands, faces lost below the lines of their pc monitors, each and every one consumed by their work. “Just what are you talking about? What is this job? What am I supposed to…”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Charles, it’s a job for which you’ve shown yourself to be eminently qualified. I’m sure you won’t have any problem—“

“What – is – it!?”

“Why, you’ll be helping us produce online content, of course. You’ll be blogging, tweeting, Facebooking and tumblring – for a living. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

“Well,” said Lydia, uncertain whether the flutter in her chest was excitement or terror, "I suppose..."

“The only difference being… from now on you’ll be writing only what we tell you to.”

Lydia felt her jaw drop, but the official had seen it all before. He continued before she had time to protest.

“Mrs. Charles, you seem to have been labouring under a misapprehension, as the public often does, that the world wide web is your own personal speaker’s corner. In fact, that couldn’t be farther from the truth… Here at HM ID HQ, we deal with information... we deal with disinformation... we deal in organised anarchy and carefully fabricated nonconformism. The one thing we don’t deal in… is freedom of speech. You can’t just say anything you want on the internet!”

Top Ten People I Don't Want To Follow On Twitter

Twitter has started helpfully suggesting people I might like to follow, presumably based on the people I already follow. Some of these suggestions are making me angry. Very angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry...

This blog post is rated 15. Contains images of a disturbing nature and one instance of *very* strong language. Don't say you weren't warned.

10. Derren Brown - smug conjurer who really ought to spell his name with an 'a'.

9. Rich Johnson - arrogant, self-important comics gossip-columnist boob who takes special joy in pointing out errors of subbing, proofreading, continuity et al. Not itself a crime unless one makes far more basic errors oneself - such as not knowing how to spell Electro or that The Lizard was never a member of The Sinister Six.

8. Ashton Kutcher - for this, Demi ditched Bruce?

7. Fearne Cotton - DJ. Makes Jo Whiley sound interesting.

6. Neil Gaiman - ridiculously arrogant "rock star" writer who poses for author photographs dressed in leathers and riding a Harley - which is fine if you're Jim Steinman, but not if you specialise in fey goth-centred gibberish in which every one of your characters goes on endlessly about "the mystical power of stories". I'm sorry, I know you like him. Try not to hate me too much for disagreeing with you.

5. Jim Carrey - gurning "comedy" twat.

4. Russell Brand - another so-called comedian (yes, yes, humour is subjective, blah blah) whose comedy seems based entirely on a) his silly voice, b) his stupid hair, and c) his ridiculous sex-life; career-building popstar husband; and the man who singlehandedly ruined Radio 2 (by bragging about the fact that he once shagged Manuel's daughter, upsetting the Daily Mail, and bringing about the resignation of Programme Controller Lesley Douglas, leading to her replacement by someone who quite clearly doesn't have a clue what he's doing). Yes, he likes Morrissey, but he's still a tosser.

3. Mark Millar - ego-maniacal comics writer who is excellent at writing about how excellent he is... not so excellent at writing comics that don't rely heavily on clichéd shock value, unnecessary cynicism, and sub-Arnie one-liners.

2. Chris Evans* - DJ. Cunt.

1. Tom Hanks - Gump**.




*No, not Captain America.

**I did warn you I was going to use the 'G' word.