Tag Archives: Twitter

24th July picture of the day…

24 Monday Jul 2023

Posted by in Musings, Picture of the day, Twitter, West Yorkshire

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The beginning of another busy week here at Bigland Towers – and for once – it’s not rained! Not that we’ve had Mediterranean temperatures, in fact the Mercury struggled to get into double figures until late morning. It was all the same to me as I spent much of the day chained to my desk, sorting out pictures and paperwork as well as continuing the decluttering of the place which is freeing up shelf space and providing more items for eBay. You can find the latest additions here. They include more old rail slides as well as items of clothing. More memorabilia will follow in the next few days as I’ve still got a some of my 1,000 free items a month quota to use up before the end of July.

Whilst working I did have time to check some news on Twitter. Wait, what? Musk has renamed it? It’s no longer Twitter, it’s now ‘X’. ‘Space Karen’ has ditched a unique brand name that was recognised the world over where the adjective to ‘tweet’ has made it into Dictionaries. Instead, we have a meaningless letter that conveys – nothing at all. You really do have to wonder what this ‘genius’ is thinking – other than ‘how can I trash my $44bn investment’? It’s about as stupid a rebranding as the time in 2001 that the Royal Mail decided to change its name to ‘Consignia’ in a multi-million pound flop that was rapidly reversed. Even that was better than ‘X’ as there was a a slight chance of guessing it was something to do with consigning things (Yes, money. Down the drain: Ed). I mean, if you’re an advertiser or PR person, who the hell’s going to say ‘I know, we’ll spend millions advertising on X, it’s such a recognisable platform!’ Linda Yaccarino, Musk’s cover for Twitter Chief Exec has been busy tweeting (no, we’re not going to call it X’ing) the sort of meaningless management-speak bollocks that we in the UK have loved to take the pee out of for years (remember Gus Hedges in ‘drop the dead donkey’?)

I wonder how long ‘X’ will last?

Meanwhile, in the real world, away from the whims of idiot billionaires I took advantage of the good weather to get my full five mile constitutional, which is the first time I’ve been able to do this on a Monday in weeks. I’m determined to up the exercise ante this week come hell or high water. Let’s see if the weather Gods smile on my efforts. At least I don’t have to spend too much time cooking this week as I’ve already made a batch of carrot and coriander soup whilst this afternoon’s little job was to make a vat of Urad Dahl which is now cooling on the cooker before being consigned to the freezer. Tonight we ate just as healthily, but not veggie. As whilst I was getting my final mile walk in Dee (who’d been working in Huddersfield today) fancied fish and salad and cooked up this little storm in the Air Fryer, adding salad to complete what was a delicious dish.

Salmon, sauteed potatoes with mixed leaf salad, cherry tomatoes and a dash of Mayonnaise.

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

29th March picture of the day…

29 Wednesday Mar 2023

Posted by in Musings, Picture of the day, Politics, Twitter, West Yorkshire

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As expected today’s been a less frenetic one than of late. Much of my time’s been spent editing and captioning the haul of pictures I’ve captured over the past couple of days. They’ve been spread over several galleries which means you can find Travel images here, Nottingham trams here, East Midlands Railway pictures here and Cross-Country trains here.

In-between getting boggle-eyed staring at a computer screen I’ve managed to get out and enjoy the mild weather that’s snuck up on the Calder valley and get out for a walk or two around the local woods. Having spent two months in Asia which was mostly on the flat my legs are starting to regain their hill-walking muscle memory. I sometimes forget the fact we live on the side of a valley as the highest thing I climbed in Asia was flights of stairs!

In-between working and walking I have been keeping one eye on the news – depressing as it is. It was sad to hear of the death of Paul O’ Grady as he was such an entertaining character and also one of the good guys whom we can’t afford to lose in what’s increasingly becoming a sea of celebrity mediocrity. Mind you, the word celebrity has become devalued. Now all you have to do to be a ‘celebrity’ is appear on some awful ‘reality’ TV show to gain that appellation. The days of the Hollywood greats this isn’t. But Paul was a genuine character, celebrity and campaigner who put his fame to work for the betterment of many groups of people – and animals.

Despite the fact the news can often be depressing and social media even more so, there comes those moments when it all comes good due to some people’s irrepressible urge to take the pee out of the nuts – especially American gun nuts after the latest in a long line of tragic mass-shootings and slaughter of more innocents at the hands of deranged people with automatic weapons. So tonight’s picture of the day is actually a picture of a tweet on Twitter. It’s a social media platform that’s gone downhill since it was bought by billionaire Elon Musk, a man with less than liberal views who’s not been without controversy over said attitudes, his relationships with the opposite sex or his welcoming back to Twitter of formerly banned right-wingers and hate-mongers. But tonight the British have responded with their usual flair and brought the world’s attention to this person and his views. Welcome, Keith Arsewank!

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

Andy Burnham shows how politicians don’t understand social media

01 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Andy Burnham MP, Michael Dugher MP, Network Rail, PR nightmares, Transport, Twitter

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A few commentators and I have observed over the years how politicians don’t understand social media. It seems that many of them think it’s a way to pontificate or score a few cheap points over your political opponents, nothing more. This is especially true of Twitter, where some of them put out all sorts of nonsense & forget that the electorate (many of whom are far better informed) have the right to reply and the unwary can end up getting their arse handed to them on a plate. When a politician decides to tweet, there’s normally no battle scarred Press Officer looking over their shoulder, ready to snatch the phone off them whilst shouting ‘Noooo…’!

The latest victim of this phenomenon is the man who fancies himself as the next Labour leader – Andy Burnham MP, who tweeted this earlier:

burnham 1

Such an uninformed cheap shot at both the Government and the rail industry wasn’t going to go unchallenged. Burnham had left an open goal & one of the first to reply was a rail industry & PR veteran, the ‘Fact Compiler’

FC burnahm

In truth, it was an incredibly stupid thing for Burnham to tweet. For a start, there wasn’t ‘total chaos’. I’ve been travelling today & used both the East coast & Midland main lines – including Cross Country services. Apart from some delays, there’s been few real problems. And, believe me, if anyone’s going to suffer from speed restrictions or ‘chaos’ – it’s Cross Country. Their franchise stretches from Cornwall to Scotland! I was at Derby & the latest train I saw indicated was 10 minutes. Nor have I seen ‘chaos’ mentioned in other TOCs Twitter feeds – or on Facebook. What this shows is neither understanding of the railways nor commonsense when it comes to public relations. Needless to say, many other Tweeters (including myself) joined in and Burnham was left looking an idiot. However, he didn’t learn & unabashed, added to his woes with this untruthful & cheap jibe..

burnham 2

Of course, his problem is the fact that trans-pennine electrification & line upgrade hasn’t been cancelled at all, it’s merely been postponed whilst a bigger & more comprehensive scheme is designed. Burnham should know this. If he doesn’t, he’s very questionable Labour leadership material. That said, I’m not too surprised. His leadership campaign manager is Shadow Transport Minister Michael Dugher – also well known for making an arse of himself on social media. (see previous blogs like this).

My concern is this. Is this really the best the Labour party have to offer as future leaders? Can you imagine the likes of Blair, Brown (or even Milliband) making such schoolboy errors? If Burnham (and Dugher) really are the future Labour leadership then I can see only one result in the 2020 election – and it ain’t a Labour win. Having your arse handed to you on a plate via Twitter is one thing, but by voters at a general election?