When you’re on Twitter, you’re never more than a few tweets away from a total scold
“Friendly”. BuzzFeed’s Kassy Cho on Twitter on Thursday:
Friendly reminder that you don’t get to celebrate lunar new year unless you’re literally from a country that does or if you are invited by someone who is from a country that does.
“Tennis player turned lawyer” Andy Wang replying on Twitter to instant acclaim:
Friendly reminder that I hereby formally invite everyone to celebrate lunar new year.
The past is another country. Kassy Cho feeling a little different about that whole appropriation business on Twitter on November 1, 2017:
Taiwan does Halloween the best.
Tony Abbott quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday:
These people just can’t help themselves. They are all negative. They don’t know what they’re for, but by God, they know what they’re against.
Sky News website yesterday:
A recent poll has revealed former prime minister Tony Abbott could lose his Sydney seat of Warringah to Zali Steggall at the upcoming election.
Wait a second. Sky News continues:
In a ReachTEL poll commissioned by GetUp …
Donald Trump on Twitter on Saturday:
My representatives have just left North Korea after a very productive meeting and agreed upon time and date for the second Summit with Kim Jong-un. It will take place in Hanoi, Vietnam, on February 27 & 28. I look forward to seeing Chairman Kim & advancing the cause of peace!
Author Peter W. Singer replying on Twitter:
Congrats on finally agreeing to go to Vietnam.
At least he seems to practise what he preaches. Singer’s most recent book:
LikeWar — The Weaponisation of Social Media.
Publish, damned. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on February 6:
A textbook on economics has been banned from use in Russian schools after an expert review deemed it lacking in patriotism … The expert review notes that “the examples cited (in the book) do not promote love for the Motherland.”
Damned, and undamned. British Council website entry for February:
It was the British Council that commissioned (George Orwell’s) famous essay “In Defence of English Cooking” in 1946, as part of its efforts to present British culture overseas. Yet the council then refused to publish it. It seems that the organisation in those days was somewhat po-faced and risk-averse … A rather mortified rejection letter from the British Council Publications Department and the editor’s notes acknowledge the “excellent’ essay, but “with one or two minor criticisms” ——one of which seems to be that Orwell’s recipe for orange marmalade contains “too much sugar and water”. Over 70 years later, the British Council is delighted to make amends for its slight on perhaps the UK’s greatest political writer of the 20th century, by reproducing the original essay in full …
From Orwell’s essay:
The two great shortcomings of British cookery are a failure to treat vegetables with due seriousness, and an excessive use of sugar.
Peter Slipper on Twitter yesterday:
Can people please be nice — everyone is entitled to their opinion. If you don’t agree argue your point politely.