No smoke without fire

Not dead. (At time of writing.)

Here’s a little insight into how easy it is difficult it is to subvert international news organisations.

Somebody created a twitter account that looked very much like an official Sky News account. It had the Sky News logo as a picture. (I’m not linking to it.) Then they tweeted that Margaret Thatcher had died.

Oh dear.

Cue big excitement behind the scenes of news organisations.

It’s a prime example of how much more important it is to be right than to be first. (Sky News has had ascribed to it the motto “Never wrong for long” i.e. might not be dead now, but will be sometime. Or wrong news now, but we can correct it and then it’ll be fine. To be clear though, Sky wasn’t the culprit in this case. The twitter account was fake.)

Was the incorrect news of Margaret Thatcher’s death broadcast on the BBC

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Our Royal Wedding Street Party

I only married him cos he looked like you...

The excitement is building. The tiaras are being dusted off. The red, white and blue wigs are being pulled out from the backs of cupboards.

Our street is preparing for a party. We finally found an excuse for a neighbourly shindig. It’s… ah… it’ll come to me…

Oh aye. Kate and William are getting married on Friday and we’re shutting down the area for a tea party. No, not that kind of tea party – the dainty sandwiches type of tea party.

We’ll have the traditional tables up the road, cucumber sandwiches (but with or without the crusts – that’s the dilemma), toasts, nostalgia for an imagined past we never knew and general silliness.

No doubt there’ll be a fair amount of royal-related tat on display. Our mugs from China arrived broken – so they’ll not do as prizes. But do you think them smashing in transit is a bad omen for the royal couple? Or are the bad vibes mitigated by the fact they showed a picture of Harry, not Wills, cosying up to Kate. Maybe it was for the best that the wrong brother and the bride-to-be were sundered.

Not a good likeness.

Not everyone on the road is happy about the party

Still got it

Just back from the Rhythm Festival.

But how to describe it?

• It’s where I go to feel young and clean shaven (compared to the rest of the crowd).
• It’s where you look at the stage and say: “I thought he was dead ages ago.”
• It’s where a blues band announces that the bass player has had a stroke, lost the power of speech except for swearing, but will sing the next number anyway. (Not good.)
• It’s a lot better than I’m making it sound so far.
• And it’s where you find out if past greats still have it… Or not. (And you meet the next wave too.)

S0 – Who has still got it?