One is 1 (is too)

Happy bidet to me, happy bidet to me... well, not me, but this here blog. One year ago today, I made the first post, Children's Television: The Re-Imagining (which I've added to on occasion), and sort of went from there, really. And you know what? This blog still hasn't got a theme of any kind. I don't think I'm organised enough for that.

I wanted to write a fun celebration type of post, but I may have to come back later in the week to do that and pretend it's still November 3rd. You know when you wake up and just feel melancholy? I'm a bit like that today. 

Looking back at the stuff I was writing on here a year ago, what's changed? The TV stuff I was complaining about last year is still firmly in place (X Factor, Strictly Come Dancing), but the government has changed, bringing with it the largest sense of impending doom and crawling skin I've felt since I heard the phrase "and here's your host, Patrick Kielty". We have a set of faceless business managers forcing their unwelcome right wing, rich-friendly rhetoric on the public. I hope you're happy, Britain, getting these cunts into power. You do realise that George Osborne, when he's not being a Dickensian workhouse owner, is actually Mr Sinister from the X-Men?

One thing that I've been concerned about of late is that politics is becoming a major division on Twitter. Since the Tories got into power, it has become awash with intolerance, more and more people revealing themselves to be ardent supporters of the ConDems and their spiteful policies. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, no matter how wrong or misguided they may be, but it's the air of smugness I can't bear. New Labour screwed up in a major way, and I disliked pretty much every single person in the Cabinet, but I didn't feel like my family was going to suffer as much as they will under this government.

Recently, Margaret Thatcher was admitted to hospital. The normal Twitter thing happened, and people tweeted jokes about her dying. This is a woman who fucked the country in the 80s, a vile human being so out of touch, she might as well have been a fucking poltergeist, and has rightly become despised. However, there was a sudden upsurge of support for her on Twitter from some quarters, people saying "how dare they wish an elderly woman to die?" and so forth. This is perhaps true on one level, but would these people have said the same thing about Osama bin Laden or Myra Hindley? Probably not. What these people are doing is, one the one hand, failing to acknowledge the deep-seated hatred that people feel towards her, and on the other, using it as a political football. I made one subtle joke, not even naming her, and I was immediately unfollowed by someone I had a modicum of respect for. Reading her subsequent tweets, she was having dozens of conversations with those very people I mentioned, saying how "disgusting" it was that people dared tweet such things, but also stating that she "loved Mrs Thatcher - I think she was brilliant". I can see the point about wishing her dead, but that is washing away all of the evil that she performed, the feeling of hatred that people feel towards her, and the fact that we've pretty much got her back now in the form of Cameron. Being sensitive enough to unfollow people on Twitter over it though? Ah well, life's too short to worry about people like that.

For a short time, I had a second Twitter account, @JoeyMiliband, a fictional, gene-spliced experiment to create the ultimate Miliband. It didn't catch on, and became too much effort to constantly try and tweet made up stuff. Ah well, I tried. Anyway, this was he:

People didn't get the joke. Who am I to argue? Deleted.

Anyway, Dystopian Fuchsia. I don't get much time to write here at the moment, but when I do, I love doing it. For those of you that have been here since the start, and everyone else who's joined since, I thank you so much for your support. I'd like to run a competition (of sorts)... I'm currently working on Destinauts, my web comic, and the prize is to have a character named after you in an upcoming issue. It won't be a bit-part character, but a major role. There's no cash equivalent. 

For your chance to win, follow this blog (at the very top-right of the page) if you don't already, and answer the following 3 questions:

1. What's the name of the cigarette smoking journalist in the first issue of Destinauts?

2. Who was the star of last year's Children's Television: The Re-Imagining's Hallowe'en Special?

3. What was the title of the short story I posted last Christmas?

The answers can be found somewhere on this site and on the Destinauts site. Email your answers to dystopianfuchsia@googlemail.com, marked "Competition", by November 8th 2010. In your email, you'll need to include your real name, as well as your name as it appears on the "Followers" list up above. The winner will be selected randomly and announced on this site next week.

Well, thanks for reading. It's been great fun writing this blog over the past year, and though the posts don't happen as often as they used to, they will still keep coming. 

I don't know how to sign off this post, and I hate long goodbyes, so here's a random picture.

Bye.