Jack Green's Bit of Stuff

The office Christmas tree!

My office is so Christmassy. #ProudOfTheBBC.

I often find him terribly unfunny and rude. This however is hilarious.

(via louiseyweezy)

Has there been a better sitcom in the last five years?

I am addicted to this programme. Even though most of the finished properties look terrible!

This software is my friend. It takes away all the stress of formatting a script, and allows you to just focus on the creative. Final Draft, I love you.

Daniel Mays was great in Dr Who this weekend. Loved him in @monasticprods’ Ashes to Ashes Series 3 too.

I’ve blogged about social networks before. In a previous post I confessed to not really getting the point of Google+. If you’re expecting a post where I suddenly change my mind, apologise for my old views, and resolve to use Google+ 26 hours a day, 11 days a week, then you are mistaken. I applaud it for trying, but it’s still crap.

Anyway, I have a theory that social networks live like dogs. Indulge me, I’ve thought about this.

First of all, they get a hell of a lot of attention when they’re young. Take Bebo, back in 2005 when it was all new and shiny, it was the adorable puppy of the online community. Everyone loved it. Especially teenyboppers. It kind of lost it’s cuteness when it got older…

…which takes me to my second doggy based similarity: life span - these websites live in Social Network years. Myspace started in 2003. In human years that makes it 8 years old. In Social Network years it is 80. It’s creaking and aching, grinding to a halt slowly. The URL www.myspace.com houses a sad old website that’s lost its youth… It’s been neglected. It’s old, and frail, and waiting for death. It needs to be put down.

This makes Facebook 70 years old. And that, I think, is probably fair. It’s slowing down. Users are becoming disillusioned as things keep changing. It’s going senile, it’s out of touch with what people want. Facebook chat? Naff off!

Twitter on the other hand is a mere 50 years old. It’s going from strength to strength. It’s the cool parent of the social network world - it’s spawned two beautiful children in Tweetdeck, and Twitpic - and it has cool friends who clamour to be associated with it: Audioboo, Tumblr and Stephen Fry.

But give it a few years and I bet even the mighty Twitter will go the way of Bebo and Myspace and LiveJournal and Friends Reunited and Geocities… To the great online kennel in the sky.

—-

Okay, that’s only two dog related comparisons… Leave a comment if you think of any more.

I found this old blog post that I never actually uploaded. Reading it back made me chuckle. Enjoy.

19:10
Picture the scene. A mid-November evening on platform 3b at an under-lit Chester railway station. It’s so cold - so cold I can see my breath, floating in front of me, hanging in the air, like a smoker’s nicotine cloud. The display board in front of me says the 19:35 to London Euston will shortly arrive at platform one. I lug my heavy baggage, heaving as I go. My back groans under the weight of my backpack, surely close to snapping, but I continue regardless. It is my mission to board this train.

19:15
I reach platform one, and place my bags on the floor carefully. I resist the urge to wholeheartedly accept the kind invitation from gravity, and send my bags crashing to earth without a parachute. I must rest. My back aches, I’m not as young as I was – though this of course is true of anyone. The platform is busy, full of riff and raff and rough. I see an elderly lady in a baseball cap – she’s surely over seventy five. Good on her, clearly a loyal and life-long supporter of the Yankees. Although, she doesn’t really pull off the Nike Air-Max if I’m completely honest. I listen for an announcement.

19:20
Still listening. Freezing my balls off.

19:23
A train arrives at platform 3b. Nothing at platform 1 yet. I still wait, the cold stinging my ears as I do. I hope they haven’t been rendered ineffective by the frosty air. I silently thank a passing stag party, complete with obligatory road sign, for proving that that isn’t the case. I make a mental note to ask for ear muffs for Christmas. Ear muffs are great and multi-purpose. As well as the primary ear-warming function, they also can be utilised as a relatively useful sound blocker. I daydream about ear muffs as I continue waiting.

19:25
It turns out the train on platform 3b is the 19:35 to London Euston, still advertised on the board as being on platform 1. Turns out the staff of Virgin Trains and Chester Railway Station believe that I, and fellow customers share the gift of telepathy. This is in fact optimistic on their part, as the only gift currently in my possession is the gift of being turned into an ice cube. I make my way to the train.

19:29
Oh joy. Somebody is in my seat. I ask them to move. They show me a valid ticket plus reservation form. Ah. Turns out my seat is also their seat. I show them my ticket and reservation. Perhaps they are the same ticket from different points in their time-stream? How annoying. I have a think. How should this situation be resolved? I foresee two main options. A) A fight to the death, or B) I could sit on their knee. I notice my co-reservee has a walking stick. This rules out both options A and B – It just wouldn’t feel right to kill an individual who is already crippled. I back down, and try to find an alternative seat.

19:31
It appears there are no free seats on the entire train.

19:32
I take my place in the only area not reserved. A small section of the floor. In between carriages. Outside the toilet. I blog about my experience.

captainfarrell:

Fox News does something right.

Actually the funniest thing I’ve read in ages.

I’ve had Google+ for a few weeks now. I’m afraid I don’t really get it. 

It is bland. It is boring. It doesn’t really do anything new that I would use - apart from perhaps the circles feature (directing posts to certain groups of people). I have the same people on there that I have on Facebook and Twitter, except they don’t say as much on there.

So far it’s a huge thumbs down for Google+, which is a shame.

Finished this last night. Excellent book by Dave Gorman. I recommend it.

Are you my mummy?

cruelwaste:

This is Nick Clegg stating that there was a very serious risk of riots on the streets if the Tories were elected, way back in April 2010.

‘British people are not going to react in that way…’ well. 

Frightening foresight from Nick Clegg on Sky News a year or so ago.

(via louiseyweezy)

The justice league show Aquaman that he is useless, redundant, and a waste of space.