Napoleonic & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Friday 12 January 2018

Hooptedoodle #290 - A Trifle Confused


Very disappointed this morning. One of the disadvantages of waking up at 6am to BBC Radio 4 news is that sometimes I am still drowsy, and my perception of what has been said can be a trifle confused.


However, it seems that Mr Trump is not going to come to Britain to open the new US Embassy in London after all. I'm not entirely clear why he refuses to come, but it seems to be something to do with the fact that he doesn't like the building, and it's all Mr Obama's fault, apparently. That all sounds quite reasonable, I guess, but I was secretly planning to go down to the Metrollopus and join the welcoming throng, so, yes, I am deeply disappointed, and what am I going to do with this little flag?


This is also potentially unfortunate from a diplomacy point of view, since we in the UK might be reliant on some handouts from the US if the Brexit negotiations proceed on their current tack, so I hope there is no element of falling-out in his decision. It's all a bit worrying, really. I'll just keep the flag safe in my drawer - yes, next to the scarves and my woolly hat - since I'm sure he'll be back to see us soon.

I'm sure it will be all right.


I'm also a bit confused about something I may have heard (or maybe I read it) about possible enforced changes in Mr T's use of Twitter. I'm already a little mystified by all that. It is marvellous that he uses Tweets to such effect, and so many of them (and he's no spring chicken, you know), though I don't quite understand how this works. Does he leave the room, so that he can Tweet the same people he was just talking to? Does he go to the bathroom or something? Does he have a special (big?) cellphone for important messages? Whatever, it's all very clever, but it seems there are new guidelines coming, whereby Twitter and Facebook and all that lot are going to be required to take a firm stance on what represents inappropriate use of their services, and are going to have to take responsibility for moderating or blocking customer usage - at least, more than they have done previously.

Obviously I haven't thought through all the implications of this, but it has already been suggested that using Tweets to make nuclear threats to the President of North Korea is an example of the sort of thing which advertisers might find alarming, so we may find that the messages which control our future existence may have to find a new medium in future to make themselves known.

There must be some problem with just talking to people, I guess, or using the traditional communications set-up of the White House - I think we have to respect this, as a special case - but it does seem possible that the Presidential Tweets are going to have to stop. Someone suggested that it might be possible for the President to employ a glove puppet as his spokesman - again, I haven't thought of all the implications, but it would tick a few of the right boxes, it would be very cheap, and it would go down very well with the under-5s.



Fascinating stuff. If you would care to suggest a name for the new spokesperson, please feel free to contribute.


14 comments:

  1. ....and people say Hilary would have been worse... they need to up their medication... the chap is a complete, errr, bounder... :o)

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  2. We truly must be in the End Times politically speaking. Politics in the U.S. have become as laughably unstable as in, say, Brazil or Italy.

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

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    1. ....ah, Brazil and Italy, would they be the "sh**holes" he (allegedly) mentioned this morning, I wonder?? I mention this purely in jest, as the UK has nothing to be proud of politically at the moment either.... on the plus side, you are well set to converse with the thousands of Norwegian immigrants he has welcomed to the US.. LOL! :o))

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  3. Time to close down the internet I say, although not this blog of course!

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  4. I can't accept that an electoral majority of the American nation voted for an imbecile, so I guess it must be me that's crazy - yes, that has to be it - that's something of a comfort. As for the Internet, it does have its uses, but it seems bizarre that the world should be waiting to check what The Tronald really thinks about world trade, the environment, foreigners etc by checking his Tweet droppings. Really very strange - the more I think about it, the more peculiar that is. If Tweet were not available, would he put messages in bottles and throw them in the sea? Smoke signals?

    I also read somewhere that there are growing concerns that 10-year-olds in the UK and the US are changing their lifestyles to maximise the number of Likes they get on Facebook and so on. Draw your own parallels. The world is already in hock to the favours that Tronald owes to people and organisations who supported his presidential campaign. Do we also have to put up with the distortions caused by his fishing for Likes on Twitter?

    Are there, by any chance, any grown-ups in?

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  5. I'm a bit disappointed that no-one offered a suitable name for the patriotically coloured puppet...

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    1. We're confused. Staring eyes, vacant expression, brain obviously made of wool - are you sure this isn't one of his existing spokespeople?

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    2. You don't think....?

      It couldn't be Scaramucci, surely? But I thought he was in the bottom of a dock somewhere.

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    3. Kelly Ann Conway - it's the dress sense that gave it away.

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  6. Given his apparent qualifications the sock puppet would no doubt occupy a senior position in the West Wing, since he is demonstrably smarter and has more experience than everyone else there, so not just a spokesmaven but a Press Secretary.
    I therefore propose we call him Mr Socratary.

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