Debra Patterson

Just a nobody shouting into an abyss

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

A&E again with Dad (94). Fourth or fifth time this year, I can't remember. He's had a fall at his care home. He's been assessed and is being treated within 2 hours. Amazing from @NHSMillion given that EVERY corridor is FULL of patients on trolleys. They're INCREDIBLE 💙

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

🧠 Quiz of the Day - Jun 4

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Score: 8/10

Think you can do better? https://t.co/u6h8ecOcEb

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

@PolitlcsUK Will Farage now apologise to the Nowak family for his hateful comments, which were expressly against their wishes?

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

@OliverLynne Yep. Cancer, here we come.

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

Something edible.

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

@OliverLynne £1700 is an awful lot of money to fix and issue, nevermind to not fix an issue. 🤷🏼‍♀️

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

https://t.co/7BMnbJEGXU

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

@OliverLynne So does he pay the £1700 and cross his fingers? What a stupid thing to say when they are the manufacturer.

[Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump]

Nate White, a British writer penned the best description of Donald Trump I’ve ever read:

“Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?”

A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?' If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.”

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

@charbhardy @CarolineBignell I didn't see Farage's 'address to the nation', but several high profile people on here have reported him to the Met for it.

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

@CarolineBignell @charbhardy A nazi saulte with the left arm just shows how stupid these people are. Someone blows a dog whistle and the pathetic little people come running. I hope every single one is identified and charged.

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

Wordle 1,810 6/6

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[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

@implausibleblog When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
Dr Maya Angelou

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

@evilokapi

[London Zoo @zsllondonzoo]

Mzimu x-ray training 💚

Our vet nurses spend many months building the trust that is needed to be able to perform these health checks which are vital to keep our animals healthy.

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

@victorthevole @ChrisPage90 Aw, that's lovely x

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

@CarolineBignell @Remisagoodboy Indeed.

[quibble @QuibbleUK]

Hello, we are Jonathan and Abigail - unashamed pedants who want to bring this affliction to bear on all things public policy and practice.
We believe that details matter, especially in public administration. This is why today we are founding quibble: a campaign to fix the small stuff.
Think, for example, about the cookie banner that we click on every webpage. Each instance is not a big deal, so we just put up with it. But its cumulative impact adds up - on average we press it 5 times per day. The European Commission estimates that it costs EU citizens 343 million hours per year.
And who is there to represent the impacts of seemingly minor issues like this in a systematic way? We want quibble to be the answer. In the case of the cookie banner, lots of advocacy has rightly focused on privacy, but has this meant that user experience has taken a backseat? We believe there are ways to improve user experience without compromising on privacy. We will share more about this soon.
Consider another example. Did you know that in some government-run car parks you can be fined for a minor keying error, such as accidentally typing a zero instead of an “o”? Again, we will come to the detail of this quibble in the coming weeks, but for now just consider again the question: who? Who is there currently to systematically represent the interests of the parker who is given an unfair ticket?
An inherent feature of consumer interests is that those who have them rarely have enough other things in common to make collective organisation and representation feasible. This is the gap that quibble seeks to fill. Now of course excellent consumer interest groups exist. But understandably quibbles might not be at the top of their lists. Our hope is that quibble will be complementary; picking up the bottom-of-the-list issues faced by various groups - the stuff they are almost too embarrassed to raise because they are too small.
We are not embarrassed about detail. If you’ve ever had a splinter, you know small things can have a big impact. This is what quibble is committed to tackling, and our wider hope is that by doing so we will also incentivise policy makers to be even more careful about detail.
Check out our website here, including our first four campaigns: https://t.co/gZiqqHbhIL

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

Wordle 1,809 3/6

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[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

🧠 Quiz of the Day - Jun 2

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Score: 9/10

Think you can do better? https://t.co/u6h8ecOcEb

LOTS of very lucky guesses.

[Debra Patterson @MrsP_A]

Do you remember when you joined Twitter? I do! #MyTwitterAnniversary