Mark Stanton

A person in the world

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

After events in #Minneapolis a timely broadcast of tonight’s film on @bbc #catchingfire #Thehungergames

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

Anyone else not able to update their #fpl team this morning? Whatever they did to change their underlying cloud infrastructure this season isn’t going well.

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

@SkyUK broadband down ☹️ #skybroadband

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

Premier fantasy league website crashed. Are we all logging in to see our league opponents teams? :) #pfl #FantasyLeague

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

@jet2tweets Hi, I just booked a holiday on your website it says the payment wasn’t taken, but I can see the transaction is pending on my credit card account. is just a glitch on your side? I refreshed the page and it took me back to the payment page, but I don’t want to pay twice

[Morgan J. Freeman @mjfree]

BREAKING: The tiny town of South Park produced Paramount’s first EXTORTION PRO-MAGA PSA and it’s a fucking masterpiece! ⬇️⬇️⬇️

[𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐏𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 @MancPictures]

Manchester from Heaton Park

#OasisManchester

Manchester

📸 | @wolstenholmepic

[Yuval Noah Harari @harari_yuval]

Our relationship with the #truth: it's complicated.
Full discussion with @richroll available on on https://t.co/j1yHK1rWSS

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

@ManCityHelp Ok thanks

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

@ManCityHelp got an email saying can book parking for Villa game but went on the website and looks like can only book for Wolves game?

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

Someone asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?"

Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England, wrote this magnificent response:

"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."

[Andrea C. Love, PhD @dr_andrealove]

The CDC has literally been gutted today.

There’s no need for “April Fools” when reality is a nightmare for every human on this planet.

Thousand of scientists fired.
Entire departments erased.

1/

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

@80s_Kidz Fell in love with Molly Ringwald in this.

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

@FabrizioRomano He was excellent today

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

@ballondor @ManCity @ChampionsLeague Rodri fully deserved this. @realmadriden ‘s boycott surprised me though. For a club so well respected to show such a lack of class has the pong of self-infatuated entitlement about it.

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

This is essential viewing. A stark illustration of real life in Gaza over the past year, and a reminder that you or I are no different from them, despite what some would have us believe… Life and Death in Gaza | BBC News https://t.co/fdL9XlIp4L via @YouTube

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

Wow! #worcester #aurora #northernlights

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

@duolingo still have this problem. I thought I’d solved it by just getting the answer wrong as it then allowed me to move forward. But it just froze again on a similar “fill in the blank” screen :(

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

Hi @duolingoUK my app keeps freezing on this page in the Italian course for a couple of days now? I’ve updated the app but still no fix :(

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

@TheKiffness @KathyBurke This is very funny

[Mark Stanton @markgstanton]

Hi @duolingoUK my app keeps freezing on this page in the Italian course for a couple of days now? I’ve updated the app but still no fix :(