I always like to try to salvage something of value out of the most worthless commodity of the digital age: spam. Most of the cast of characters in Hell Yeah! are named after the "senders" of spam emails, and earlier today I was going through the followers on the Twitter account of my Scottish politics site blocking all the pornbots and noticed a slightly odd shared characteristic in the process.
Almost every one had a single-word biog, and as I went down the list it seemed to have a certain poetry. I had just enough syllables to make two haikus (plus titles), with four left over. If you can do better with the words, send 'em in.
There are two reasons I’m incredibly happy about suddenly and unexpectedly rediscovering it – as I just have – of which the first is the less important.
Alert readers may recall a few weeks back I gave an interview to a blog written by a bunch of – well, let's call them "games journalists" for want of a more accurate term. A straightforward enough business, you might think – ask questions, get replies, publish, done. It didn't work out quite that simply.
While the interview caused a huge hit spike on the site and an unprecedented number of comments (over 100 compared to their usual three or four), this sudden influx of visitors and attention caused great consternation among some of the blog's editors other than the charming and talented young writer who'd done the interview.
Two of them – a pair of particularly lily-livered Future Publishing corporate drones – whined all over Twitter and elsewhere that the (incredibly mild) arguments in the comments were so beastly and upsetting that they were considering deleting the entire site, rather than attract all these awful, horrid people (ie, readers) to it by speaking to such a nasty man.
Long story short, to spare the hurt feelings of the less-popular stories on their blog (which is to say, all of them) the interview has been quietly deleted. So I've retrieved it and posted it below for posterity.
Man, I've been waiting for this to happen for ages. A long long time ago, when I was barely half as old as I am now, there was a magazine called Cut. A sort of artsier Scottish version of the NME, it was a music-and-culture-and-politics newspaper that came out either weekly or fortnightly, I forget which.
Either way, in 1989 Cut began publication of a comic strip written by Grant Morrison (the eccentric/mental creator of Zenith and The Invisibles, among many others), called The New Adventures Of Hitler.
robertkknight on The Unbargain Bin: ““Hiding in Plain Sight” by J R Swinney” Nov 24, 18:30
sarah on The Unbargain Bin: “Good idea, Dan. I hope the Rev is working very hard on all and every route to improving our chances…” Nov 24, 18:29
robertkknight on The Unbargain Bin: ““My Struggle” by N F Sturgeon” Nov 24, 18:29
Hatey McHateface on The Unbargain Bin: “Have it your way then, Mia, we’re doomed by the US deep state. Logically though, if SNP voters can’t be…” Nov 24, 18:24
sarah on The Unbargain Bin: “‘Tis true, ’tis true ’tis pity, and pity ’tis, ’tis true. How is it that Holyrood’s standard of representative has…” Nov 24, 18:18
Nae Need! on The Unbargain Bin: “‘Craobh Haven: A Secret Love Nest’ by Carpet Muncher” Nov 24, 18:09
Hatey McHateface on The Unbargain Bin: “Gender For Dummies Aimed at Scottish shop workers in department stores and the people who arrange shop windows, this indispensable…” Nov 24, 18:07
Mia on The Unbargain Bin: “I see that somebody has started a petition to the UK government asking for another GE. The petition has surpassed…” Nov 24, 18:06
Mia on The Unbargain Bin: ““everything else fades into insignificance” To you, perhaps. Not to me. Handing over the stone of destiny was, in my…” Nov 24, 17:40
Robert Hughes on The Unbargain Bin: “I meant good reason to doubt …..it is” Nov 24, 17:37
President Xiden on The Unbargain Bin: “What about wee Nikla’s autobiography, ‘I can’t recall’?” Nov 24, 17:19
Robert Hughes on The Unbargain Bin: “I can’t think of any reason why that couldn’t be done , D : other than the SNP’s likely selfish…” Nov 24, 17:16
twathater on The Unbargain Bin: “If you remember Dan I posted comments on here and Barrhead Boy and Iain Lawson’s Yours for Scotland prior to…” Nov 24, 17:15
Hatey McHateface on The Unbargain Bin: ““White! White!! White!!! Scotland’s Curse And How To Lift It” [Here’s a preview of the jacket blurb] “Written by an…” Nov 24, 17:13
Nae Need! on The Unbargain Bin: “On a similar note: ‘A Beginners Guide to Deviancy’ by He Him.” Nov 24, 17:09
znovak on The Unbargain Bin: ““200 quick and easy gender identity recipes for boring people” by M.Black “Three non-binary individuals in a boat (she/her) (To…” Nov 24, 16:19
Dan on The Unbargain Bin: “@RevStu (and would appreciate comments from many others) So looking back at this article and the manifesto text pasted below…” Nov 24, 15:36
Colin Alexander on The Unbargain Bin: “Salmond went the s30 route – upholding the sovereignty of his Queen of England in WM. Under Salmond, the SNP…” Nov 24, 14:20
Mark Beggan on The Unbargain Bin: “One flew over the cuckoos nest By Fergus Ewing” Nov 24, 14:04
Mark Beggan on The Unbargain Bin: “A Dictators Guide to the Galaxy P Harvey” Nov 24, 13:52
TURABDIN on The Unbargain Bin: “THE BIG LIE AND HOW THE F****** FELL FOR IT. a very, very, very graphic novel. by the Bute House…” Nov 24, 13:21
stuart mctavish on The Unbargain Bin: “Greater Expectations, we the people Highland Treasure, Kate Forbes Lords of the Wings, Campbell & Cairns The illuad, Boris Johnson” Nov 24, 12:50
Pete Short on The Unbargain Bin: “What, no copies of The Presidency colouring book by Doald Trump?” Nov 24, 11:20
Cynicus on The Unbargain Bin: ““The Truth About Me” by [REDACTED] Foreword by John Swinney” Nov 24, 11:11
TURABDIN on The Unbargain Bin: “A recent survey indicates 60% of people in England are dissatisfied with «politics» but only 20% in Scotland. The Scots…” Nov 24, 11:03
Hatey McHateface on The Unbargain Bin: “The Observer’s Book Of Alphabetties” Nov 24, 10:28
