The ruling class may oppress them...

...but to really hate the masses, that takes a Guardian reader:

Unlike readers of the Tory-owned press, we take the Guardian for opinions with which we can agree or disagree and make up our own minds based on facts provided elsewhere in the newspaper or other media.

I still find myself rendered speechless by such snobbery, despite it being commonplace amongst the Pretend Left.

If writing were like tweeting...

  

  

It's tough being a Guardian reader

From yesterday's Guardian letters page and the file marked "First World Problems": 

I put my cashmere elbow in the pot of hummus on the arm of my seat while watching the relay of Rodelinda from the Met last Saturday. There is reason why cinema food is traditionally dry – like popcorn and crisps (Should a cinema be a restaurant too?, G2, 6 December).

I hope some of those so-called anti-poverty campaigners have a whip-round for the dry-cleaning bill.

Bell Pottinger's "magical" digital reputation team don't know how to use Google

I know it's missing the point about the murky claims made by the Bell Pottinger lobbyists* but as someone who has seen a number of these stings (one from quite close hand) over the last 13 years or so, I found this element particularly puzzling.

Tim Collins described David Wilson's digital reputation management team as "magical". Yet they appear to not be able to use Google properly.

The name of the fake client created by The Independent and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism was the Azimov Group. If you put "Azimov Group" into Google, you get 57 results (at time of writing). Seven of which are links to The Independent story, or news aggregrators or blogs also covering the scoop. One of the pages is what appears to be a failed attempt to set up a page about the group on a Japanese Wikipedia-type site.

The Azimov Group's website is simply a holding page with a name, address and mobile phone number.

Now I know that the schtick was that it was a relatively unofficial, secret, clubby clique of business people. But seriously? Only 50 hits and it didn't start any alarm bells ringing? 

In the age of Wikileaks, Wikipedia and 24-hour crowd-sourced coverage of, well, just about everything, you found just 50 hits about an international investor group with links to a dodgy Central Asian regime and thought, yep, seems like it's all legit and not made up at all.

Ooooh-kay.

*FWIW, I do draw a distinction between what Collins, Richmond and Wilson claimed as an extreme form of marketing, and the actual truth of their influence. But what a way to earn a living. And I say that as somebody who has had a career in this field. Though always, I hope, knew where to draw the line. (Somewhere several thousand miles before cotton harvesting child labourers in Central Asia, by the way).

Charisma community outraged at omission from BBC #SPOTY nominations.

People with personalities expressed outrage today after the BBC refused to re-open nominations for the 2011 Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY).

Leading figures in the charisma community have demanded that, next year, the public broadcaster casts a wider net amongst those journalists nominating the shorltist of 10.

Storm McDazzle, the editor of Twinkle In The Eye Quarterly, said:

"No one wants to take away from the achievements that this year's top ten have grindingly achieved while not over-stimulating anyone. But when all you have is the likes of people called things like Colin and Brian from little read organs such as Angling News and The Independent picking their favourites, then you're not going to have a very representative list".

Excitey De La Blonde, who was one of the first People-With-Personality to qualify for next year's Olympics, added:

"It's been nearly two decades since anyone who wasn't a monosyllabic, media-trained, yawn-merchant won BBC Sports Personality of the Year. To have no one on the list this time with even the slightest history of alcoholic capery or serial shagging is a major set-back for equality."

12 year-old Jody Rascal, a 12 year-old, has pleaded with the BBC to re-think:

"It's not easy growing up as a Charisma Positive young person interested in sport. We need our role models to help us overcome the prejudices we face from other kids whose parents think Tim Henman is a dangerous iconoclast."

A spokesman for SPOTY favourites, Jonathan Boring and Simon Boring (no relation), was asked for a response. After two Red Bulls and a packet of Pro-Plus, she lifted her head and said "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."