#Friday follows Thursday

Last week was something of a double coup (coup coup) for Twitter. The Twittering classes managed to capsize a government gagging order on the Graun. The story the paper was prevented from running concerned the activities of Trafigura, a raw materials trader who supposedly illegally dumped of toxic waste off of the Ivory Coast. It's been covered in greater detail by others (Guido Fawkes, Charlie Brooker) so I won't bother going into it in detail. The PDF of the gagging order can be found here (courtesy of the Guardian).


Then there was the Jan Moir/Stephen Gately fail. In a way, I didn't really see what all the fuss was about; Daily Mail publishes vaguely homophobic article - in other news Friday follows Thursday...

But I also quite liked it (the furore, not the article). It formed a nice counter-serve to all the vitriol poured on the BBC in the wake of the Brand/Baillie/Ross/Sachs-farce; vitriol chiefly stirred up by certain sections of the media. After Jacqui Smith, Jan Moir is a close runner for the top spot for Schadenfrau '09. Most Complained About Article Ever, according to Press Gazette. That'll at least get you second place.

The noise stirred up by the shrill tweeting of thousands of twits (yours truly included) fostered in yet another argument about freedom of speech. Moir was perfectly within her rights to write what she thought. The whole point of freedom of speech is you can say whatever the hell you like, provided you can back it up. Don't let your mouth write a cheque if your arse can't cash it, y'all.

The subject of free speech brings us nicely on to Nick 'not Peter' Griffin, aka Popeye on weight gain and Ginsters. I probably won't be watching Question Time tonight as it's pretty obvious to anyone what this guy is all about and I have better things to do with my spare time, such as ironing my work shirts and feeding my cat. I don't agree that just because he is a vile and repugnant character should he be denied a platform - let him speak his branes and then let him attempt to defend himself.