Sunday 29 March 2015

The new left-wing keyboard (hat-tip: A Tangled Web) - plus a proposal for a software programme for left-wing journalists


The only thing I'd do is get rid of the "ANTI-SEMITE" key, given how many left-winger journalists are fully fledged anti-Semites these days. Just think how much time it would save Guardian writers! I thought I'd written a post suggesting that someone should come up with a special piece of software for left-wing commentators, but, if I did, I can't find it anywhere. I may have included it in a comment on a Mary Riddell piece on the Telegraph blogsite in the days when I be bothered with such activities.

The basic idea was that the hard-pressed lefrt-wing writer would enter the title of the piece ("UKIP should be banned", "Immigrants are ansolutely wonderful", "Islam is a religion of peace"), the topic (("racism, sexism, bankers, fracking, climate change"), the key players (e.g. "Cameron, Miliband, Russell Brand"), the number of words required, tonal qualities (e.g. "furious, sneering, vicious, smug, compassionate, sarcastic, thoughtful, more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger, sensitive flower, Alastair Campbell"), level of leftiness ("communist, SWP, Fabian, socialist, social democrat, student activist, BBC Producer, lib-dem"), level of originality and/or intelligence ("truly banal, stupendously dumb, same old bollocks, utterly unoriginal, educated fool, two short planks, flunked media studies") and level of contact with reality ("off with the fairies, out to lunch, the lights are on but there's nobody home, space cadet, substance abuse"), and the target outlet (Salon, The Independent, New Statesman, Asian Babes). After you'd filled out all the required fields, you'd press a button - and there it would be! It would even compose the email to the relevant editor, taking their particular left-wing obsessions, preferred style of address, and required level of sycophancy into account.

Of course, I've already completed the right-wing version, and now use it for all the political articles on this blog.


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