American companies added just 18,000 jobs in June, the US labour department said, well below forecasts of 90,000 to 120,000 US employers hired the fewest workers in nearly two years last month, pushing up the jobless rate and rattling financial markets. Crushing hopes of a turnaround in the jobs market, companies became increasingly cautious about hiring new staff amid the continuing economic uncertainty and added just 18,000 jobs in June, the US labour department said, well below the consensus forecast of 90,000 to 120,000, and the weakest reading since September 2010. The shock figures pushed the US unemployment rate up from 9.1% to 9.2% – the highest level since December 2010, when it stood at 9.4%. The FTSE 100, which was up about 27 points before the release of the June payroll figures, dropped more than 55 points to 5998.81 as investors fretted about the global impact of a slowdown in the world’s biggest economy. The private sector added just 57,000 jobs last month – against expectations of 110,000 – while the government shed 39,000. Rob Carnell, of ING Bank, described the figures as “absolutely awful” and said they would “rock” the markets. Markets analyst Louise Cooper said: “There was a collective gasp on the trading floor here at BGC when the non-farm payrolls number was released. Even given that this data is volatile and subject to large revisions, this number is worrying. “America is the country that creates jobs – flexible employment laws are supposed to ensure that in an economic recovery, people are re-employed quickly and easily. Eighteen thousands jobs created in a country of 400 million people with a 9.2% unemployment rate means that more needs to be done. But what? “[Regarding] monetary policy – the federal funds target rate is already at 0.25% – [there is] no room to cut there and QE2 [the second round of quantitative easing] finished last week. [With] $14tn debt and the deadline for the budget deal on 2 August, fiscal policy is tightening. Most economists are expecting a rebound to the US economy in the second half of the year [and] this number will cause them to return to their models.” The labour department also revised May’s disappointing job creation figures down further, saying companies added just 25,000 jobs in the month – less than half its previous estimate of 54,000. The job figures for April were also revised downwards, though far more moderately, to 217,000 from the previous estimate of 221,000. The figures are particularly disappointing after strong job creation figures on Thursday prompted many analysts to raise their forecast for Friday’s figures, from a consensus of 90,000 to 120,000. Those figures, from American payroll processor ADP, said that the private sector added 157,000 jobs last month – more than double the number expected and dwarfing the 36,000 jobs added in May. US unemployment and employment data US economy United States Global economy Tom Bawden guardian.co.uk
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• ‘Massive quantities’ of archive allegedly deleted • Emails believed to be between News of the World editors Police are investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive, in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard’s inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal. The archive is believed to have reached back to January 2005 revealing daily contact between News of the World editors, reporters and outsiders, including private investigators. The messages are potentially highly valuable both for the police and for the numerous public figures who are suing News International. According to legal sources close to the police inquiry, a senior executive is believed to have deleted ‘massive quantities’ of the archive on two separate occasions, leaving only a small fraction to be disclosed. One of the alleged deletions is said to have been made at the end of January this year, just as Scotland Yard was launching Operation Weeting, its new inquiry into the affair. The allegation directly contradicts repeated claims from News International that it is co-operating fully with police in order to expose its history of illegal news-gathering. It is likely to be seen as evidence that the company could not pass a ‘fit and proper person’ test for its proposed purchase of BSkyB. A Guardian investigation has found that, in addition to deleting emails, the company has also: • infuriated police by leaking sensitive information in spite of an undertaking to police that they would keep it confidential; and • risked prosecution for perverting the course of justice by trying to hide the contents of a senior reporter’s desk after he was arrested by Weeting detectives in April. News International originally claimed that the archive of emails did not exist. Last December, their Scottish editor, Bob Bird, told the trial of Tommy Sheridan in Glasgow that the emails had been lost en route to Mumbai. Also in December, the company’s solicitor, Julian Pike from Farrer and Co, provided the High Court with a statement claiming that they were unable to retrieve emails which were more than six months old. The first hint that this was not true came in late January when News International handed Scotland Yard evidence which led to the immediate sacking of their news editor, Ian Edmondson, and to the launch of Operation Weeting. It was reported at the time that this evidence consisted of three old emails. Three months later, on 23 March this year, Julian Pike formally apologised to the High Court and acknowledged that News International could locate emails as far back as 2005 and that no emails had ever been lost en route to Mumbai or anywhere else in India. In a signed statement seen by the Guardian, Pike said he had been misinformed by the News of the World’s in-house lawyer, Tom Crone, who had told him that he, too, had been misled. He offered no explanation for the misleading evidence given by Bob Bird. The original archive was said to contain half a terabyte of data – equivalent to 500 editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica. But police now believe that there was an effort to substantially destroy the archive before News International handed over their new evidence in January. They believe they have identified the executive responsible by following an electronic audit trail. They have attempted to retrieve the data which they fear was lost. The Crown Prosecution Service are believed to have been asked whether the executive can be charged with perverting the course of justice. At the heart of the affair is a specialist data company, Essential Computing, based in Clevedon, near Bristol. Staff there have been interviewed by Operation Weeting. One source speculated that it was this company which had compelled News International to admit that the archive existed. The Guardian understands that Essential Computing has co-operated with police and has provided evidence about an alleged attempt by the News International executive to destroy part of the archive while they were working with it. This is said to have happened after the executive discovered that the company retained material of which News International was unaware. The alleged deletion has caused tension between News International and Scotland Yard, who are also angry over recent leaks. When the Murdoch company handed over evidence of their journalists’ involvement in bribing police officers in late June, they wanted to make a public announcement, claiming credit for their assistance to police. They were warned that this would interfere with inquiries and finally agreed that they would keep the entire matter confidential until early August, to allow police to make arrests. In the event, this week, a series of leaks has led Scotland Yard to conclude that News International breached the agreement. There was friction, too, in April when Weeting detectives arrested a senior journalist, James Weatherup. When they went to the News of the World’s office to search his desk, they found that all of its contents had been removed and lodged with a firm of solicitors, who initially refused to hand it over. The solicitors eventually complied. A file is believed to have been sent to the Crown Prosecution service seeking advice on whether anybody connected with the incident should be charged. Phone hacking Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers News International Nick Davies Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media I wrote about this case the other day when John Fund was on Fox touting how wonderful this would be for Rick Perry politically if he decided to jump into the 2012 Republican presidential primary race — Fox Host and John Fund Ask Whether Allowing Execution of Mexican National is Good Politics for Rick Perry . Well, it looks like after tonight, he may get his answer. Texas Executes Mexican After Court Declines Action : Texas has executed a Mexican national for the kidnapping and rape of a 16-year-old San Antonio girl. Humberto Leal Garcia, 38, was put to death less than two hours after the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 vote, rejected pleas from the Obama administration for a delay to avoid what it called serious international repercussions. This was Texas’s seventh execution of the year and the second execution since 2008 of a Mexican national who was denied access to the Mexican consul before trial. Before Leal Garcia’s trial, Texas authorities failed to inform him of his right to speak with officers from the Mexican consulate and failed to inform the consulate that a Mexican national had been arrested. Both of those failures violated a 1963 treaty signed by the U.S. Indeed, the consular access provision was added to the treaty at the insistence of the United States. The U.S. relies on the treaty to secure legal help and often to win release of Americans imprisoned abroad, some in countries such as Iran, Libya and Syria. Last year alone the U.S. invoked the treaty for 3,500 Americans imprisoned in other countries. In Leal Garcia’s case, Mexico said that if it had known of his arrest, it could have provided sufficient legal help and information about his abusive childhood that the death penalty might well have been averted. In 2008, in a similar case brought by the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled that the consular access treaty does not bind state courts unless Congress, in addition to its ratification of the treaty, enacts an enforcement law. The Obama administration last month endorsed such a law and last week asked the Supreme Court to stay the Leal Garcia execution to allow it time to win passage of the proposed statute. Read on… Democracy Now had more on this earlier today before the man was executed this evening — Mexican Denied Consular Rights Faces Texas Execution Tonight Despite White House Opposition : The Obama administration has urged Texas to delay tonight’s execution of a Mexican national, saying it would put the U.S. in breach of international obligations. Humberto Leal Garcia is set to be executed for the 1994 kidnapping, rape and murder of Adria Sauceda, a 16-year-old girl. After his arrest, Leal was provided with court-appointed lawyers but never informed he could have access to Mexican consular officials, as is required under the United Nations’ Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Leal’s family still maintains he is innocent and defense attorney says his case was also hurt by inadequate counsel by his court-appointed attorney. Barring a last minute stay by Texas Governor Rick Perry or the U.S. Supreme Court, Leal is set to be executed at 6pm. We speak with Humberto Leal’s attorney, Sandra Babcock. [Includes rush transcript]
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Bad weather is expected to hit Cape Canaveral in the next few hours but the space shuttle is fuelled and the astronauts are about to make their way to the launchpad Follow live updates on the shuttle launch here In the past few hours Nasa’s launch team have filled the external tanks of space shuttle Atlantis with more than 535,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen in preparation for launch on Friday morning local time . The chances of launch are still low, around 30%, due to adverse weather conditions that are expected to come into Cape Canaveral in the next few hours. Filling the shuttle’s famous 45-metre-long orange external tank with fuel, a procedure called tanking, started at 2am (EDT) and took just under 3 hours, finishing ahead of schedule at 4:48am Florida time. The pressurised liquid hydrogen is kept in the tank at -253C, and the liquid oxygen at -183C until they meet and burn in the orbiter’s main engines. There are no technical impediments for the scheduled launch at 11:26am (4.26pm BST) but Nasa officials are closely monitoring the weather. In the small hours of Friday morning the four astronauts who will fly on the last ever shuttle mission , designated STS-135 and intended to take supplies to the International Space Station, ate breakfast and completed final medical examinations. A short time after 6am, they will make their way to the launch pad, to be strapped into the Atlantis orbiter. On Thursday Nasa said it was investigating the effects of a possible lightning strike that occurred a third of a mile from the launch pad amid torrential rain. Engineers reviewed data, the agency said in a statement, and inspected the rotating service structure, which provides access to the orbiter on the launchpad and has to be rolled back before launch. There is no indication, however, that this has had any impact on the launch time. The countdown can be aborted up to 9 minutes before the scheduled launch. Countdown commentator for Nasa, Allard Beutel, told CBS News that some people might call it “silly to try and play in the rain this morning, but he said we’re going to absolutely try for tanking. But throughout the overnight and closer to the dawn early morning hours, between six and seven o’clock, they’ll keep their eyes on the forecast, of course, all night long, but around that time, they’ll start getting a very focused look on the weather and see whether it’s the right thing to proceed towards launch or whether the forecast really is getting worse. We’ll look at perhaps standing down at that point.” If Atlantis misses its launch window on Friday, there are additional opportunities to launch on Saturday and Sunday mornings, when the chances for favourable weather increase to around 40% and 60% respectively. If the delay continues after that, the next window for launch is likely to be Saturday 16 July. Final space shuttle mission The space shuttle Nasa Space Florida United States Alok Jha guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Bad weather is expected to hit Cape Canaveral in the next few hours but the space shuttle is fuelled and the astronauts are about to make their way to the launchpad Follow live updates on the shuttle launch here In the past few hours Nasa’s launch team have filled the external tanks of space shuttle Atlantis with more than 535,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen in preparation for launch on Friday morning local time . The chances of launch are still low, around 30%, due to adverse weather conditions that are expected to come into Cape Canaveral in the next few hours. Filling the shuttle’s famous 45-metre-long orange external tank with fuel, a procedure called tanking, started at 2am (EDT) and took just under 3 hours, finishing ahead of schedule at 4:48am Florida time. The pressurised liquid hydrogen is kept in the tank at -253C, and the liquid oxygen at -183C until they meet and burn in the orbiter’s main engines. There are no technical impediments for the scheduled launch at 11:26am (4.26pm BST) but Nasa officials are closely monitoring the weather. In the small hours of Friday morning the four astronauts who will fly on the last ever shuttle mission , designated STS-135 and intended to take supplies to the International Space Station, ate breakfast and completed final medical examinations. A short time after 6am, they will make their way to the launch pad, to be strapped into the Atlantis orbiter. On Thursday Nasa said it was investigating the effects of a possible lightning strike that occurred a third of a mile from the launch pad amid torrential rain. Engineers reviewed data, the agency said in a statement, and inspected the rotating service structure, which provides access to the orbiter on the launchpad and has to be rolled back before launch. There is no indication, however, that this has had any impact on the launch time. The countdown can be aborted up to 9 minutes before the scheduled launch. Countdown commentator for Nasa, Allard Beutel, told CBS News that some people might call it “silly to try and play in the rain this morning, but he said we’re going to absolutely try for tanking. But throughout the overnight and closer to the dawn early morning hours, between six and seven o’clock, they’ll keep their eyes on the forecast, of course, all night long, but around that time, they’ll start getting a very focused look on the weather and see whether it’s the right thing to proceed towards launch or whether the forecast really is getting worse. We’ll look at perhaps standing down at that point.” If Atlantis misses its launch window on Friday, there are additional opportunities to launch on Saturday and Sunday mornings, when the chances for favourable weather increase to around 40% and 60% respectively. If the delay continues after that, the next window for launch is likely to be Saturday 16 July. Final space shuttle mission The space shuttle Nasa Space Florida United States Alok Jha guardian.co.uk
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• Man reached for ball thrown by Texas’ Josh Hamilton • Ryan: ‘Our thoughts and prayers are with his family’ A fan fell to his death at Rangers Ballpark on Thursday after catching a ball tossed to him by the Texas outfielder Josh Hamilton. The man was reaching for a ball thrown to him by Hamilton during the second inning of the match against Oakland and toppled over a railing after making the catch. Television pictures showed him falling some 20 feet from the outfield seats to a paved area behind a scoreboard. It is almost a year to the day since a similar accident at Rangers Ballpark when a fan named Tyler Morris fell from the second level to the lower bowl while trying to catch a foul ball on 6 July 2010. He suffered a fractured skull and broken ankle. “We are deeply saddened that the man who fell has passed away as a result of this tragic accident,” the club’s president, Nolan Ryan, said in a statement on the Rangers website. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.” The former US president George W Bush was sitting in the front row with Ryan when the accident happened. Ryan left moments later while Bush remained in the seats. The Rangers clubhouse was closed following the game as the players were informed of the tragedy. “We spoke to the ballclub, so they understand what happened,” Ryan said. “As any of us would be, Josh is very distraught over this.” Ronnie Hargis was sitting in the stands next to the victim, who was at the game with his young son. The men were talking to each other before the accident. “He went straight down. I tried to grab him but I couldn’t,” Hargis said. “I tried to slow him down a little bit.” Hargis’s daughter said the victim’s head was bleeding badly. Safawna Dunn, who was sitting behind the victim, said he appeared to have injuries to both arms and was conscious when taken away on a stretcher. “Josh Hamilton tried to throw [the ball] up to the guy because they were yelling for the ball,” Dunn said. Ryan said it was too early to talk about the two accidents and what evaluations the team may make about railings at the stadium. “Tonight, we’re not prepared to speak about anything further than the accident and the tragedy,” Ryan said. “That’s where I’m going to leave it.” MLB US sport guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …• Man reached for ball thrown by Texas’ Josh Hamilton • Ryan: ‘Our thoughts and prayers are with his family’ A fan fell to his death at Rangers Ballpark on Thursday after catching a ball tossed to him by the Texas outfielder Josh Hamilton. The man was reaching for a ball thrown to him by Hamilton during the second inning of the match against Oakland and toppled over a railing after making the catch. Television pictures showed him falling some 20 feet from the outfield seats to a paved area behind a scoreboard. It is almost a year to the day since a similar accident at Rangers Ballpark when a fan named Tyler Morris fell from the second level to the lower bowl while trying to catch a foul ball on 6 July 2010. He suffered a fractured skull and broken ankle. “We are deeply saddened that the man who fell has passed away as a result of this tragic accident,” the club’s president, Nolan Ryan, said in a statement on the Rangers website. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.” The former US president George W Bush was sitting in the front row with Ryan when the accident happened. Ryan left moments later while Bush remained in the seats. The Rangers clubhouse was closed following the game as the players were informed of the tragedy. “We spoke to the ballclub, so they understand what happened,” Ryan said. “As any of us would be, Josh is very distraught over this.” Ronnie Hargis was sitting in the stands next to the victim, who was at the game with his young son. The men were talking to each other before the accident. “He went straight down. I tried to grab him but I couldn’t,” Hargis said. “I tried to slow him down a little bit.” Hargis’s daughter said the victim’s head was bleeding badly. Safawna Dunn, who was sitting behind the victim, said he appeared to have injuries to both arms and was conscious when taken away on a stretcher. “Josh Hamilton tried to throw [the ball] up to the guy because they were yelling for the ball,” Dunn said. Ryan said it was too early to talk about the two accidents and what evaluations the team may make about railings at the stadium. “Tonight, we’re not prepared to speak about anything further than the accident and the tragedy,” Ryan said. “That’s where I’m going to leave it.” MLB US sport guardian.co.uk
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Paris prosecutors begin preliminary inquiry after Tristane Banon files complaint that former IMF chief tried to rape her in 2003 The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened a preliminary inquiry into a complaint filed by French writer Tristane Banon alleging an attempted rape by former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in 2003. David Koubbi, Banon’s attorney, filed the complaint this week over an incident that Banon claims took place when she went to interview Strauss-Kahn in a Paris apartment when she was in her early 20s. Strauss-Kahn, a Socialist party heavyweight, was a strong favourite to unseat Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential election until his arrest in New York in May on sex assault charges threw his political future into question. That case appeared to weaken last week, when New York prosecutors questioned the credibility of the hotel maid who alleged he tried to rape her. A court released Strauss-Kahn from house arrest and signs the case is unravelling raised the prospect that he could return to France in the months ahead. The Banon case could still hurt his future. Koubbi said on Thursday there was “physical” evidence in the case, although he declined to say if that included text messages or recordings. Under French law, sexual assault charges must be filed within three years but attempted rape charges can be brought as long as 10 years after the alleged attack. Henri Leclerc, a lawyer for Strauss-Kahn, told Reuters on Monday that he would bring a counter-claim against Banon, calling her version of events “imaginary”. Dominique Strauss-Kahn France Europe guardian.co.uk
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Damascus officials say trip to rebellious city proves US is working to undermine President Assad Syria has reacted with anger to a visit by the US ambassador to the besieged city of Hama, where a standoff between the army and protesters has gone on for five days. Officials in Damascus claimed the visit by Robert Ford was a provocation, which added weight to its claims that the US was working to undermine President Bashar al-Assad and his regime. “The presence of the US ambassador in Hama without previous permission is obvious proof of a clear evidence of the United States’ involvement in current events in Syria and its attempt to incite an escalation in the situation, which disturbs Syria’s security and stability,” the Syrian foreign ministry said. The US state department said in response that its embassy had advised the foreign ministry that diplomats would travel to Hama on Wednesday: “The fundamental intention was to make absolutely clear with his physical presence that we stand with those Syrians who are expressing their right to speak for change,” it said. Ford intends to stay in Hama until Friday – the first day of the weekend in Syria and the day on which most of the violence of the past four months has occurred. Ford’s security convoy travelled through Syrian military checkpoints to reach Hama, and he is believed to have met residents and business owners inside the city centre. The show of solidarity with protesters has added another dimension to the tension between Hama and the Syrian military, which seems unsure about how to deal with the long-rebellious city. Another large rally has been planned in Hama a week after more than 200,000 people turned out for an anti-regime protest after Friday prayers. That mass show of dissent was the largest yet seen in the Syrian uprising. Syrian officials have insinuated that Islamists are agitating among protesters with legitimate grievances and that the protest movement is being hijacked by Sunni militants bent on sectarian division. Hama residents have repeatedly derided the claims. Protests continued in Damascus last night, with reports of three people killed inside a mosque in the Harasata area. Rights groups report that more than 1,400 people have been killed during the violence. The Syrian government claims that more than 300 of its security forces have also been killed. Syria Arab and Middle East unrest United States Middle East Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
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When the writer joined the social network three years ago, she used it to share random thoughts about TV and life. Since then, she has become a Twitter addict. In an extract from her new book, she explains what she loves – and hates – about it 1. My name is @gracedent . 2. I joined Twitter on 4 June 2008. 3. @febake was the first person to tell me about Twitter. It took him several months of preaching about its wonders until I cracked. 4. My first ever tweet was: “looking puzzled at twitter.” No one replied. I mooched off into cyberspace, humiliated. 5. I returned in early 2009 because my friend @heawood joined. 6. We swapped twitpics of bears in Victorian bonnets and insults about body hair issues. I dumped all my surplus silly thoughts there about EastEnders, Big Brother and columns I couldn’t be bothered to write. 7. By July 2009 I had about 5,987 followers. 8. Back then I said pretty much whatever I wanted on Twitter. It was like spraying rude words on a fence in neon, foot-high letters and never, ever getting detention for it. 9. Today on Twitter I feel like a slightly feral village elder. My teeth itch when people tweet me to tell me what I’m not allowed to say. 10. When @heawood moved to LA to interview movie stars, we kept in touch mainly via Twitter. I missed her so much I tweeted her YouTube links of sad songs. 11. Maudlin soft-rock ballad So Far Away by Dire Straits was most effective. @heawood now lives back in London. 12 . I check Twitter on my iPhone each day within five minutes of opening my eyes. 13 . I have woken myself up in the middle of the night checking Twitter in my sleep. 14. I think I can tell if you are fibbing about being on Twitter within one minute of talking to you. 15. I think I can tell if a person has enough “voice” to write a whole novel by simply reading a few tweets. 16. My most retweeted tweet was a profound quotation by Albert Camus rallying against nihilism. 17. That is a lie. It was a screen-grab of X-Factor boyband member Harry Styles looking like he had a massive erection. 18. My second most RT’d tweet was a scan of the undercarriage of a white cat with pink paws who had sat on a scanner machine. 19. I know people who monitor the success of every thought by its RT tally. I am not one of those people. 20. But if a tweet gets NO replies at all, it makes me edgy. 21. As I type this list I’ve got 54,851 followers. 22. As I type this list I’ve tweeted 27,325 times. 23. As I type this list I’m telling myself 90% of those 27,325 tweets were probably quick @replies to people and NOT actual posts in my timeline , because this makes it less of “a problem”. 24. I use Twitter clients and apps like TweetDeck or Echofon . I suspect they give me migraines but I just take codeine and carry on, for how can I monitor the universe in real time without multiple columns? 25. Twitter definitely made me more well known. I’m not sure if it made me more well liked. 26. I once said on an ITV2 show that X-Factor contestant Stacey Solomon was “not a terribly good singer” and had to leave Twitter for two weeks due to an angry twitchfork mob chasing me around cyberspace. 27. Grace Dent has been a “trending topic” on a few occasions. It’s not very nice really. It just opens you up to a global level of maniac. 28. Twitter led to me watching two weeks of all-night Olympic curling with @emmak67 and hundreds of other tweeters. I still do not understand curling. It looks like Olympic-grade housework. 29. I’ve spent New Year’s Eve on Twitter. It was better than going out. 30. Twitter led to me to keeping an emergency picture of a member of the rock band Kiss sneaking to a festival Portaloo just to cheer Twitter buddies up. 31. Twitter led to @gracedent being close personal chums with the pop star Will Young. 32. After several direct-message exchanges it turned out not to be Will Young, just a man pretending to be him while pulling furiously at his own penis. @gracedent was disappointed. 33. I often see that @gracedent has blocked someone “for absolutely no reason”. There has ALWAYS been a reason. 34. I sometimes block tweeters who demand I retweet them without even saying hello first. 35. I sometimes unfollow tweeters for RTing praise about themselves. 36. I still class it as RTing praise if they’ve cunningly added “THIS PERSON MUST BE MAD TO SAY THIS!!” on to the end of the tweet. 37. I once blocked @emmak67 during a row over politics to make a point that she was getting on my tits. Then, due to technical malfunction, I couldn’t unblock her for a week, which led to a month-long row. 38. I think the most boring tweets in the world are DJs’ “I’m at an airport” tweets. 39. Although any “I have jet lag. Boo-hoo, I’ll just order room service then” tweets are fractionally worse. 40. I would love to punch the person in the throat who thinks it’s a worthwhile task to set up a “sausage” bot . Or a “radiator” bot. 41. I love tweets featuring talking cats, snoring cats, cats jumping in boxes, cats jumping out of boxes etc. 42. I think there’s a strong pro-cat propaganda unit working on Twitter. 43. I think there’s either a worldwide dearth of clips of dogs being idiots, or the pro-dog lobby needs to up its Twitter game. 44. I suck at Twitter hashtags games. I tend to sit those games out. 45. I bloody love Twitter “pun” games. I’ll play them until the bitter end, when my puns need brackets to explain and no one replies. 46. I get arsey when non-Twitter people say Twitter is just people discussing their breakfasts. Only an idiot tweets their breakfast. 47. I do sometimes tweet about lunch. 48 . Twitter has made me seriously wonder if chronic pedantry is a social illness. People are crucified by their need to correct commas. 49. I think if you cancel an appointment with me due to being busy or ill you should have the common sense to stop fucking tweeting. 50. I believe 3,000 followers is the point at which lots of tweeters start behaving like utter maniacs. “3,000 follower syndrome” is a worrying medical condition. 51. The first sign of “3,000 follower syndrome” is apologising for not checking in on Twitter until later than usual, believing that Twitter must have felt so empty without you. 52. The second sign is placing tweets in your timeline answering the question you say “everyone” is asking you. If you check this person’s @ column it almost invariably turns out no one is speaking to them. 53. It gets even worse after that. 54. Twitter led to me chatting to Curt Smith from Tears for Fears . Me being the 11-year-old @gracedent who has Smash Hits on order from the newsagent and thinks this is very cool. 55. @simonjclebon once tweeted @gracedent but she was too shy to tweet back . @gracedent left him hanging. 56. I’ve left Twitter several times in a massive strop. 57. But I always, always come back. 58. I worry that I can never leave Twitter as normal life feels like wading through treacle. 59. I worry that I’m missing out if I don’t check Twitter. 60. I worry that Twitter has killed my ability to focus on one thought for more than 10 seconds. 61. I love it when other tweeters drastically announce they are leaving Twitter in a dramatic way. I call this “dumbass digital suicide”. 62. I make rude noises at my screen when tweeters @ me to say they’re unfollowing me. I’m not Moses, we weren’t going to the Promised Land. Follow whoever you want. 63. I unfollow my friends all the time. I think life’s too short to have someone pissing you off in your timeline. It’s like radio interference in your brain on a lovely day. 64. I’m freaked out by people who use “have you unfollowed me?” software to monitor who has digitally dumped them. Is there not enough pain in the world already? 65. I dread receiving the “very terrible oh-why-have-you-unfollowed-me boo-hoo email of doom”. 66. I think we focus too much on celebrities’ contribution to Twitter. Celebrities aren’t the tweeters providing interesting content. I discard them and their third-rate Twitter jibber-jabber all the time. 67. I unfollowed @piersmorgan for reading out his follower account figures all the time and begging for more like a telethon. 68. I unfollowed @Lord_Sugar for RTing questions asking where we could buy his book. 69. I unfollowed @ladygaga as she drones on all day about her “little monsters” like a saleswoman flogging U-bend germ-killer detergent. 70. I unfollowed @KimKardashian out of sheer pettiness because I like to believe I corner the market in “brunettes with big arses who contribute very little to the world of entertainment”. 71. I unfollowed @rustyrockets after his stag do ended up in Stringfellows. I was on a militant feminist tip that day, someone was going to get it. 72. I unfollowed @50cent because the poor man is almost entirely fixated on the daily happenings of his own penis. 73. I unfollowed @BarackObama because it turns out being Mr President is a whole lot of paperwork. Mate, there’s a reason I don’t tweet my VAT return. 74. I send 10 tweets a month to pop star Peter Andre giving him feedback about his career but he never replies. 75. I hate the terms “tweet-up” and “twunk” . 76. I love the term “twitchfork mob”. 77. When twitchfork mobs are circling some poor tweeter for crimes of thought I often add the rumour “I heard he bummed a puffin” simply to cheer myself up. 78. I love the term “twanking” (wanking while tweeting). 79. I get tweeted quite a lot of pictures of penises and offers of sex. “I fink we should make a play date 4 our GENITILZ!” one man wrote this very morning. 80. I get at least one unsolicited tweet a week from a stranger pointing out that in my current state of vast ugliness they’d never fuck me. 81. I think if one morning everyone’s direct-message box was suddenly, accidentally posted in the public timeline there would be rioting in international cities by lunch time. Most of this would be warring couples chucking bin-bags of clothes at each other. 82. I think most people don’t realise that posting a photo on DM means EVERYONE who looks at your photo account can still see it. It’s not private. I’ve seen two photos of my friends I wish I hadn’t. 83. One of them was in the bath. 84. The other one was indescribable but it scarred my retinas. 85. I’ve seen perfectly good marriages go down the pan because of Twitter. 86. I genuinely cringe at my friends publicly arse-kissing each other on Twitter. 87. I find the way some people blatantly social climb on Twitter vomit-making. 88. The phrase “let’s have a tweet-up” makes me nervous. I don’t think meeting people off Twitter is necessary to be friends with them. 89. I never like Twitter “tribute” sites where someone pretends to be someone else. I think they’re usually one joke stretched very, very thinly in search of a toilet book deal. 90. I know Twitter is the only place I can make jokes about my family, because, as of yet, they’re not on Twitter. Once they join, it’s all over. 91. I think the future of social networking lies in tackling the need for an individual to have “multiple personalities” living easily on one social networking platform. We are not one person all of the time, not even minute-to-minute. 92. I think there should be a meta-Twitter for gossiping about what we think other people are up to on Twitter. 93. At the moment I sometimes flip to Skype to chat face-to-face with friends about what we think the story is “behind the tweets”. It’s like Minority Report, but in pyjamas. 94. I get emails once a week from TV companies who say they want to “harness the power of Twitter but ON TELEVISION”. They then fart around with meeting for 10 weeks and realise it’s impossible. 95. This book is just a whole lot of my own personal thoughts, feelings and experiences of Twitter. I’m pretty certain you’ll disagree with most of it. 96. I chatted to scores of people about Twitter as I was writing the book. Absolutely nobody agreed with anyone else’s view on anything. 97. Everybody brought fresh angles and topics I’d never even thought of. I love this. Twitter is a totally different animal to everyone riding it. 98. I agreed to write How to Leave Twitter after a publishing meeting about a different book turned into an extended rant about RTs and Follow Fridays. 99. I showed some parts of the manuscript to good friends as I worked who went slightly ashen and said, “Grace, you’re going to break Twitter, you do know that, don’t you?” In a way, this is brilliant. Killing Twitter is my only real chance of leaving. 100. I’d have delivered How to Leave Twitter a lot earlier to the publishing house and avoided a lot of stress and shouting matches, but in all honesty, I was too busy dicking about on the internet. How to Leave Twitter by Grace Dent is available for £5 (RRP £7.99) with free p&p from the Guardian Bookshop . Call 0330 333 6846 or visit guardianbooks.co.uk . An ebook version is also available. Twitter Social networking Grace Dent guardian.co.uk
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