2013 in Tweets
Sun is up, this really is a shiny new year!
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We were once a nation of shopkeepers. It was inevitable we would become a nation of shoppers.
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No pain, no gain. (The inverse does not follow.)
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Pakistani music + Indian music = music
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Someone wrote a tweet / it had rhymes by the dozen / thought that would make it a poem / let me tell you it doesn't
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Did I imagine this? Married gay priests can now become bishops in the CoE, but only if they promise to remain celibate! Hmm.
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Fulfilment has nothing to do with how much you have, and everything to do with your capacity to find joy in everything. Love life.
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The world is as random as it is vast. Seek suffering, find it in abundance. Or simply pay attention and trust providence. You'll be fine.
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Replacing "martyr" with its less loaded synonym "victim" would, if consistently applied, pay dividends in understanding and sympathy.
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Enough about bees. Let's move on to the cees.
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God is proof there is a Tim Rice.
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Make $$$millions on Twitter. Send me money, lots of money, for exclusive inside track! (Terms and conditions apply.)
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Just won $1.84 at an online poker table. That's more than poetry has ever made me.
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Today a helicopter crashed on my street. Didn't expect that when I woke up this morning.
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Useful tip: when fasting, avoid standing beside a cornish pasty shop.
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Leave rage to the foolish, retribution to the powerful. Exercise forgiveness lest it atrophy.
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Are railway announcers specially trained (pardon the pun) to say "on behalf of myself" without as much as a hint of irony?
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Is poetry dead? It seems to sell a lot of hamburgers.
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BlackBerry? Oh yes, I remember them.
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Ten minutes in the Tate Liverpool is enough. It's like a sparsely attended jumble sale, but less hope of finding anything nice.
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If you dislike gay marriage, don't do it.
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Let's see if re-branding lifts the gloom: Smile, everyone, it's FABruary!
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Carbon fuel --> melting ice cap --> new opportunities for oil exploration... What's wrong with this picture?
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This world divides into those who don't know how to live and those who know how everyone else ought to live.
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Got an immediate tweet from @kidagency2062 when I mentioned 'my daughter' in my tweet. Somebody's on the lookout for little girls!
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Who are you to call me arrogant? Don't you know who I am?!
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Surviving on Piriton and Provigil today, I feel like Alice in Wonderland.
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Is there nothing Ed Miliband won't promise to win votes?
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I find cows just as unappetising as horses, so if horse meat looks like beef and tastes like beef, what’s the problem?
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When did "like" become a simile for "er" and "um"?
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Anyone who can use the phrase "human resources" without feeling some revulsion should be restrained from managing people.
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So, a meteor, too small to detect, explodes over Siberia injuring 500 people. Not altogether reassuring.
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It's pretty easy to tell which writers read. Or rather which don't.
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I'm so anxious about rewriting my novel, I've considered redecorating as an avoidance strategy.
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A man on my train is talking with his son. Or rather talking at him. He hasn't paused yet, talks as he might to a client.
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Was about to start writing, but Virgin have brought me some cheese and biscuits. I am as weak as it is cheesy.
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If parenting didn't come naturally to most people we would need a theory to explain our survival prior to the advent of antenatal classes.
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I need to relearn how to do nothing. I don't know where to begin.
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The sun is warm on my back. It is passing through me, emerging as a smile. I can't deny it's a beautiful day.
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It amazes me how much food is around whenever I am fasting.
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Spider dreams, spider dreams, seem however a spider seems.
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Genuine grief in Venezuela at the death of President Hugo Chavez. Politicos elsewhere should take note.
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I'm reading a report which states, "there are ... opportunities for those who can master visualization and verticalisation." Save me!
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Telling a payday loan customer an APR of 4,000% applies is like telling a dog his dinner contains horse meat.
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Done the Rijksmuseum, next tourist destination: sample the local speciality - Heineken!
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10 days till spring and it's snowing. Minus 3 and no respite on the horizon. Who'd be a crocus?
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I pondered why all the stupid people didn't long ago get enslaved by the smart ones, then realized we already have been.
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Thank God the cardinals won't be voting for a pope who promises them advancement or to pardon their cassock-lifting sins.
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¡Es Papa Paco!
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I'd like to be first to congratulate Papa Paco on his apolitical ascension to God's right hand man. But I won't be.
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If I die at work will I become like all the others in the office, empty eyed and seeming to get by?
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One of the nicest things about being on a train is watching six lane traffic jams pass by.
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My life's an apostrophe waiting to happen.
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The study of astrobiology is surely aided by the absence of biology in outer space.
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St Patrick, patron saint of getting pissed in cheap, ill fitting suits.
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At 15, a teacher crushed me. I wrote a collection of poems. It was called 'Firesticks & other short stories'. I forget the teacher's name.
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I just leant my precious fountain pen to Elaine Feinstein. Ain't that something!
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Practicing Buddhist meditation in a church filled with poets. Ah, the life.
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Today is my birthday. It's also the spring equinox. The outlook remains bleak.
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Spring has sprung snow on my Cheshire home. I am brrrrrraced for delays on the trains tonight.
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We think the poems have gone away, but I see them massing below the ice. They are growing stronger.
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Seeing Derren Brown tonight at Liverpool Empire theatre. He screws with my mind, there'll be trouble.
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Well done on the award! My wife works in Costa. Stop by and she'll serve you a superbly marbled flat white.
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Thought I was a working class lad living a middle class lifestyle. Turns out I'm one of the new Elite. Bugger.
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Soul for sale. Will exchange for a pair of black chinos or cords.
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Final draft, how will I know when I find you?
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Thanks to San Miguel, I am now in a pariah state.
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Those who react to Margaret Thatcher's death with glee should remember that she was not universally loathed. Show respect for the grieving.
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Brits threatened with extradition always suffer from Asperger's syndrome. Hmm...
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This has been fun, and hope no one has taken offence. But I'm bored and I've got work to do.
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Boston Marathon bombing is an attack on something sacred.
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Our hearts go out to the runners in this year's marathon, and to all Bostonians (tea party notwithstanding (it was a long time ago)).
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You'd think people who get baffled often would get used to it. But a well honed capacity for befuddlement seems unlimited.
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Don't have kids. Just don't.
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Been reading up on brain death. Some of my friends would test positive on any Friday night. See you in the Nags Head later, boys.
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I've heard you can sell your soul. Can’t recall ever having one. Maybe one day I'll get a cheque in the post.
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Struggle to find good veggie options on menus? The solution is simple: stick to veggie restaurants! Now, where to get a decent coffee...?
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London turned green overnight last night. I don't think it's mildew.
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I shall self-medicate with alcohol. Let the inspiration flow!
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Free the Dubai three! British people abroad are automatically innocent. Aren’t they?
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A lot of talk about Dambusters this week. Out of curiosity, what was the civilian death toll?
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What the devil is an equal marriage? One with an even number of participants?
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The more guns on the street, the safer I'll feel. God help America.
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Upper house backs gay marriage. Ermine, anyone?
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Defeat thoughts of death with the fact of life.
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There is room in this world for more ukulele orchestras. Adjustments to the national curriculum are called for.
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Six men jailed for a botched attack on the English Defence League. Quite right. We must punish failure.
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I want my last words to be, "this is nice"
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They should make train journeys less dull. Say, by routing them randomly or making startling announcements.
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It would be nice if I could send an empty tweet, to share some peace with you all.
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Their grasp is firmest who most need to release it.
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Refried bean sandwiches taste just like BK Spicy Beanburgers, but are a quarter the cost. Am I the first to discover this?
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Sell the future! Sell the past! But selling NOW is selling out. Live, damn it, LIVE!
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Death, taxes, and McDonald's. No choice really.
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Give us back our summer, we haven't even unwrapped it yet.
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The world will end on a Thursday. Just before the weekend. Typical.
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Nature’s bee's knees is the making of honey. That’s why I am a bee's knees man.
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It would seem the bar to sainthood has been lowered. Or was the trial of his faith particularly subtle?
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Popes making former popes into saints, isn’t that like prime ministers handing out peerages to former prime ministers?
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Andy Murray wins! Give the man an English passport.
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I witnessed for the first time a police "stop and search" in progress. Guess the guy's skin colour. How humiliating.
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Hollywood's favorite narrative now is, only man's ingenuity and courage can save us and our planet. How wrong can you get?
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Six feet tall, educated, English, healthy, wealthy and white. I just need one lucky break.
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Killers aren't redeemed by release, but by repentance.
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Why they throw Louryn Hill in the joint? Her rappin' ain't that bad, innit?
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Sir Isaac Newton was knighted for discovering the laws of gravity. Presumably he wasn't great at tennis.
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How come Wolverine is a Superhero and Edward Scissorhands isn't?
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Just imagine St James's Park on a day like today. I need a Cornetto.
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I have Matthew's Gospel open on my desk and 888 Poker open on my computer. I'm getting a lot of interference.
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Some neologisms fill unseen voids, others litter life like cigarette butts. Anyone saying "Big Data" should be shot as a warning to others.
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I broke my tooth! Where's the poetry in that?
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I know your secret. I am going to reveal all. Beneath your clothes, you are completely naked, aren't you? I thought so.
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I'm so glad I had the sense to stop searching when I met someone I knew I could love.
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Kate who?
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It's a boy! My God, what were the odds against that?
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Living between lives? I've enough on my plate trying to live between birth and death.
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If there is a heaven or a hell, this is almost certainly it.
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Funny how we notice only other people's dogmas.
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Mugabe probably only meant GAY pigs, goats and birds. He's often misunderstood.
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It seems "IMHO" is the new chemical symbol for neat bullshit. IMHO.
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Mormons would be no less quack-o if they came from Tibet. Or Mars for that matter.
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I think Jason Orange is sitting at the next table.
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Crises have a reassuring habit of vanishing if ignored.
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Anyone know any low class caterers?
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The J in my initials stands for Jesus, pronounced "JEE-ZUSSS!" I was pretty ugly as a kid.
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I like Mike Myers even though he always uses the same jokes.
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Arab Autumn? Shame.
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What does his beard signify? Tell us! Tess us!
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In my local public library there are more people sleeping than there are reading.
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An arm-waving madman ranting about "nutters". You have to admire his use of irony.
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My dwindling time has become too valuable to sell for mere money.
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A train went into a tunnel and never came out. Its route was boring, the driver depressed. They discovered lost worlds and broke hearts.
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How strange the world will look when there are no longer any TV aerials on the rooftops. Or will we leave them there, like the chimneys?
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Strip away life's imperfections. Settle only for perfect emptiness. Then cut that. See you there.
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Goodbye cruel world, hello anti-psychotics.
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We can dream. It's how we know this nightmare is real.
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This tin can is only a tin can because it is not everything else. It would leave a tin can shaped hole in the universe.
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Afraid of being wrong, we make mistake after mistake. We have learned enough, we can afford to be brave.
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A whole poem revealed itself to me on my walk to work this morning. I'd call that a good day.
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There is only one life. None of us gets all of it. It's good to join the bits together.
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Sorry I couldn't be there, Dad, but I was thinking of you.
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Two million bikers riding to DC, to meet one million Muslim marchers. Wouldn't it be great if they talked awhile.
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Steer clear of red meat and old bicycles: eat a less irony diet.
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I am a sarcist. I practice sarcasm.
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How long does the cynical phase of mourning go on?
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Democracy is it selects for the worst kind of leader: those so desperate to lead they will tell the necessary lies.
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The best thing about democracy is, you can get rid of the little tyrants after their term. The worst is, you replace them with others.
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Bvlgari? Vulgari.
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Ignorance is a tax upon the ignorant.
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A chicken's heaven is an egg’s hell.
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If there were no heaven, would you live life better?
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If God went out and forgot to turn off the lights, how would we know?
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One can discover oneself neither dead nor enlightened; the dead and the enlightened have no self to discover.
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If everything is an expression of God's will, what is so special about miracles?
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Warship moored off Tacloban's shore / Shows us what a navy is for.
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Extra! Extra! Slush Poetry to feature in Poetry News in December! Read all about it!
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I remember summer. It seems so long ago. Can smell the scented lamb from here.
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Do you HAVE to have flared nostrils to be a TV sports reporter?
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Glad I'm not out in that: hailstones and lightning over London. Watching people run.
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My best ideas come just as I'm settling into a hot, hot bath or a long, long walk
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That latest pope is in danger of bringing pontification into good repute. Go Papa Paco!
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10CC wrote a song about my dinner. Between you and me I think it's... chilli.
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Americans: 7% of the world's population, 30% of its body mass. Enjoy your turkey, guys.
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Great is he whose stillness spread at the speed of words around the world. RIP, Nelson Mandela.
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Nature points out to us the purpose of work. It is to not have to work. Why, then, do we forget to stop when we're done?
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Well, roll me over - United won - lay me down and do it again.
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"Stop murdering cyclists!" the placards proclaim. But not a single murderer passed by this morning.
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Vince Cable claims Lady London is sucking life from the UK. Wait till the lady exhales, Vince.
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Someone tell our cherry tree it's Christmas next week. It's blossoming and I don't speak Tree.
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Well, two tenors on BBC News, that was the LOUDEST version of Silent Night I've heard.
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Alan Turing to be "pardoned" for acts that are not illegal nowadays, nor even immoral to anyone but a bigot. (Are YOU a bigot?)
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United struggling two-nil down again the mighty... Hull? Seriously?
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What do people who don't call a spade a spade use on the beach with their buckets?
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80 mph winds outside. Stepping out is like sticking your head out the sunroof of a moving car. I'm, like, blown away.
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Beat the midnight rush: start drinking now like it's 2014. Happy new whatever.
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This is the year I will change my main occupation from "office zombie" to "poet".
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