2013 in Tweets

I chronicled 2012 in poetry. It turns out I did the same for 2013 in tweets:

2013 in Tweets

Sun is up, this really is a shiny new year!

We were once a nation of shopkeepers. It was inevitable we would become a nation of shoppers.

No pain, no gain. (The inverse does not follow.)

Pakistani music + Indian music = music

Someone wrote a tweet / it had rhymes by the dozen / thought that would make it a poem / let me tell you it doesn't

Did I imagine this? Married gay priests can now become bishops in the CoE, but only if they promise to remain celibate! Hmm.

Fulfilment has nothing to do with how much you have, and everything to do with your capacity to find joy in everything. Love life.

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.

Replacing "martyr" with its less loaded synonym "victim" would, if consistently applied, pay dividends in understanding and sympathy.

Enough about bees. Let's move on to the cees.

God is proof there is a Tim Rice.

Make $$$millions on Twitter. Send me money, lots of money, for exclusive inside track! (Terms and conditions apply.)

Just won $1.84 at an online poker table. That's more than poetry has ever made me.

Today a helicopter crashed on my street. Didn't expect that when I woke up this morning.

Useful tip: when fasting, avoid standing beside a cornish pasty shop.

Leave rage to the foolish, retribution to the powerful. Exercise forgiveness lest it atrophy.

Are railway announcers specially trained (pardon the pun) to say "on behalf of myself" without as much as a hint of irony?

Is poetry dead? It seems to sell a lot of hamburgers.

BlackBerry? Oh yes, I remember them.

Ten minutes in the Tate Liverpool is enough. It's like a sparsely attended jumble sale, but less hope of finding anything nice.

If you dislike gay marriage, don't do it.

Let's see if re-branding lifts the gloom: Smile, everyone, it's FABruary!

Carbon fuel --> melting ice cap --> new opportunities for oil exploration... What's wrong with this picture?

This world divides into those who don't know how to live and those who know how everyone else ought to live.

Got an immediate tweet from @kidagency2062 when I mentioned 'my daughter' in my tweet. Somebody's on the lookout for little girls!

Who are you to call me arrogant? Don't you know who I am?!

Surviving on Piriton and Provigil today, I feel like Alice in Wonderland.

Is there nothing Ed Miliband won't promise to win votes?

I find cows just as unappetising as horses, so if horse meat looks like beef and tastes like beef, what’s the problem?

When did "like" become a simile for "er" and "um"?

Anyone who can use the phrase "human resources" without feeling some revulsion should be restrained from managing people.

So, a meteor, too small to detect, explodes over Siberia injuring 500 people. Not altogether reassuring.

It's pretty easy to tell which writers read. Or rather which don't.

I'm so anxious about rewriting my novel, I've considered redecorating as an avoidance strategy.

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.

Was about to start writing, but Virgin have brought me some cheese and biscuits. I am as weak as it is cheesy.

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.

I need to relearn how to do nothing. I don't know where to begin.

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.

It amazes me how much food is around whenever I am fasting.

Spider dreams, spider dreams, seem however a spider seems.

Genuine grief in Venezuela at the death of President Hugo Chavez. Politicos elsewhere should take note.

I'm reading a report which states, "there are ... opportunities for those who can master visualization and verticalisation." Save me!

Telling a payday loan customer an APR of 4,000% applies is like telling a dog his dinner contains horse meat.

Done the Rijksmuseum, next tourist destination: sample the local speciality - Heineken!

10 days till spring and it's snowing. Minus 3 and no respite on the horizon. Who'd be a crocus?

I pondered why all the stupid people didn't long ago get enslaved by the smart ones, then realized we already have been.

Thank God the cardinals won't be voting for a pope who promises them advancement or to pardon their cassock-lifting sins.

¡Es Papa Paco!

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.

If I die at work will I become like all the others in the office, empty eyed and seeming to get by?

One of the nicest things about being on a train is watching six lane traffic jams pass by.

My life's an apostrophe waiting to happen.

The study of astrobiology is surely aided by the absence of biology in outer space.

St Patrick, patron saint of getting pissed in cheap, ill fitting suits.

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.

I just leant my precious fountain pen to Elaine Feinstein. Ain't that something!

Practicing Buddhist meditation in a church filled with poets. Ah, the life.

Today is my birthday. It's also the spring equinox. The outlook remains bleak.

Spring has sprung snow on my Cheshire home. I am brrrrrraced for delays on the trains tonight.

We think the poems have gone away, but I see them massing below the ice. They are growing stronger.

Seeing Derren Brown tonight at Liverpool Empire theatre. He screws with my mind, there'll be trouble.

Well done on the award! My wife works in Costa. Stop by and she'll serve you a superbly marbled flat white.

Thought I was a working class lad living a middle class lifestyle. Turns out I'm one of the new Elite. Bugger.

Soul for sale. Will exchange for a pair of black chinos or cords.

Final draft, how will I know when I find you?

Thanks to San Miguel, I am now in a pariah state.

Those who react to Margaret Thatcher's death with glee should remember that she was not universally loathed. Show respect for the grieving.

Brits threatened with extradition always suffer from Asperger's syndrome. Hmm...

This has been fun, and hope no one has taken offence. But I'm bored and I've got work to do.

Boston Marathon bombing is an attack on something sacred.

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)).

You'd think people who get baffled often would get used to it. But a well honed capacity for befuddlement seems unlimited.

Don't have kids. Just don't.

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.

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.

Struggle to find good veggie options on menus? The solution is simple: stick to veggie restaurants! Now, where to get a decent coffee...?

London turned green overnight last night. I don't think it's mildew.

I shall self-medicate with alcohol. Let the inspiration flow!

Free the Dubai three! British people abroad are automatically innocent. Aren’t they?

A lot of talk about Dambusters this week. Out of curiosity, what was the civilian death toll?

What the devil is an equal marriage? One with an even number of participants?

The more guns on the street, the safer I'll feel. God help America.

Upper house backs gay marriage. Ermine, anyone?

Defeat thoughts of death with the fact of life.

There is room in this world for more ukulele orchestras. Adjustments to the national curriculum are called for.

Six men jailed for a botched attack on the English Defence League. Quite right. We must punish failure.

I want my last words to be, "this is nice"

They should make train journeys less dull. Say, by routing them randomly or making startling announcements.

It would be nice if I could send an empty tweet, to share some peace with you all.

Their grasp is firmest who most need to release it.

Refried bean sandwiches taste just like BK Spicy Beanburgers, but are a quarter the cost. Am I the first to discover this?

Sell the future! Sell the past! But selling NOW is selling out. Live, damn it, LIVE!

Death, taxes, and McDonald's. No choice really.

Give us back our summer, we haven't even unwrapped it yet.

The world will end on a Thursday. Just before the weekend. Typical.

Nature’s bee's knees is the making of honey. That’s why I am a bee's knees man.

It would seem the bar to sainthood has been lowered. Or was the trial of his faith particularly subtle?

Popes making former popes into saints, isn’t that like prime ministers handing out peerages to former prime ministers?

Andy Murray wins! Give the man an English passport.

I witnessed for the first time a police "stop and search" in progress. Guess the guy's skin colour. How humiliating.

Hollywood's favorite narrative now is, only man's ingenuity and courage can save us and our planet. How wrong can you get?

Six feet tall, educated, English, healthy, wealthy and white. I just need one lucky break.

Killers aren't redeemed by release, but by repentance.

Why they throw Louryn Hill in the joint? Her rappin' ain't that bad, innit?

Sir Isaac Newton was knighted for discovering the laws of gravity. Presumably he wasn't great at tennis.

How come Wolverine is a Superhero and Edward Scissorhands isn't?

Just imagine St James's Park on a day like today. I need a Cornetto.

I have Matthew's Gospel open on my desk and 888 Poker open on my computer. I'm getting a lot of interference.

Some neologisms fill unseen voids, others litter life like cigarette butts. Anyone saying "Big Data" should be shot as a warning to others.

I broke my tooth! Where's the poetry in that?

I know your secret. I am going to reveal all. Beneath your clothes, you are completely naked, aren't you? I thought so.

I'm so glad I had the sense to stop searching when I met someone I knew I could love.

Kate who?

It's a boy! My God, what were the odds against that?

Living between lives? I've enough on my plate trying to live between birth and death.

If there is a heaven or a hell, this is almost certainly it.

Funny how we notice only other people's dogmas.

Mugabe probably only meant GAY pigs, goats and birds. He's often misunderstood.

It seems "IMHO" is the new chemical symbol for neat bullshit. IMHO.

Mormons would be no less quack-o if they came from Tibet. Or Mars for that matter.

I think Jason Orange is sitting at the next table.

Crises have a reassuring habit of vanishing if ignored.

Anyone know any low class caterers?

The J in my initials stands for Jesus, pronounced "JEE-ZUSSS!" I was pretty ugly as a kid.

I like Mike Myers even though he always uses the same jokes.

Arab Autumn? Shame.

What does his beard signify? Tell us! Tess us!

In my local public library there are more people sleeping than there are reading.

An arm-waving madman ranting about "nutters". You have to admire his use of irony.

My dwindling time has become too valuable to sell for mere money.

A train went into a tunnel and never came out. Its route was boring, the driver depressed. They discovered lost worlds and broke hearts.

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?

Strip away life's imperfections. Settle only for perfect emptiness. Then cut that. See you there.

Goodbye cruel world, hello anti-psychotics.

We can dream. It's how we know this nightmare is real.

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.

Afraid of being wrong, we make mistake after mistake. We have learned enough, we can afford to be brave.

A whole poem revealed itself to me on my walk to work this morning. I'd call that a good day.

There is only one life. None of us gets all of it. It's good to join the bits together.

Sorry I couldn't be there, Dad, but I was thinking of you.

Two million bikers riding to DC, to meet one million Muslim marchers. Wouldn't it be great if they talked awhile.

Steer clear of red meat and old bicycles: eat a less irony diet.

I am a sarcist. I practice sarcasm.

How long does the cynical phase of mourning go on?

Democracy is it selects for the worst kind of leader: those so desperate to lead they will tell the necessary lies.

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.

Bvlgari? Vulgari.

Ignorance is a tax upon the ignorant.

A chicken's heaven is an egg’s hell.

If there were no heaven, would you live life better?

If God went out and forgot to turn off the lights, how would we know?

One can discover oneself neither dead nor enlightened; the dead and the enlightened have no self to discover.

If everything is an expression of God's will, what is so special about miracles?

Warship moored off Tacloban's shore / Shows us what a navy is for.

Extra! Extra! Slush Poetry to feature in Poetry News in December! Read all about it!

I remember summer. It seems so long ago. Can smell the scented lamb from here.

Do you HAVE to have flared nostrils to be a TV sports reporter?

Glad I'm not out in that: hailstones and lightning over London. Watching people run.

My best ideas come just as I'm settling into a hot, hot bath or a long, long walk

That latest pope is in danger of bringing pontification into good repute. Go Papa Paco!

10CC wrote a song about my dinner. Between you and me I think it's... chilli.

Americans: 7% of the world's population, 30% of its body mass. Enjoy your turkey, guys.

Great is he whose stillness spread at the speed of words around the world. RIP, Nelson Mandela.

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?

Well, roll me over - United won - lay me down and do it again.

"Stop murdering cyclists!" the placards proclaim. But not a single murderer passed by this morning.

Vince Cable claims Lady London is sucking life from the UK. Wait till the lady exhales, Vince.

Someone tell our cherry tree it's Christmas next week. It's blossoming and I don't speak Tree.

Well, two tenors on BBC News, that was the LOUDEST version of Silent Night I've heard.

Alan Turing to be "pardoned" for acts that are not illegal nowadays, nor even immoral to anyone but a bigot. (Are YOU a bigot?)

United struggling two-nil down again the mighty... Hull? Seriously?

What do people who don't call a spade a spade use on the beach with their buckets?

80 mph winds outside. Stepping out is like sticking your head out the sunroof of a moving car. I'm, like, blown away.

Beat the midnight rush: start drinking now like it's 2014. Happy new whatever.

This is the year I will change my main occupation from "office zombie" to "poet".