As a Twitter neophyte I’m still learning about the strange new universe of Tweets, Followers, Following – and the weird ‘Trending Topics’ list on the right hand side of my page.

Some things remain utterly mysterious.

Stephen Fry: super-human Twittering powers

I looked up Stephen Fry, a celebrated Twitterer famous (in part) for his many followers. As of today there are 666,355 of them. That is a lot!

But what really amazed me was how many Twitterers Stephen Fry is following. According to today’s statistics, he follows 54,877 other Twits!

How can Fry possibly find the time? Does he have a small army of assistant Twitterers to predigest Tweets that show up on his page – and report on the Tweets he really needs to know about?

Or is there a technological fix that enables Master Twitterers to read hundreds of thousands of Tweets per day?

Locating a Stash: Today's Trending Topic for the Twittering masses

This morning I noticed Find Marijuana has been a Trending Topic for several hours. After it reached No 1 my curiosity finally got the better of me.

I clicked the link to arrive at a page of seemingly random Twitterers, all tweeting away merrily about what a giggle it is that Find Marijuana has become a Trending Topic.

How in Twitter’s name did that happen? Is it a genuine expression of random global whim? Has a network of mischievous Twitterers conspired to bump the topic into the top ten?  Could it be a gigantic surveillance operation by the combined drugs squads of participating nations?

It brings to mind an incident back in 1984, when I was a new arrival in the delightful city of Sydney, capital of New South Wales.

I noticed a sticker – the same sticker – in phone boxes all around the city. It had a simple message: Free Marijuana – call Neville! There was a phone number.

Today's Menu for Twits

I ignored it for days, but eventually decided to call from a public phone, just in case it was a police sting.

“Premier’s Office, how can I help you?” said a nice lady’s voice at the other end. When I asked about Free Marijuana, she politely explained the sticker was a prank. Her response to my follow-up questions was clearly well-practiced.  “Yes, the NSW Premier has received a lot of similar calls“.

Savvy locals knew the NSW Premier at the time was Neville Wran and saw through the joke straight away. But I was a stranger in a strange land.

If you haven’t heard the Corrigan Brothers‘ excellent ‘No-one as Irish as Barak Obama‘ by now, you may be deaf or live in a Trappist monastery.

The Corrigan Brothers: three cheeky black boys from North Tipperary

Now the incorrigible Corrigans have come up with a gem about the British MPs expenses rorts scandal.

Outrageous revelations of absurd expenses claims have been crashing, like a giant steel wrecking-ball through the collective credibility of Britain’s political establishment for several months.

There’s more to the MPs’ expenses  scandal than meets the eye. Lots more.

The ‘rorts’ that scandalized the nation are ridiculous in many cases and perfect fodder for the press. But they amount to chicken-feed compared with the billions spent on Britain’s bloated military expenditure and massive investment in the machinery of an Orwellian police state.

It would be an interesting exercise to scrutinize the expenses claims of 600+ executives in any large modern corporate for comparison. How about the expenses claims of News Corp executives, for example? Can we see them? How about expenses claims by members of the so-called ‘Intelligence Services’? Who’s watching out for rorts there? (Answer: that’s an ‘Official Secret’)

Whistle-blower Craig Murray: His campaign in the forthcoming Norwich North by-election has been invisible to BBC viewers

Of course, people expect higher standards from elected politicians, who are paid taxpayers’ money and expected to act in the public interest. On the same basis, how about a trawl through the BBC’s executives expenses claims? After all, they’re paid taxpayers’ money too – and expected to act in the public interest.

Erosion of trust between the electorate and its representatives has serious consequences for democracy in the long term. Real trust can only be restored when credible men and women of integrity are elected to power – yet media organization such as the BBC are in the forefront of manipulative efforts to prevent this from happening.

But enough serious commentary for now.

Sit back and laugh at the MPs’ expense!

Here’s the dismal crew of conformist sell-outs – too scared to say boo to a Zionist goose – who authorized the British military to take part in two overseas invasions culminating in murderous and protracted wars.

Here they are – caught pilfering with their pants down. What a spectacle.

The MP Expenses Song