Bookmark and Share

Monday 27th January 2025

Monday 27th January 2025

8083/21014
Sure Captain Tom did a good job, but imagine if he'd eaten no Soleros whilst doing it. The amount of money he might have made. The spas his children might have built. Still confident that I can beat his total, even though I am currently at 0% of my target. But to be fair, I haven't even stopped eating Soleros yet (I had one today and wonder if I am being hasty), so this should kick in in a few days. And by close of play today the total was very close to £2000, which some people might think is an impressive total for not even having yet given up Soleros. Not me. I think it's embarrassing. Donate here to make my dreams come true and also help Scope, I guess. 
Thanks to those who have already donated. There are some great comments too
Sid said "This is truly inspirational. I was planning to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for Mencap but after seeing what real heroism looks like, I’ve decided to call the trip off and put down the lollies instead."
Sam Sharps said "In honour of the world's most pathetic sacrifice." I think they meant sympathetic. English might not be their first language.
And the power of the blog was again shown as the identity of Alex Salmond's Solero muncher has been revealed. And it only took negative ten years. Graeme Coles-Andrew pointed me towards this story from the Herald, which blew my mistaken identity theories out of the water. 
If the campaign makes a million perhaps I should fly to Australia and force feed her another Solero. Though perhaps there is nothing impressive about a middle-aged man feeding a Solero to a woman in her 40s. I need to find someone younger to make the whole experience really smack of lawful inappropriateness. Who would you like to see me force to eat a Solero in order to promote my charity (and Scottish Independence)?

One of the many negative effects of Elon Musk taking over Twitter has been the difficulty of getting stupid stuff like this rolling. I am actually surprised it's going as well as it is, but of course have also been using the blog and other social media platforms. But there was a sweet spot in the old days when a stupid idea would capture the imagination, get retweeted and everyone would see it. Most notably this happened on International Women's Day of course, which took place on Twitter and which went crazy. Admittedly I'd done a good few years of build up before I even thought of doing it for charity, but the first year I linked to Refuge in earnest it was like a kind of magic. The total was going up by £10,000 an hour. And I hadn't even said I'd give up Soleros, not even for the day. As much as that project emerged from the more idiotic side of the platform (the men asking when International Men's Day would be), it felt like a victory for the fun side of Twitter -people recognising a self-defeating bit of nonsense and fuelling it with cash and RTs. In the end, sadly, it seems like the When's International Men's Day side has won Twitter. They own it now. Or would do if they hadn't been nudged out by even more stupid and worryingly aggressive people.
The fortunes of that IWD stunt would probably make quite a good study for people looking back at the changes in social media. In the end I gave it up, partly due to the mental toll it took, but mainly because the tweets I got became more aggressive and threatening and I have to say, not just from the extreme meninists. Whilst the majority understood it was a ridiculous idea, where I was the main victim, which was doing some good for a brilliant charity, the tweets from some feminists were as scary and threatening as the ones from some of the horrible men. And were more personally aimed at my family too.
I had some sympathy with the idea that a man shouldn't be centre stage on IWD (even though I felt I was actually trying to corral off the many men attempting to make it about themselves so everyone else could enjoy it properly) and decided to try and do some tweets on IMD instead of IWD, but it is interesting how the tone of social media and the hardening of opposing viewpoints developed over that decade. I don't think it was my fault, but I don't think I helped.
And then I got testicular cancer, which the meninists must have loved. Even though they're supposed to like men. The feminists must have loved it too. The less testicles in the world the happier they are. Though some of them don't like it if people with testicles take them off voluntarily whilst transitioning. The meninists agree with them on that. Those lot should really concentrate on the things they agree on. They're much more similar than they realise. I did help unite them a little bit in hatred of me. I just like wasting people's time, so we were all happy.
And I am very happy that you've read this far.



Bookmark and Share



Subscribe to my Substack here
See RHLSTP on tour Guests and ticket links here
Help us make more podcasts by becoming a badger You get loads of extras if you do.
To join Richard's Substack (and get a lot of emails) visit:

richardherring.substack.com