In the news

I met Hodor once, he played guitar in my mates band. He was/is Belfast's biggest (in every sense of the word) drag DJ.

I may still be drinking

You forgot Archbishop of Cunterbury, add him to the list adding fuel to the immigration debate. Seriously his opinions count for nothing. The Church of England died some today..

Wait a minute, I have a drag tribute act?

Yes, but only in Belfast.

Feeling utterly helpless with the NHS/general tory nonsense. What can you do when the electoral system is in favour of the minority who support those who are in power?

Wishing their death while they working on ours is not enough.

Sleaze away!

Nice try, though.
Good luck, though.
You're right, you're the right, though.
The very cool over the better cool, though.
Thanks for the re-quote on the quoting, though.
Glad to see you glad on being above the bottom , though.
But now sleaze away.
Though.

Feeling utterly helpless with the NHS/general tory nonsense.

I'm scated shitless that in the near future, I'll end up having to pay for everything in regard to my disability.

So do something about it... Organise a bike ride protest to parliament, write to your MP, don't just sit on your arse...

Or kill a few Tories. Start with Oliver Letwin.

Guy Fawkes 2.0?

More fuel for the fire;

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/12/disability-benefit-cuts-could-see-500000-people-lose-150-a-week

I don't care what you do, but protest in your own way at every turn. Don't let this shower of cunts get away with it any longer.

By moving to Australia?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sick-thugs-lay-barbed-wire-7543168

barbed wire traps on routes in kent

This makes you look like a knob, Ed.

Horrific doesn't even describe this. There's some really hateful sickos out there.

It wasn't a rhetorical question, I'm trying to be active. What do you think all those fb posts are for? Isn't changing my profile picture to have an overlay activism?

Tell me something I don't know.

38degrees is a lobbying group that lobby on our behalf. The vote in campaigns (so save the NHS etc are obv. ran) and take donations / feedback.

If you want to do something its a good start. They're on FB obv.

So, I was curious what would happen with that rat story. I've seen about three or four of those over the years and it's become established as one of those long-running stories people love because they seem to confirm urban myths that somehow they just want to be true. I mean, everything's getting bigger and better all the time, so why not rats, too?

I've been following this for some time and wanted to see what would happen upon posting it here. I'm mainly interested in this sort of story because of its capacity to obliterate other news stories. When I saw it yesterday, I thought of it as a dead rat version of a dead cat story. A much more important piece of news had been posted just before then, about the death of a woman on foot in Mitcham. The rat story commanded all the attention after that. While the Guardian didn't cover the rat story, their piece on why the story is fake was the most-read story on the Guardian web-site yesterday whenever I looked (a couple of times).

So, was there a conspiracy? After all, the debate on Caroline Lucas' NHS Re-instatement Bill could have been quite important. The news of the filibustering was still reported, but attention would have been diverted away from it almost completely. (Oddly enough, I still can't find a story about it on the Guardian site.)

A good way of burying unwelcome news/scandalous behaviour in Parliament?

I think you're reading too much into that. The newspapers all want click bait articles to drive online advertising revenue, and this kind of thing is great click bait. I doubt there was much more thought put into it than that.

excellent

Can't you see the pixels??!?