…and the dog looks less than impressed too.

If there’s one thing that really irritates us here at TWL towers, it’s PR companies crowing about doing their job. “Ooh, look, one of our crazy ideas has actually worked…let’s send out a press release.”

Clearly it’s not just us that gets annoyed. In a blog post this morning, Rory Cellan-Jones - of the BBC no less - bemoans the increasingly corporate nature of Twitter and how the encroachment of business into the micro-blogging platform is making is a less useful place to hang out. A couple of things happened yesterday that brought on Rory’s rant, this is the main one:

“…it was the e-mail from the PR firm which really got my goat. It boasted that its client, a software firm which I shall not name, had managed to become the top trend on Twitter by promising big prizes in a competition to people who tweeted its name. This achievement has been lauded not just by the PR agency but by bloggers too as an example of the right way to engage in “social” marketing. But the result is that it has made Twitter a much less useful and enjoyable place to be for a day, with corporate messages intruding into the conversation. So forget “#iranelection” - or even “#andymurray” - from now on the trending topics are likely to be “#winbigatpoker” or “#loseweightnowaskmehow.”"

Now, Rory hasn’t mentioned the PR company in question or its client, so would it be wrong of us to indulge in a little speculation?

Of course it bloody wouldn’t.

You’d either need not to be on Twitter or to be that unpopular as to have been blocked by all and sundry not to have noticed the stuff that Bite’s being doing for its client Moonfruit. Simple stuff, but clearly effective: post a tweet including the hashtag #moonfruit and you’ve a chance of winning a computer. (If that last sentence didn’t mean anything at all to you, what with mention of tweets and hashtags and that, you really are in the wrong business.)

It’s captured the imagination of Twitterers all over and, as Bite’s North American head David Hargreaves pointed out, it quickly became the number one trending topic on Twitter, even knocking Michael Jackson off the top spot. Clearly the combination of ’free’ with ’something from Apple’ is geek alchemy.

Now, we’re not criticising the tactic per se. It’s been a huge success. We had no idea what Moonfruit did before yesterday. We still don’t, but we’ve at least had a look at the website. But sending out a press release to blow your own trumpet? And like we say, just for doing your job?

That’s mental.

Of course, it might not have been Bite. Rory might have been referring to someone else. If anyone received said press release, could they pop along and let us know? Ta.

Those of you all over Twitter (and who isn’t these days?) might have noticed that The Flackenhacks woke up earlier this afternoon…which probably means that the self-styled alternative awards ceremony for the tech PR and media industry will be taking place again this year.

For those of you that haven’t been before, it’s a great night and a star-studded affair. Look, here are the stars of Little Britain sharing the stage with Fabio Capello at last year’s awards…

Details of this year’s event are sketchy right now, but the word on the street (and I live on the street in question, remember) is that it’ll be around October 14th in a great venue with some entertainment that I guarantee you’re going to want to see. Reflecting the economic times in which we all live, tickets will be very affordable, if not to say a complete steal. (And when PR Weak wants nearly four and a half grand for a table at it’s little shindig a week later, there’s only one Robin Hood in this little scenario, right?)

So, stick it in your diary

Now, the competition. The stunning Flackenhacks logo, created for the inaugural awards a couple of years ago, was very much of its time. Truth be told, we probably should’ve come up with something new for last year, but couldn’t be arsed. This year though, we’re going to crowdsource a new logo. And there’ll be a (decent) prize for the one we like best.

You don’t have to be a graphic designer…just tell us your idea in pictures scribbled on a napkin (and, umm, scanned) or even words like “why don’t you write ‘The Flackenhacks’ in the same style as the Twitter logo?” (but make it better than that, which is a rubbish idea). If it wins we’ll get someone to knock it into shape. Email your creative ideation outputs to us at theworldsleading (at) gmail (dot) com.

Nice.

Here’s one of my favourite quotes, It’s from Mark Twain:

“It’s better to remain silent and have people think you’re a fool, than  to speak and remove all doubt.”

Yesterday, in Westminster, Nick Griffin of the BNP wasn’t given the opportunity to remove any doubt that he’s a fool (and worse). I think that’s a problem.

I’m no fan of the BNP, make no mistake. But I am quite a fan of democracy and free speech. Griffin and his cronies have for years claimed that free speech in the UK is a fantasy and that democracy here is a farce. By pelting him with eggs, attacking him with placards and not allowing him to speak, yeserday’s protesters have simply added fuel to the BNP fire.

Do you think Griffin’s upset this morning? Is he bollocks. He’s splashed across every national. It’s exposure the Green Party would kill for (but only in the most sustainable way, natch).We have a process in this country for blunting the ability of racists like Griffin to gain any traction. It’s called voting for someone else. Not enough people did, so we’re sending a couple of fascists to the European Parliament. Sure, we can moan at the greedy, corrupt mainstream politicians for failing to give us a compelling alternative, but the BNP? Really?

Let him speak. Let the public hear the bigoted, racist fool air his vitriol. When you do that - when people watch videos like this one - you’ll start to turn people against him.

Oh, and sign this.

(Normal TWL service will resume shortly.)

Love this bit of research. It appeared in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine and was reported by the BBC. It’s proper research too…not like the flimsy stuff we push out on a daily basis. It took 13 years to complete! Imagine selling that to a client?

Anyway, the research tells us over that time, home computer-related injuries have increased 732%. My first thought, of course, was that home computer ownership would have probably increased by a similar amount during the same time period, which would make the statistic less startling, but no! Ownership only grew at half that rate.

Then I thought, I wonder what constitutes a home computer-related injury? The obvious stuff would be RSI (i.e. wrist injuries caused by online porn continual use of mouse and keyboard), old people tripping over loose cables and monitors falling on babies. My father-in-law put his back out searching for a USB slot in the back of his PC.

But I booked a skiing holiday online last year and then hurt my knee. Does that count? And my mother found a recipe on the internet and cooked a meal that made me sick for days. So much of our daily activity is now defined by stuff on our computers that injuries related to it are bound to go up.

The same probably holds true for mobile phones. Back in the day, all you had to contend with the likelihood of crashing your car while flirting with a colleague back in the office and the slim chance of a radiation-induced brain tumour. Nowadays you’ll be listening to music, playing a game and searching for bus timetables, just as the one you want runs you over.

The lead researcher of the US study neatly set up her next 13 years’ work by saying: “”Future research on acute computer-related injuries is needed as this ubiquitous product becomes more intertwined in our everyday lives.” (And, presumably, our legs.)

A spokesman from Rospa said: “Whenever a piece of equipment or activity such as home-computing becomes more popular, the number of people being injured in related accidents does tend to increase.”

Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents? Royal Society for Stating the Bleeding Obvious more like.

TWL enjoyed a splendid evening at De Hems yesterday in the company of some of the great and the good of the tech PR world. Many thanks go to Will for pulling the whole thing together and also to Coleman Parkes for chucking some money behind the bar.

Best bit of the evening for me was when Peter Hay of PRWeak (him in the checked shirt here) squared up to the fella with the beard (no idea who that is). It all kicked off when the bearded man stepped on Hay’s toes.

Well, I mean, if you do go to the pub wearing flip-flops…