Brand advertising on Twitter

I'd like to talk about Twitter and advertising/brand promotion.
This may sound very random, but it's something I've been thinking about recently. I obviously don't have anything to sell or promote - I'm just me. Other people however do. Companies and brands have twitter accounts and a lot has been made in the press recently about bad PR from certain brands.

Now before I really get into it, a quick Twitter lesson for you. Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs here, but it's important (IMO), and some people don't seem to get this. To me it's one of the most important aspects of Twitter.
When you tweet something, anyone can see your tweet by looking at your Twitter Feed. As can anyone who follows you - they get it straight on their main feed.
If you start the tweet off addressing it to another user, it will only appear on your followers feed if they also follow the other person.
Lets say you follow me, and I tweet Burts Crisps (@BurtsChips) or Pataks Curry Club (@PataksCurryClub). You will only see that if you also follow them.

So I could say "@BurtsChips Your crisps are amazing, I love them" which is great PR for them, except only someone who already knows about them (because they're following too) will see it. And they will know I'm right.
However, if I tweet "Hey @BurtsChips, you're crisps are amazing", then all my followers will see it.

Why would I do this? Because it helps Burts. I've just opened them up to an audience of 200+ people.
Maybe one of my followers is in a shop one day, spots a packet on the shelf and thinks "Ah ha! That's what John was on about! I'll try me some of them!"

Naturally I don't get any financial reward for this. However to reward us, brands often ReTweet our tweet. 
So now I get advertised to 5000 people. maybe a few of those may look at my feed and like what they see and maybe follow me.
Of course, I don't gain anything for gaining new followers, apart from a mini ego boost.

But that, in a nutshell is how to help brands you like. My advice is don't go overboard on spamming your followers with everything you like, but a couple a day can help :)

Doctor Who - In The Name of the Doctor. Some thoughts about that ending!

I'm going to try and get my thoughts in order regarding the amazing ending to In The Name Of The Doctor. 

So, the Doctor goes by the name “The Doctor” because he helps people. In an ironic twist, an earlier episode showed us that medical doctors are called Doctors in honour of The Doctor. Anyway, I digress. 

As we know, the Doctor regenerates. Somewhere down the line one of his regenerations did something bad. So evil that it wasn't “in the name of the Doctor”. This regeneration has been shunned by the others, and doesn't use the name "Doctor". So Matt Smith is still the 11th version to go by the name Doctor, but the 12th Regeneration.

Now, as we've seen all the regenerations bar one, there is only 2 explanations left: 

1: John Hurt's Character was the original version, who then regenerated into William Hartnell, or 

2: John Hurt is between McGann and Ecclestone (the only regeneration we haven't seen on screen) 

If it's 1 then we can assume that whatever he did caused Hartnell to steal the TARDIS and run away from Gallifrey in the first place 

If it's 2 then we can guess that maybe Hurt was responsible for ending the Time War. 

In the episode "The Beast Below" (the second episode of the Smith Era), the Doctor runs through his options. 

"Three options. One, I let the Star Whale continue in unendurable agony for hundreds more years. Two, I kill everyone on this ship. Three, I murder a beautiful, innocent creature as painlessly as I can. And then I find a new name 'cause I won't be The Doctor anymore."

So we at least have form for him knowing sometimes you have to make the hard choices... I guess we'll have to wait till November 23rd to find out!

(And for those new viewers who didn't realise, 23rd November 1963 was the air date of the first episode - An UnEarthly Child)

Orphan Black - New Series coming to BBC3

Imagine seeing yourself one day. Not just someone who looks like you, but You. Except it's not. 

That's exactly what happens to Sarah, our streetwise Orphan hero in Orphan Black. Sarah finds another “her” and slowly a mystery unfolds.

Who is Beth? Why are they the same? Are there any more?

Part thriller, part comedy, part sci-fi (in the sense that it's fiction based on Science – not flying spaceships or things). Orphan Black is coming to BBC 3 in the UK.

Despite having a great cast it's not an ensemble production. The show belongs to the main star – Tatiana Maslany. You've probably never heard of her before, but by the end of the first episod alone I guarantee you won't forget her! Each character is unique and distinctive from the others, and what really shows is when one character is impersonating another. They look the same (of course), but you can tell from the mannerisms that it's x being y.

The mystery unfolds for us viewers at the same pace as it does for Sarah, learning piece by piece what's going on. Sometimes it can be frustrating; wanting to know slightly more than we're told, but the nuggets of information are placed before us to find.

Characters are mentioned and introduced quickly, the return later on like old friends stopping by on their way past. The supporting cast are great with not a bad actor or actress among them.

The only one niggle I have with the whole premise is how someone can impersonate someone else so well that even work colleagues can't tell the difference. That aside, the show has got me totally hooked, and I'm glad it's already gained a second season!

You can follow Orphan Black on Twitter, at @OrphanBlack

Flashpoint: A personal view of Shockwave.

There is a plot line running through season 4 of the TV show "Flashpoint", concerning the character of Spike (Sergio Di Zio), and his fathers illness.
Spike is a bomb disposal expert, and his father never liked his career choice. The father is now dying, and his dying wish is for his son to give up the dangerous job. Spike is continually torn between upholding the wish and his honor to himself. He worked hard to get where he is, and doesn't want to throw it all away.

Now, this story line brings up all manner of emotions for me. My father recently went through a similar life-threatening illness.

I'm fortunate that my father never asked me to stop doing what I'm doing, or had anything bad to say about my career choice.
However, the moments when Spike is with him, brings home to me what it was like to see my Father like that.

Real emotion. Raw emotion. That's what I get from watching this. It is (In my opinion anyway) perfectly written, perfectly directed - and most importantly, perfectly acted by Mr. Di Zio.

Spikes inability to do anything to help his father mirrors exactly what I myself felt.
The scenes are never the focus of the show, never important to the overall plot. But they are important to me.

The most recent episode (Shockwave) had a certain resonance with me. Sorry to get all personal all of a sudden, but my Father was hundreds of miles away, so I only spent a short time with him, and the feeling when I wasn't with him, I would have given anything to be back there. So when Spike was trapped, I was so caught up in the moment of the episode, I think i went through every emotion right there with Spike.

So, to the writers, directors, producers, showrunners - and most importantly of all, Sergio. I thank you. This is what proper story telling is all about.

Flashpoint DVD Episode Arrangement

Due to the way Flashpoint was aired in the US, the season box sets are different to the Canadian versions. While they will eventually release all the episodes, there is still some confusion over which episodes appear on which set.

Episode name	Canadian	US	UK
	Season 1	Season 1	Season 1
Scorpio	Episode 1	Episode 1	Episode 1
First in Line	Episode 2	Episode 2	Episode 2
Element of Surprise	Episode 3	Episode 3	Episode 3
Asking for Flowers	Episode 4	Episode 4	Episode 4
Who's George	Episode 5	Episode 5	Episode 5
Attention Shoppers	Episode 6	Episode 6	Episode 6
He Knows His Brother	Episode 7	Episode 7	Episode 7
Never Kissed A Girl	Episode 8	Episode 8	Episode 8
Planets Aligned	Episode 9	Episode 9	Episode 9
Eagle Two	Episode 10	Episode 10	Episode 10
Backwards Day	Episode 11	Episode 11	Episode 11
Haunting the Barn	Episode 12	Episode 12	Episode 12
Between Heartbeats	Episode 13	Episode 13	Episode 13
	Season 2	Season 2
Business as usual	Episode 1	Episode 1
The Fortress	Episode 2	Episode 2
Clean Hands	Episode 3	Episode 3
Aisle 13	Episode 4	Episode 4
The Perfect Family	Episode 5	Episode 5
Remote Control	Episode 6	Episode 6
Perfect Storm	Episode 7	Episode 7
Last Dance	Episode 8	Episode 8
Exit Wounds	Episode 9	Episode 9
		Season 3
One Wrong Move	Episode 10	Episode 1
Never Let You Down	Episode 11	Episode 2
Just A Man	Episode 12	Episode 7
Custody	Episode 13	Episode 4
Coming To You Live	Episode 14	Episode 5
The Farm	Episode 15	Episode 3
You Think You Know Someone	Episode 16	Episode 10
The Good Citizen	Episode 17	Episode 9
Behind the Blue Line	Episode 18	Episode 6
	Season 3
Unconditional Love	Episode 1	Episode 8
Severed Ties	Episode 2	Episode 11
Follow the Leader	Episode 3	Episode 12
Whatever It Takes	Episode 4	Episode 13
The Other Lane	Episode 5	Episode 14
Jumping At Shadows	Episode 6	Episode 15
Acceptable Risk	Episode 7	Episode 16
		Season 4
Collateral Damage	Episode 8	Episode 1
Thicker Than Blood	Episode 9	Episode 2
Terror	Episode 10	Episode 3
No Promises	Episode 11	Episode 4
I'd Do Anything	Episode 12	Episode 5
Fault Lines	Episode 13	Episode 6
	Season 4
Personal Effects	Episode 1	Episode 7
Good Cop	Episode 2	Episode 8
Run Jamie Run	Episode 3	Episode 9
Through a Glass Darkly	Episode 4	Episode 10
The Better Man	Episode 5	Episode 11
A Day in the Life	Episode 6	Episode 12
Shockwave	Episode 7	Episode 13
		Season 5
The War Within	Episode 8	Episode 8
Cost of Doing Business	Episode 9	Episode 2
Wild Card	Episode 10	Episode 3
New Life	Episode 11	Episode 4
Grounded	Episode 12	Episode 1
Call to Arms	Episode 13	Episode 5
Team Player	Episode 14	Episode 9
Day Game	Episode 15	Episode 6
Blue on Blue	Episode 16	Episode 7
Priority of Life	Episode 17	Episode 10
Slow Burn	Episode 18	Episode 11
	Season 5
Broken Peace	Episode 1
No Kind Of Life	Episode 2
Run To Me	Episode 3
Eyes In	Episode 4
Sons Of The Father	Episode 5
A World Of Their Own	Episode 6
Below The Surface	Episode 7
Forget Oblivion	Episode 8
We Take Care Of Our Own	Episode 9
Lawmen	Episode 10
Fit For Duty	Episode 11
Keep The Peace (Part 1)	Episode 12
Keep The Peace (Part 2)	Episode 13

Christmas Movies...

Following on from my Christmas Song musings, I started thinking about what makes the perfect Christmas movie.
Is it the need to take our main character to the very depths of despair, then have him rise up at the end, having possibly seen the error of his previous ways?
Is it the heart-melting scene near the end when the family is reunited, and love blossoms once more?
Is it the final shot of the snow falling while someone sings a Christmas Song?

If you're nodding along to all of these, and thinking of your own favourite Christmas film, I offer you a few words to break your spirit.

I've just described Die Hard!

Christmas Songs....

It's December, which means one thing. Well alright, it means many things. But one of those many and too numerous things to mention here is: Christmas Songs!

You know them, and either love them or hate them. Everywhere you go in December, they follow you.

Supermarkets and shops have them blasting out. The radio plays one every 20 minutes. People whistle and hum them...

But, and here comes my rant of the week, some of these songs aren't – to my way of thinking anyway – real Christmas songs!

I've thought this way for a number of years, but never really voiced it until now. This morning, my favourite radio station played “Stay” by East-17 as a Christmas song.

I had to put pen to paper (or at least, finger to keyboard) and write a letter to the DJ (or at least, send a tweet).

Adding some sleigh bells to a song (and some thick coats and fake snow in the video) does not a Christmas Song make.

This lead to a slightly heated debate between me and the DJ about the validity of Christmas Songs. Basically, she argued, it was Number 1 at Christmas time, therefore is a Christmas song...

Using these rules we also have applications for Mr. Blobby and Bob the Builder.

And Mad World must be the most depressing Christmas Song!

Oh and let us not forget Rage Against the Machine and the Theme to Grange Hil (No seriously, listen to the bass line of Killing in the Name and tell me that's not a rip off of the Grange Hill theme tune! I can actually SEE the sausage on a fork whenever I hear the song!)

To me, Christmas doesn't start until the Coca-cola lorry has been sighted, and the following songs have had at least 2 plays on the radio: Slade, Wizzard and Shakin' Stevens.

I shall end this by saying despite being a HUGE fan of S-Club, Never Had a Dream Come True isn't a Christmas Song either!