It’s another post about something I’ve seen posted on a social network. This time it’s this message on twitter

A 15 year old girl who is terminal with cancer has made a bucket list. One of her wishes is to trend on Twitter. Give a RT #alicebucketlist

This sort a message can provoke a strong emotional response. Usually sadness about such a young girl having to suffer such a problem and possibly die shorty, then maybe when you read on you realise there is hope you can help this poor girl just by Retweeting the message,  you can move on with your life happy that you’ve help someone in such a sitution.

Except if you are a big old sceptic like me. If you are, you probably are full of follow up questions like, who is Alice? Is she a real person, if so is there anything else I can do to help. A quick Google search for “Alice 15 year old girl  terminal cancer” (alicebucketlist also works) reveals the following;

There is a 15 Year old Alice with Terminal Cancer called Alice, but she doesn’t have a wish to trend on twitter, she has wishes like “To get everyone eligible to join a bone marrow register” which are a little more demanding of people than pushing a single button on the internet.

So if you want to really help Alice. Why not visit her blog and facebook page, bid on her auction,or more importantly become a bone marrow donor, via the NHS, AnthonyNolan or one of the other donor registers around the world.

EDIT: Alice’s Bucket list hit the news in June,  when after creating her blog her local MP, John Woodcock, raised the issue of Bone marrow donation during prime minister’s questions.

The quick answer is; Probably Definately Not. The longer answer goes as follows;

McDonald’s have banned staff wearing poppies. Time to complain McDonalds Restaurants complaints department 0208 700 7007 please RT

This is message I spotted on Twitter* earlier. There is no link to reputable news source at the moment confirming or denying these claims, or any recent link on the subject for that matter.

The main source of this rumour seems to be veteransassociation twitter account. Which looks very much like an amateur effort not maintained by any professional body. It’s currently being Retweeted about 10 times per minute the moment.

So I did a bit of searching myself and found news stories from Canada in 2010 where staff we told to wear Royal Canadian Legion poppy stickers instead because of the possibility the poppy could fall off or come apart in a food prep area.

The only real update information is from Twitter. Andy Sollis on Twitter claims to have spoken to a Mcdonald’s manager and he has advised;

“[staff] Are being issued pin poppys as normal poppy health risk in food prep area”

Update – 22:35 30/10/100 - More from Andy;

“checked with friend who is manager at Northampton prems. Original paper and plastic poppies are not to be worn due to h&s etc.  however, she tells me that company has purchased pin badge poppies for staff and their choice to wear rather than pin or paper or plastic stem ending up in your big mac or fries! They are in support. I have no connection with the company. Andy”

Update – 31/10/100 - Katie Holland. A member of the McDonald’s Customer Satisfaction Twitter Team, posted this on Twitter.

McD’s UK is providing sticker poppies for our front counter crew to wear if they choose, and Poppies are [available for] Purchase.

Also Dionne Parker Head of UK Communications at McDonald’s wrote this

McDonald’s UK fully supports the Poppy Appeal

We provide special sticker poppies for all front counter employees to wear, if they want. We also have poppies available in our restaurants for customers to buy and they’re on sale in our offices.

So we have no real concrete evidence either way. However since the burden of evidence is on accuser, I recommend on take this claim with a pinch of salt. If you have any information please post it in the comments below. So there we have it. Despite these claims being repeated thousands of times over twitters McDonald’s have not banned Poppies

As usual I would say we shouldn’t pass on any sorts of claim/rumour (on Facebook, Twitter or even real life) until there is a definite and reputable news source.

*Interesting that these rumours are spreading via Twitter and not Facebook.

There is a new rumour spreading like wildfire on Facebook, and it goes something like this.

I’ve just heard some really shocking news. The Royal British Legion are not selling poppies in certain areas on Nov 11 this year. This is because some minorities say that it will upset them. I say F – O**. The poppy is a symbol of reverence for our fallen heroes of all the wars the BRITISH military have fought in. BRITAIN STAND UP AND SAY ‘WE WANT THE POPPY SOLD EVERY WERE IN THE UK’. THIS IS OUR RIGHT TO REVERE OUR FALLEN!!!.

Obviously this isn’t in the slightest bit true. There indeed was a problem with The Royal British Legion selling Poppies in Birmingham  this was because they didn’t get permission from the local council in time and had nothing to do with “minorities” being offended. However this decision has now been reversed, as the more organised Shelter and The Anthony Nolan Trust have kindly allowed The Royal British Legion to the collect  in their place.

“We have withdrawn the licence to fundraise in Birmingham on 12 November and have asked Birmingham City Council to allocate this date to the Royal British Legion,” a Anthony Nolan Trust spokesman said.

There are no other proper new items about The Royal British Legion not been able to sell Poppies anywhere else, and there are definately no stories about  ”minorities” being offended by the sale of them. Why would they be offended? Just like the England shirts are not going to be banned from pubs story, someone has taken something they’ve read in the paper and posted on Facebook how it’s all the fault of the foreigns and minorities, and then other people then repost it without checking facts, and soon thousands of people across the country believe this hateful rumour.

Update : The British Legion’s Twitter account confirms this is false.

You’ve may of seen the following posted on Facebook recently.

Change your Facebook profile picture to a cartoon character from your childhood. Until Monday (06/12), there should be no human faces on Facebook, but an invasion of memories! This is a campaign to stop violence against children.

or more recently this has started to appear.

Change your profile picture to a cartoon character from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same, for the NSPCC. Until Monday (December 6th), there should be no human faces on Facebook, but an invasion of memories. This is a campaign to stop violence against …children

Note the addition of the NSPCC to make it look more legitimate. However like a lot of these status messages that don’t link to an legitmate source (e.g. the NSPCC themselves) this isn’t real.

The NSPCC had this to say (Source)

Although the NSPCC did not originate the childhood cartoon Facebook campaign, we welcome the attention it has brought to the work we do

Some idiots have also started spreading the following message blaming paedophiles.  Some people are too stupid to be allowed on the internet. (Source)

just been told this :- Did U know that the group asking every1 2 change their profile picture 2 a cartoon character is actually a group of paedo’s. They doing it Bcos kids will accept their friend request faster if they see a cartoon picture. It has nothing 2 do with supporting child violence, it was on T.V and its on tonight’s news…. put this as your status 2 warn every1 & to get them to change back

A quick bit of research reveals that a version of this message start popping up during November in the US (Source), Greece and Cyprus, with the message stating it was just a bit of fun. Also around this time Cartoon Network created a Facebook event page for “Choose a Cartoon Character as Your Profile Picture for a Week” running from Nov. 21 to Nov. 28 (Source).

Valleywag reports it changed into an anti-child abuse meme sometime on or before December 3rd, in the brillantly titled Facebook Users Defeat All Child Abuse by Changing Their Profile Pictures.

Changing you facebook profile picture obviously isn’t going to help stop violence against children, and although many people are aware of this and have just joined in for fun why not help at the same time?

So here’s a challenge you anyone reading this who has changed their avatar to cartoon on Facebook. Donate to the Directly to the NSPCC here or donate to my just giving page for the NSPCC and when we raise 20 quid. I’ll change my Facebook avatar too.

Update 18:45 – 8 quid raised already! (Ok, five of it was me), also check out this great post called Charities have no use for your avatar by AngryJedi

Update 18:47 - Wow, someone has just donate another 12 quid giving my total of 12 quids already! To facebook to change my Avatar! Guess what’ll choose.

Update 18:54 – It’s Starscream, It’s always Starscream. Thanks to Garry Stonehouse and Emma Inkles for the donations.

Update 19:20 – Added the message about teh Peados! Also raise the target for donations, please keep donating!

Here’s a nice blog comment I got from Dennis Markuze (religious nut job).

Today the internet is a buzz with a story of how Google’s Pac-Man front page, which celebrated 30 years since the launch of Pac-Man in Japan on 21st May,  has cost business Millions of  pounds. Of course it’s all utter bollocks.

Rescue Time looked browsing habits of 11,000 users, and then converted this to represent 504 million unique users.

Here’s where the figures start to fall down, at the first hurdle. The sample size this survey is 00.002% of the total user base. A figure so low could hardly be called representative.

They found Putting Pac-Man on the page boosted the time people viewed the page by an average of about 36 seconds. Extrapolating this up across the 504 million unique users who visit the main Google page day-to-day, this represents an increase of 4.8 million hours – equal to about 549 years.

This also makes the assumption that all these people had jobs, were at those jobs and they weren’t on a break.

In dollar terms, assuming people are paid $25 (£17.50) an hour, this equates to about $120m in lost productivity, the firm said.

Here’s is another massive assumption, 504 million people get paid $25 (£17.50) an hour. I’d love to live in that world, sadly I live in the real world where the average hourly wage (from Income and Poverty 2005 [pdf]. World Bank: United Nations Development Programme) works out a measly $4 an hour.

So they you go, utter crap from start to finish and I didn’t even go into the fact that playing Pac-Man for a few seconds may of cheered up those users at work (like me) and made the more effective for the rest of the day.

Screw these killjoys, and go play http://www.google.com/pacman/

You may have seen the headline that, as predicted by our recent poll, Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, has agreed to stand down after the BNP disaster at the 2010 election.

But what you may not have seen is, he is not stepping down until in 2013 as part of an attempt to stave off an immediate leadership challenge which may cause the party to implode even further.

“By then I would have been leader of the BNP for 15 years and that is long enough,” Griffin said. “It will be time to make way for a younger person who does not have any baggage which can be used against the party.”

The biggest baggage that Nick Griffin has it that he is horrible racist cunt. It’s hard to see the BNP having a leader than didn’t have that sort of baggage.

Nick is going to use his position as an MEP to keep cashing those big fat MEP cheques help other European Racist Parties.

“I then intend to help the other European nationalist parties to achieve the level of sophistication which the BNP has been able to build up, because a victory for any one of these parties is a victory to all of us,”

He’s going over there, and telling them how to their jobs. Yeah, good luck with that Nick, you’ve done so well over here.

Of course this is just a ploy from the one-eyed fat shit to keep on to his job for a little longer and I’ll be highly surprised if he lasts that long.