Wetherspoon’s boss shows it’s closing time for the morons of social media
How many morons do you have to confront before you decide Twitter is not for you? Tim Martin's bailed - raise a glass to him
TIM MARTIN, national treasure and chief of mighty pub chain JD Wetherspoon, has withdrawn his company from all social media.
Martin is unlikely to be the last businessman to decide that total and unthinking immersion in the internet is bad for your bottom line.
For years it has been accepted as the gospel truth that every business must be connected to everyone at all times.
But what is the point in being connected to simpletons who waste your time? What is so great about being connected to empty-headed thickos? What exactly do you get out of it?
Tim Martin found that Wetherspoon staff were spending their working hours dealing with online complaints that were so trivial they beggared belief.
“I think they need to lower their mirrors in the toilets,” tweeted one mildly disgruntled customer. “I’m 5ft 2in and can’t do my make-up.”
“Have just realised you’ve taken the haggis bites off the menu???” posted another Wetherspoon user. “Why is this?”
“Can you please confirm — are your jacket potatoes deep-fried or not?” bleated another concerned tweeter.
Tim Martin has come to the conclusion that the time his staff spend responding to these online banalities would be much better spent talking to customers face-to-face.
Who would have thought it? Real life is suddenly making a comeback.
Paying his staff to reply to trivia was not Martin’s only concern about the digital world.
He was also concerned about online abuse and the misuse of personal data — the issue that suddenly has Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg sweating inside his dad’s suit as he attempts to explain how his company whored the privacy of Facebook users to the world.
It is no coincidence that Wetherspoon’s withdrawal from all social media should come so close to the controversy over Facebook’s recklessness with private data.
2018 could be the year that social media peaked. The digitally connected world was sold to us as something that none of us could live without. It is how we get information, buy stuff and sell ourselves to the world.
But how many morons do you have to confront on Twitter before you decide it is not for you?
“Give me a 200-word story in The Sun or The Times over a tweet,” said Eddie Gershon, Wetherspoon’s communications chief.
So let’s raise a glass to JD Wetherspoon. They have done us all a favour.
Because suddenly the fat cats of social media look surprisingly fragile, overrated and mortal.
And Tim Martin is a businessman. JD Wetherspoon has 37,000 employees, 900 pubs and a billion pounds of turnover.
My guess is that if Martin believed that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram increased his profit margin, then he would stick with them. But he doesn’t. And so Wetherspoon’s is bailing out.
“I don’t believe that closing these accounts will affect our business whatsoever and this is the overwhelming view of our pub managers,” said Martin, who ironically announced the move in a tweet to his 44,000 Twitter followers.
You will not find Tim Martin on Twitter any more.
But he will meet you at the bar.
- THE Rolling Stones, who play eight UK gigs over the next couple of months, now have a combined age of 294 and are said to have cleaned up their act in their dotage.
We are told Mick Jagger, 74, heads off for bed immediately after a show.
But the snake-hipped, rubber-lipped old goat knocked up ballerina Melanie Hamrick on the band’s last Latin American tour.
When Mick heads off early to bed, you can never be sure who is in it with him.
- GERMAINE GREER is wrong to suggest that Meghan Markle will not last in the Royal Family.
Comparisons with Princess Diana are silly.
Diana was a blushing bride of just 20 when she married Prince Charles. Meghan is a woman of the world.
When she marries Harry, she will be 36 — exactly the age Diana was when she died.
Not last in the Royal Family?
In ten years, Meghan will be running it.
- SEAN PENN’S debut novel Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff has received the worst reviews I have ever seen. “Shut your face,” was a particularly brutal verdict.
And only open your mouth when someone else is writing the words, Sean.
Dog-mad Queen is one of us
THE death of the Queen’s last corgi is a landmark moment in the history of this dog-crazy nation.
The Queen still has dogs but Willow, the corgi who died last Sunday, is a direct descendent of Susan, the Queen’s 18th birthday present.
And the Queen has decided that at her age – 92 yesterday – she can no longer be certain that she will outlive any new puppies.
So Willow is the last of a very long line.
How much does the Queen love her dogs?
Susan, that very first corgi, was so beloved that she was taken on the Queen and Prince Philip’s honeymoon.
On Susan’s gravestone is a simple but moving tribute – “the faithful companion of the Queen”.
One day they will say exactly the same thing about Prince Philip.
The bond between the Queen and her dogs has been shared by millions of her subjects.
Our dogs teach us the meaning of love, the power of forgiveness, what true unbreakable devotion looks like.
When the Royal Family could have easily seemed irrelevant in the modern world, the Queen’s love of dogs has always humanised her.
Her dogs made the Queen seem not so different to the millions of her subjects who also have dogs at the centre of their lives.
Yes, the Queen lives a life of unimaginable privilege, with flunkies wielding soda syphons should a corgi cock a hind leg over some priceless antique.
But she will mourn the death of Willow just as we will grieve on the bleak day we say goodbye to our own dogs.
Because nothing breaks the heart quite like the loss of a beloved dog.
There is no politician – barring the dog-crazy David Blunkett – who has visibly shared the Queen’s love of dogs, and that is one reason why they all seem such transient, insubstantial figures next to Her Majesty.
The bond between Ken Livingstone and his newts just can’t compare.
Friends the UK forgot
READER Eric Pottle of Southampton asks a good question.
“If the Home Office can deport Caribbean immigrants who came here legally, why can’t they deport immigrants who came illegally?”
It is an affront to British justice that the Windrush families who have contributed so much to this country should be treated so shabbily – denied medical treatment, apparently told to get out of the country – while anyone who can hide in the back of a lorry from Calais gets to stay.
But here is an answer to Eric’s question.
The countries of the Caribbean such as Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad are democracies that share our values. A stupid, unthinking Home Office will never have any qualms about packing someone off to these places.
Former British colonies are safe.
But the countries that most illegal immigrants come from were never British colonies and are blighted by violence and extremism.
It is not safe to send someone back to the likes of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria or Somalia.
That explains the contempt and cruelty that has been heaped upon the Windrush generation.
But nothing can excuse it.
Arsene's an icon
ARSENE WENGER is leaving Arsenal at the end of the season.
For Gunners fan, there are so many happy memories of Wenger – especially when the club was still calling Highbury home.
But after 22 years, I reckon the time was right to bow out with grace, dignity and love – which Wenger has done.
More than any trophies, Wenger deserves credit for showing loyalty and commitment to one club.
And if Arsenal fans imagine that things can only get better when Wenger is gone, I fear they might be very much mistaken.
WHAT glorious irony that the senile, ermine-encrusted House of Lords votes to keep a post-Brexit Britain in the EU customs union on the same day that the leaders of Canada and India declare they are looking forward to becoming closer trading partners with us after we leave.
Staying in the customs union would prevent us striking trade deals with the rest of the world and cut the balls off Brexit.
Isn’t it time we decided that 21st Century Britain has no space for the democracy-denying House of Lords?
- A CIRCUS bear in Russia is forced to perform grotesque tricks for the chortling morons in attendance.
If you are attending the World Cup in Russia this summer, don’t forget to put your watch back to the 17th Century.
Depression Charl-eased
CHARLIZE THERON says she felt depressed after piling on nearly 4st to play the lead in her new film Tully.
Funnily enough, seeing images of Charlize carrying around all that excess baggage depressed me too.
But a sensible diet and serious exercise have restored Charlize to her former glory.
And we are both feeling much better now, thanks.
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Strictly Na-diva
NADIYA BYCHKOVA, the only dancer on Strictly who could moonlight for Victoria’s Secret, has received criticism for what are described as diva demands – wanting her own dressing room and displaying an aversion to public transport.
But Nadiya is more of an asset to Strictly than the washed-up musicians, overly ambitious BBC presenters and footballers’ wives that get foisted on us as “celebrities”.
And you can bet your life that none of these “celebrities” are ever asked to catch the bus.