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Created by: Public Administration

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Lanore, my Facebook friend long-standing, but my distance she's demanding, a restraining order landing, with the full force of the law.

So I'm at the keyboard thinking, with my broken heart a-sinking, trying to find the words to reconnect with lost Lenore.

"I see you're trying to write a letter, can I help you make it better?"
Quoth the paperclip.

But I click him off dismissive and continue with my missive, giving him no more permissive, to disturb me evermore.

As I sit there thinking, my scotch quietly drinking, my hope it is a-shrinking, needing words to lead me back to lost Lenore.

My broken heart almost stopping, I try to stop the pop-up popping, but the paperclip comes back a-hopping, "Let me help you woo Lenore".

Again I click him off dismissive and continue with my missive, giving him no more permissive, to disrupt me evermore.

And then the blue screen does appear, my heart is burning with the fear, that I've lost my missive dear, whose ending is as yet unclear, my missive to my love Lenore.

"Your letter is nevermore" quoth the paperclip.

My knowledge of computing, all evidence refuting, makes me try rebooting, restarting that single core, to reclaim my lost lettor, my final missive to Lenore.

But the letter has been deleted, replaced instead by one image repeated, a paperclip looking conceiting, completely filling my hard drive store.

And the paperclip whispers "Nevermore".

by Helen and Brett

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"Red Leader, you are cleared for attack". How did I find myself here; a marine biologist attacking an American space station armed with a squid?

I blame the World Cup. It was during 2010 that people realised that an octopus named Paul was correctly predicting the outcome of the games. It didn't take Dick Cheney long to see the implications of this and found the "Future Crime" division of the FBI. He kidnapped the prescient octopus from Germany, and started arresting trouble-makers and future insurgents BEFORE they had committed any crimes. Of course, the crime families decided they needed some means of retaliation, and they soon started kidnapping marine biologists and experimenting with their own cephalopod recruits. Soon the word "army" was a literal term. I was a prominent marine biologist specialising in octopi, so I was one of the first to be forcibly recruited to the Rebel Alliance.

By 2012, Dick Cheney had declared the UN obsolete and was running world affairs from a space station orbiting the planet. By this time he had had his third heart attack and was breathing through a respirator. Although old, he was still vigorous, and would stride menacingly down the corridors of his space station, dressed in his gleaming black space suit.

The Rebel Alliance decide to attack the space station, but the only way to avoid the attention of Cheney and the prescient Paul is to be armed with your own cephalopod. My companion is a squid, the 2nd squid recruit of Delta team 2, who we call R2D2 for short. He is strapped in behind me as we start our attack run. I am sweaty and feeling slightly nauseous. R2D2 has been fitted with a synthesiser and he chirps behind me, an instruction to veer left. A missile from the space station flashes past, just missing our starboard wing. "Nice one, R2" I say. "Almost there... Almost there..." I mutter to myself, and with a slap of the launch button, the missile is away and the station is destroyed.

Of course, it is almost certain that with his prescient ally, Dick has escaped and will some day continue his reign of terror. For now though, the world is safe, for at least as long as the closing credits.

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Want to know how I ended up in Hell? It was Billy's stag night and so far a total disaster. Because of Billy's best friend Bobby, we were sitting at a raw food restaurant in London - a raw food restaurant that had run out of most vegetables. I had a plate of "spaghetti" in front of me. Spaghetti made from shaved zucchini. Cold spaghetti. Spaghetti covered in tomato sauce consisting entirely of squashed cold tomato. "Don't worry" whispered Billy, somehow picking up on my abject misery. "Wait until the girls arrive".

Oh yes. That would be something to look forward to. Because Billy hadn't been able to organise a stripper, he had somehow persuaded a troupe of girl scouts to come in and do some miming to a Spice Girls track during the meal. I think he had promised them some special badges or something. I listlessly twirled the spaghetti around my fork.

Abruptly there was a commotion from the front door of the restaurant. "Oh God" I thought, "it's the girl guides". I looked up, and instead saw my nemesis walking in the front door, an attractive girl on his arm.

Kevin and I had been rivals ever since chess club in school. Ever since I had lead with white pawn to queen 4, and he had responded with the Sicilian defence. The Sicilian! In my heart I knew he had mocked me ever since. And now here I was at a table with a bunch of geeks, about to be serenaded by a girl guide troupe, and here was Kevin - walking past the table with an attractive blonde, no doubt with an expensive sports car parked outside. Kevin glanced down as he passed the table and saw me. His eyes widened in surprise. "Brett" he said, stopping. "What a surprise". "Kev" I said, nodding at him, "it's been a long time".

Suddenly there was a crash at the front door. Everyone turned to stare. "Zombie" I thought. Yup, rotting flesh, shambling gait, there was definitely a small group of zombies staggering into the restaurant. Kevin and I looked at each other and nodded in perfect accord. He grabbed a chair and smashed it against the table. I grabbed a carving knife in one hand and Kevin tossed me one of the chair legs. Ichor and chunks of rotting flesh flew across the restaurant as we set to work dispatching the zombies.

And that's how I ended up here in Hell. I mean, how was I to know that the resurrection had started?

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Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty from Darragh O'Connell on Vimeo.

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I do think that blogs have a part in our future - I just think that the people who used blogs as a telephone will move to Facebook, those that used blogs as a form of SMS will move to Twitter, and those that feel the need to expound on a particular topic, and want their missives to have a greater scope and longevity will continue to use blogs.

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Obviously these are two examples that illustrate both the good and bad sides of citizen journalism. The good being closer interaction with the audience, potentially closer exposure to events as they are unfolding and the speed at which events are reported. The bad being that there is no controls over the quality of the information being reported - it may be true, it may not. Also, citizen journalists may unwittingly or deliberately trample over the rights of the people being reported on.

I think that reputation is the panacea for the problems described above. Journalists have a reputation to consider when they are reporting. This keeps them focused on reporting the facts and ethically constrained (obviously something has gone horribly wrong at Fox News). As online reputation becomes more of a consideration for Joe or Jill Plumber, hopefully it will mean they too will be more concerned with "getting it right", as far as their tweets, blog posts, and Facebook updates go.

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