Aliens: AaAaAaRrrggggh

I last saw Aliens on the big screen probably when it came out in 1986. I’d seen it multiple times since on video/DVD, but the cinema experience is different – and not just that the screen is much bigger and the details are a lot clearer.

But last night I saw Aliens at the Filmhouse. And it was great.

I’m just going to assume that everyone knows what happens and so there can’t be any spoilers. It’s been 26 years. Surely? Right?

Investigative journalism on the cheap

Lyall Duff, as probably everyone in Scotland knows by now, posted some stupid crap on his Facebook profile under the mistaken impression that he’d made it private.

When the Daily Record (8th April) published some tweets from a couple of years ago made by Josh Wilson (@joshyyw) when he was 17, identifying him as an “SNP activist” I saw this criticised on my twitterfeed even by Labour activists protesting that this was unfair – a young man being blamed for “crude and sexist” comments he’d made two years ago.

Before I read the Daily Record story I agreed. Everyone says the odd stupid thing when they’re 17: this shouldn’t necessarily be held against you when you’re older. And it seems to me that newspapers are getting worked up about scandalous stuff from social media because it is the cheapest and least-effortful form of investigative journalism.