Post Thatcher

So it's finally all over - they've cremated Thatcher at last.  Which means, of course, that whilst the lady wasn't for turning, she was for burning.  Sorry.  Couldn't resist it.  I'll try and shut up about Thatcher now, (well, just so long as the right shut up about her and stop trying to canonise her through a blatant rewriting of history).   I did get a couple of stories out of her demise for The Sleaze, though, so I shouldn't complain.  Actually, I will complain.  The most recent Thatcher story was scheduled to be published at eight this morning, to catch the early surfers and cash in on the fact that at that time Thatcher's funeral might just be still topical.  Did it auto post?  Like fuck it did.  Mysteriously, Wordpress chose this story to suddenly decide not to auto post.   Consequently, it didn't get published until this evening when I got home from work and realised what had happened.  Consequently, it has missed its window of topicality and remains unread by anybody, leaving me feeling that I've completely wasted my time.  Gee, thanks a lot Wordpress, you crock of shit - I was sold on you as a new platform for my site partly on the basis that it was possible to schedule posts. 

But was it a coincidence?  I think not.  I think those right-wing Thatcher groupies somehow 'got' to my Wordpress installation in an attempt to supress this story.  It's just like the way they nobbled the BBC to stop that Wizard of Oz song being played, even though it was at number two in the chart, because they claimed it was an anti-Thatcher protest.  Bastards!  But really, I do expect better of such a widely used application as Wordpress.  Simple functionality and the ability to actually do what it claims to be able to do surely isn't too big an ask, is it?  Still, to put it all in perspective, although the first Thatcher story, (the one which auto-posted when it was scheduled to do so), did well, the reality is that the biggest story in traffic terms so far this month has been the Dr Who sex scandal story, which was actually published last month.  The fact is that Dr Who has a longer shelf-life than Thatcher - the Who story, after its first burst of popularity when it was published was then linked to by a fan forum, giving it a second wave of traffic.  I thought that was it, but this month it first of all became popular on Facebook, (presumably in Who-related groups), before being linked to by another fan forum, boosting its traffic again.  The sad fact that many online satirists never grasp is that political stories have a very limited period of topicality, whereas stuff about pop culture can continue getting traffic as long as its subject has fans.