Stay Positive

The Guardian fucking rocks.

If I didn't prefer to keep thieves' hours, I would live there.

Excerpt: Texting is a truly tricky form for the ironist - very brief texts are difficult to make ironic simply because it's difficult to inject many layers into seven words. However, if you write a very long text, because it's such a bugger to do, your extra effort suggests a sincerity - an undudelike urge to be understood - that sits all wrong with the irony. To get round this, forms like "(!)" and "Not" and "have evolved", but they're pretty dumb and basic.
With emails, people with a lot of time on their hands can, obviously, give themselves room to develop an ironic theme, but for people with jobs, e-etiquette demands instant response, which brings you down to the very rudiments of irony - I Love My Boss; I'm Delighted That My Ex Is Going Out With That Attractive Woman; I Really Couldn't Be More Pleased That You've Lost a Stone. Once it's as bald as that, and you're without extra signifiers like eyebrows, there is a danger of misunderstanding. However, I think we're actually more alert to irony than we are to its opposite, sincerity. Take the case of Rena Salmon, who last year shot her husband's lover, and then texted him to that effect. Her words were, "I have shot Lorna. This is not a joke." A perfect demonstration of my point (I don't get many of those) - the first thing you think when you read a text is that it is a joke.