What A Load of Twoddle...

I am ashamed to admit it, but last night I watched one of those “I like to talk on Telly Programmes” – you know the sort. Richard Bacon doing the voice over and Z-list celebrities criticising A-listers for doing terrible things like adopting too many children.

I am not too sure what this one was about as I only caught numbers 9 – 3 in the list being discussed but I think it was something to do with people that annoyed Richard Bacon last year.

Somewhere in the 9 – 3 list was “anyone that uses Twitter”. That’ll be me then. It’s good to know that a cocaine sniffing, disgraced (former) Blue Peter presenter finds me annoying as I feel less guilty for wanting to slap him now.

There was much laughter about tweet being two letters away from a naughty swear word with people like Big Cook Ben and Little Cook Small (from questionable C Beebies fame) agreeing that tweeters were twits or [insert naughty swear word here].

Stephen Fry got it in the neck in particular for tweeting about what he had for lunch one day. Now, nearly 1.25 million people follow Stephen Fry on Twitter – that’s a lot of people by anyone’s standard. If he was annoying, they would drop him like a hot potato. Instead, the nation went into semi mourning when he announced a Tweeting break to finish his book on 1 January last year. (Though, of course, he is still tweeting as Mrs Fry so you can all come out of mourning now).

I follow him because he’s witty, intelligent and inspiring – that man can do more with 140 characters than most people could do with a novel.

And I’m on Twitter because it’s good. I can see what the world is talking about, monitor headline news, keep up to date with trends in social media, watch out for press opportunities and “Twitches” and find the right people to do me a lovely Facebook app. Of course, I can also be one of the first people to find out that Kerry Katona is pregnant again - and watching her life unfold in 140 characters always makes me feel good about myself – even when I am having an especially fat day. (In fact, even if I was in prison for stealing haemorrhoid cream from Superdrug – Kerry would make me feel better about myself. It’s a unique quality she has).

Where else could I get all that information, brought to me, wherever I am in the world? Nowhere. Which is why Twitter is good and probably why Mr Bacon himself is on it - http://twitter.com/richardpbacon.

Presumably, therefore, Richard Bacon finds himself annoying? Well, at least he knows how the rest of us are feeling then. The twit!