I enjoy twitter, let me just say that up front. Funny, informative, a good way to waste chunks of otherwise dead time. All that. It's good.
For a while though I've been feeling a bit like I did at school, on the days when I was the last to be selected by the two girls heading up the rounders teams. It's my own fault. I've been following a little bunch of celebs, not top flight people, but names nonetheless and, in my eyes, the popular girls. They all know each other. Sue Perkins tweets to Tracey Thorn; Clare Balding sends a message to Miranda Hart; and Victoria Coren, well she just talks to all of them. It's like I'm hidden behind the gym lockers, listening to the cool girls chat about the great stuff they'll be doing at the weekend while I'll be with my parents, watching "The Generation Game" and doing my homework. OK, these days they're forming a charity walk team and ranting about Ann Widdecombe but I could do those things too. I'd be a good friend, bake cakes, share my make up - OK, not those last two but something just as good. And I've never liked former Prisons' Minister, shackle them to their beds, Widdecombe. I could be funny about her too.
That twitter lets us eavesdrop on the lives of people we're probably a bit like but will never know is an odd thing. It gives me a strange glow of companionship that Tracey Thorn was looking for Series 1 of "Miranda" just a week after I'd been doing the same thing. See how much we have in common. See how well we'd get on.
Is this a kind of stalking? Maybe it's more like having imaginary friends. Either way it somehow doesn't feel right.
Still, just so it's out there, I'm free to join the Bobby Dazzler's 2 fundraising Moonwalk team, should Alice Arnold sprain an ankle.
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