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My thoughts on Twitter (in slightly more than 140 characters)

Let's get the confessions out of the way first. I am on Twitter. I've even started posting tweets from my iPhone via an application called Twitterific. Sad bastard, aren't I?

If it gives me one ounce of extra street cred, I did become one of the twitterati before the microblogging site became the talk of all the magazines and chat shows. But I have to be honest. My tweets were limited. The strange thing about things like Twitter and Facebook is that there's no actual point in posting anything until they reach a critical mass of some kind. And by the time they reach that critical mass and everyone's talking about them, they're no longer cool and you look as if you're jumping on a cyber bandwagon.

One of the things that really distinguishes Twitter is the number of celebrities who choose to hang out there. Readers who remember the turn-of-the-century John Sessions comedy Stella Street will be able to see close parallels. The TV show was set in a mythical avenue in Surbiton - the heart of London suburbia. Unlikely slebs such as Mick Jagger and Jack Nicholson rubbed shoulders at the local corner store, while bumping into even more unlikely ones including football pundit Jimmy Hill and DJ Tony Blackburn.

On Twitter, I can follow the latest thoughts of actress Demi Moore and country music legend Willie Nelson. But news from the bloke who plays Ian Beale on Eastenders is never far behind. The other day, he informed us that he was off on the school run. Twenty years in Britain's top soap and the geezer still don't have a nanny.

Believe it or not, one of the most tweet-happy, up-for-it microbloggers is none other than former TV heartthrob Philip Schofield. The silvertopped ladies' man is posting left, right and centre. How exactly does he have the time, when he's joint host of a daytime TV show? The answer is that he actually tweets during the show itself. Like half the British population, he's posting and social networking when he should be working.

Rest assured that I'll keep WARTE readers fully up to date with the latest goings-on in the twitterverse. This will save you from having to go there yourselves.

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