Liberal Democrat Councillor's tweeting dog Bailey makes headlines.

Many people reading this will be aware that Brentwood Cllr Karen Chilvers offered a home earlier this year to Bailey, a dog destined to be put down. She nursed him back to health and he's now part of her family. Those of us who are friends with Karen on Facebook were treated to Bailey's daily thoughts on life, the universe and everything during his recovery. The Daily Bailey was often humorous and engaging.

Recently, Karen's set up a Twitter account in Bailey's name so that people on there can follow the cute one's progress. @DailyBailey_Dog's profile reads:

Nothing but a pound dog, rescued from death row,
Supposed to stay for Easter, I knew I'd never go!
Many doggies don't survive
I'm lucky -in my home I thrive

It's even attracted the attention of the BBC.

I am a bit of a mad dog woman," said Ms Chilvers, who is also on the authority's licensing committee. "But being a politician a lot of people think we're all middle aged men in suits.I want to show we can be quite normal and have dogs.

Bailey even helped Karen campaign during May's elections, as I noted in my Letter to the Leader at Easter.

But the most heartwarming sty is that of little Bailey. He's a wee shih-tsu who's just been fostered by Brentwood Councillor Karen Chilvers. He told Facebook:

"Well, as Caron Lindsay knows, I have been out delivering leaflets with my Fosty Mum. It was cold but I enjoyed telling people about being liberal because I got a chance because of nice fair-minded people. I do think it would be nice if someone had offered us a cup of tea along the way though!"He wants us all to be aware that his foster brother Louis has been out on a ward walk with his Mum. And it was snowing!

Bailey's adventures are clearly captivating his 330 or so followers - and if that means that more people in Brentwood feel able to approach Karen, then so much the better. And what I think is particularly good is that he hasn't let fame go to his head, and spares a thought for where he came from:

If you do be here on my page due to my famousness, please do be going to my friends at @HornchurchRescu who saved me. http://t.co/zwfPgm0aSS
— Bailey Happy Dog (@DailyBailey_Dog) July 18, 2013

The joy of Twitter on its 7th birthday

So, it's 7 years today since the first Tweet was sent. Coincidentally, earlier this week, this happened to me:

A kind of super diamond jubilee.

I was quite pleased with myself but was soon brought back down to earth by this:

@caronmlindsay @libdemvoice You need another hobby :-)At 30 secs each tweet 30K tweets= 21 full days on twitter!
— Keith Steele (@KeithRSteele) March 18, 2013

So, in the last four and a half years, I've spent six weeks of my life on Twitter? That is a lot of time. Most of it, I'd say, has been well spent, though and I've made actual proper friends on the social networking site.

Just a couple of years in, I wrote this post, in response to Nadine Dorries being her usual snide self,  suggesting that people who said they were ill and spent their time on Twitter were malingering. For me, Twitter had been a lifeline when I spent months recovering from Glandular Fever in 2009.

For me, Twitter was a way of keeping in touch with my friends - and getting to know more brilliant people. It was also something I could do from bed and with a maximum of 140 characters, it meant that it didn't take too much time or energy to take part in a conversation and just feel that I was still part of the outside world.

I am sure that if I hadn't had that sort of interaction that I would quickly have gone under. I've suffered from Depression before on many occasions and I know how scary, dark and horrible a place that is. I credit Twitter as being one of the things that spared me another crippling spell with the Black Dog and thus enabling me to return to my normal productive self as quickly as I possibly could.

A year earlier, I'd written about 3 things I'd done on Twitter before I got out of bed in the morning. I can't believe I actually helped Nadine Dorries with something.

Some friends and I were talking about how we use it this morning. I tend to use it for:

Uses of Twitter: catching up with friends, engaging with politicians, receiving casework, discussing Strictly, enjoying F1, covering events
— Caron Lindsay (@caronmlindsay) March 21, 2013

I have had quite a lot of feedback from people that my tweets covering things like Nick Clegg's weekly LBC phone in and party conferences are helpful to people who aren't there. Mark Pack told me the other day that he was worried people might say that there's no point in going to Conferences because they could just read my tweets - a bit like in the olden days, when football started to be televised, that people worried nobody would go to the grounds. Well, that proved to be true, didn't it? And I can only be in one place at a time...

Keeping up with my friends on Twitter has brightened many train journeys, enhanced numerous episodes of Strictly Come Dancing, made F1 races even more exciting and has added to my knowledge in a mostly good way. I had a chat on Twitter with some friends this morning about its various uses.

@miss_s_b @caronmlindsay Spending virtual time with people who actually like rugby.
— Holly (@hollyamory) March 21, 2013

@miss_s_b @hollyamory @caronmlindsay bitching about comics.
— Debi (@DHLinton) March 21, 2013

@caronmlindsay making stupid jokes ;)
— Jennie Rigg (@miss_s_b) March 21, 2013

@hollyamory @caronmlindsay psychological support network when things get bonkers
— Jennie Rigg (@miss_s_b) March 21, 2013

I could never write about Twitter without mentioning the much-missed Andrew Reeves though. Some of you will remember the time we had to get him out of Twitter jail. He loved Twitter and it was highly appropriate that on the day of his funeral, people shared their many memories of him.

I shall end by reminding you of a funny coincidence of tweets one night. Sally Bercow went off to Harry Cole's Christmas Party and tweeted:

whispers* Now off to @torybear's Christmas Party #yesIwasinvited#crosspartybuddies.

At almost exactly the same moment, I tweeted:

Can't believe they let Sally go in there without a hard hat. What happened to health and safety law? Has it been suspended for the night?

I was watching the Coronation Street tram crash death scene at the time. It was also the day of the tuition fees vote, so it was good to have this to laugh at.

This should have been a five minute post. It's taken me much longer than that as I've sauntered down Memory Lane. That is the one big drawback of Twitter - it draws you in a little bit too much sometimes. It's clear that there's no 7 year itch, though. Tweeting is here to stay.

Lynne Featherstone calls for Julie Burchill to be sacked for post attacking transgender people

As Equalities Minister, Liberal Democrat Lynne Featherstone put into place the Government's Transgender Action Plan. She will be acutely aware of the issues facing transgender people, particularly in relation to violence and discrimination. Hate crime towards that community has been rising as the Independent reported.

Yesterday, the Observer published a piece by controversial writer Julie Burchill which was peppered with hate filled language. Had the target of Burchill's invective been a particular ethnic group, and she had used similar language, then her piece would have found its way onto the editor's spike and she would most likely have been given her marching orders.

Lynne Featherstone took to Twitter last night to say that Burchill should be sacked for what she described as "a bigoted vomit".

There's no doubt that Lynne is going to take some pain for these comments. Already she has been accused of being illiberal and anti free speech. Surely she has the same right as everyone else to express her view on the matter. She is questioning the decision of a national newspaper to drum up some circulation for itself by allowing one of its columnists to pick on a particular group of people. Standing up to bullies is a very liberal thing to do.

My Twitter followers know me so well...a BBC Sports Personality of the Year challenge

I came back after a couple of hours out this afternoon to find a tweet from someone that read quite simply:

What is this, the largest ever odd-one out round? I'm sure @caronmlindsay can spot the odd-one-out.

This turned out to be a series of pictures of possible contenders for BBC Sport Personality of the Year.

I flicked through it apprehensively, scared that I'd have to spontaneously combust if, like last year, there were no women. But of course the BBC weren't that stupid. They missed out Beth Tweddle, though, and Heather Watson and they seem to have forgotten that Katherine Grainger had a partner. Nine out of twenty-three isn't quite good enough, but it's definitely an improvement.

The Olympics has of course given us plenty of potential winners, but there are a few from other sports too. I almost choked on my Earl Grey, though, when I saw that one person had been included. A most undeserving soul, too. Have a look and see if you can work out who I'm talking about.

I was just surprised and quite impressed that someone on Twitter knew me well enough to know what would wind me up, especially as I haven't talked much about this person this year.

Active sexism as part of a marketing strategy, Lord Sugar?

We're used to seeing sex being used to sell products. We're used to seeing ads built on an unhealthy foundation of sexism. Remember that really irritating washing up liquid ad from the Olympics which suggested that mums were just there to wash dishes while their sons became athletes?

All this stuff is quite subtle and when confronted, the companies shrink back in horror from accusations of sexism.

However, I wonder if Lord Sugar has branched out today with a new strategy of using sexist comments to get attention for his products.

Remember that nice inventor Tom who won the Apprentice last year? Well, he's developed a  new range of nail files with Lord Sugar as his business partner.

So far so good. Now we get to the sexist bit. Part of the marketing strategy is aimed at persuading employers to buy this for their "lady staff". I kid you not.

Lord Sugar himself is enthusiastically tweeting every couple of hours or so inviting "girls" to ask their boss to get them these nail files for Christmas to show their appreciation of their hard work.

Well, frankly, I'd prefer a bonus, or even a commitment from my employer to close the gender pay gap, or to get more women on their board or whatever. That aside, though. Lord Sugar is being patronising and sexist. That's not particularly new from him, but he's also not daft. He knows full well that nobody goes and asks their boss for a specific Christmas present. I can just imagine what he would say if any of his employees did that and it probably involves a couple of expletives and the word P45.

I think he knows that by saying such a blatantly sexist thing on Twitter, he'll provoke some controversy. Serena FitzGerald replied to him, calling him out, very politely for his sexism. For her trouble she got a three word reply. Simply, "Shut up, idiot." The photographic evidence is here:

It's out of order, really. Blocking her for a polite tweet was way over the top, too. But it's a provocative act which might well get some publicity for his product. Alan Sugar is many things, but stupid is not one of them. I think this is a deliberate attempt to up sales by creating a Twitter storm and Serena has found herself in the middle of it.

I only found out about all this after I'd sent Alan Sugar a reply when I saw a similar tweet about the product from him today. He hasn't blocked me yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. 

It may be a deliberate marketing strategy, but I think it's one which should be doomed to fail. What Sugar has done, of course, is insulted someone who should be part of his target market. What he really should do is apologise to her and unblock her. I won't be holding my breath for that. Misogyny shouldn't sell.

At least Lord Sugar was shown some support by a Labour Party colleague in Scotland. Ian Smart is known for his sharp and occasionally reckless wit and tweeted me that:

I'd just bought a job lot as a peace offering to @womenforindy. Do you think I should cancel?

I wish he had, and that I could be there when they opened them so I could help them thank him appropriately.

.

I shall leave the last word to @crazycolours whose crown jewel in a succession of very funny tweets to Lord Sugar was:

If you buy Margaret that, she'll slot you in the throat.

Can't you just imagine her hard stare which is enough to reduce most grown-ups to gloop?

Responding to criticism the Pete Wishart way.

Yesterday I wrote  about how SNP MP Pete Wishart had taken to Twitter to throw some personal insults around about Mike Moore and Jo Swinson. Ok, so he didn't actually use any sweary-words, but  suggesting a panda, which sleeps 20 odd hours a day and chomps bamboo the rest of the time, would be a better Secretary of State for Scotland can never be construed as polite. And his extraordinary press release the other day described Mike as attention seeking and pointless and painted a picture of a man desperate to save his job. They clearly have a quality control problem in the SNP Media Centre.

When the supporters of independence have a growing cybernat problem, you would think it would be sensible for their elected representatives to behave with a bit more decorum.

Anyway, he didn't much like being criticised.

First came the "sensitive wee flower" tweet mentioning this post I wrote about Tory MSP Murdo Fraser retweeting an insult of Willie Rennie:

And then this:

Yip, he's blocked me. Although it did take him two attempts.

I think I might have hit a nerve.

I assume it's because he wants to continue behaving badly without me telling the world about it. I tend to do that with anyone who behaves rudely or unpleasantly towards other people. I supported Eilidh Whiteford completely over the way Ian Davidson behaved towards her, for example.

I can't see Pete Wishart's timeline, but if you see anything from him, or anyone else behaving disrespectfully towards opponents, diminishing and dumbing down the quality of debate, screengrab it and send it to me. It's time to name and shame those who drag our political environment into the gutter.

Michael Moore back on Facebook and Twitter

Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore has done loads of good, cool stuff over the last couple of years. It took some skill to balance the demands of the Nationalists with the reactionary forces from the Tories and Labour and push ahead with the Scotland Act. Even as recently as last Christmas, the whole venture, giving Scotland the biggest devolution of power since the Act of Union in 1707, was said to be dead in the water. Mike kept going with it and ensured the Act passed both Holyrood and Westminster. A good job well done.

He also completely wrong footed Alex Salmond over the Independence Referendum  and got some proper dialogue underway.

With all that going on, it's hardly surprising he's not found the time to do much in the way of social media. It was good to see him back on Twitter for the first time in something like 745 days. His Twitter feed is pretty human and interesting. I remember when he did a 4 day sponsored walk for the Special Care Baby Unit where his daughter was cared for a few years back and tweeted all the way through it. He also has a new Facebook page to keep people up to date with his work. You can, of course, also read his weekly column on Liberal Democrat Voice. 

Why is Diane Abbott the top headline on BBC News?

I've been busy with blog posts, Alvin and the Chipmunks and children today, so the furore over Diane Abbott's tweet had kind of passed me by. I knew someone had said something but, frankly, I wasn't interested enough to look.

I can't avoid it now, though, being that it's the top headline on the BBC website. Heavens above, unemployment and poverty are increasing, the House of Lords is about to discuss a big cut in benefits to the sick, the global economy is on the brink of a very large precipice and so on  - and we're talking about an admittedly over generalised tweet from an MP.

Even having read it, I can't actually get that wound up by it. It's a bit crass on the surface, but I get where she was going with it. It's about how power elites use their power and is nothing to do with race, gender or anything else. I certainly don't think it's worth the mockrage it's attracting online.

I rarely disagree with Mark Thompson, but I think his demands for her to apologise or be sacked were unnecessary. I am appalled at the way Ed Miliband has simply demanded an apology without giving Diane a chance to explain what she meant - and I think she would have been able to give a credible explanation backed up by historical fact for what was going through her mind. We have to remember, though, that Miliband's reaction comes in a week where is authority as leader is being challenged so it's likely he felt he had to be seen to be "strong". Sometimes being strong involves backing the people on your own side. I'm not wildly impressed that, rather than giving her the space to explain herself, he sent Chuka Umunna to give her a public dressing down. Remember all the furore about Ken Clarke's comments on rape last year? I don't recall Theresa May being sent out to tell him off publicly. He dealt with it himself to the extent that I forgave him.

I'm not wildly chuffed with Nick Clegg for getting in on this act either. It was a waste of his time - but at least he was in the camp of getting her to explain her remarks.

Twitter's great - and a really good place to share ideas. I feel, used properly, that it can bring politicians closer to ordinary people. Used properly means a normal conversation flow and in any normal conversation flow sometimes things come out in not quite the way we meant them. We need to be a bit more tolerant when people make that sort of mistake. Come on, we all know Diane Abbott. She is no racist bigot. Can we not just remember our experience of her over 20 years or so and not get all hot and bothered about 140 or so characters tweeted in around 30 seconds?

I tend to agree with much of this post from Dorian Lynksey. Lots of food for thought in there - one example being this bit about Twitter:

I don’t want to get into the ridiculous mob mechanics of Twitter outrage, which can be as bad on the left (witness pandagate) as it is on the right, except to note that the “gotcha” strategy is a surefire way to ensure that no politician ever expresses themselves on social media except in the bloodlessly inoffensive style of Ed Milibot’s feed. It seems we desperately want politicians to drop the platitudes and speak openly, except when they do, in which case they need to apologise and resign.

There, that's my unscheduled mid afternoon rant over.

Who benefits from the fuss about the #womanontheleft?

I have not been well this week. Pretty average bug for this time of year, but it's played merry hell with my plans to get organised for Christmas. I am being sensible and resting as much as I can.

Spending Monday afternoon in bed, too wiped out to even feel sorry for myself, I missed the Twitter furore over the "#womanontheleft".

When Hugh Grant was giving his testimony the other day to the Leveson Inquiry, some people noticed a woman listening intently. Now, apparently it's the law that any woman in the vicinity of Hugh Grant must clearly fancy him. The thought that she might be paying attention because she is Junior Counsel to the Inquiry,  a position you don't get unless you are an extremely accomplished barrister, seems to have escaped the la la land of social networking.

By the end of the afternoon, Carine Patry-Hoskin, the #womanontheleft was the top trending topic on Twitter in the UK. It was covered on news websites. The next morning. Lily Allen got in on the act, tweeting

#womanontheleft is on. She well fit

That was one of the nicer tweets in amongst a whole load of misogynistic bile.

My first thought on finding out about this yesterday was who stood to gain from detracting from Hugh Grant's evisceration of the media during his evidence, where he described the countless invasions of his privacy by representatives of the tabloid press?

I then read this excellent blog post by Helen Lewis-Hasteley over at the New Statesman and I broadly agree with her bemused reaction to the fuss:

Poor woman, I thought. She spent years training as a lawyer and now all anyone thinks is that she's a dippy bint mooning over a famous actor. 

Helen links to this article by Michael White in the Guardian. It was clearly professional, dispassionate and not at all simpery in any way.

It may be just as well that Hugh Grant fervently believes a film succeeds on its qualities, not on publicity about its stars, because he did his tabloid reputation as a heartless, feather-brained Lothario immense harm in the process of delivering damning testimony on phone-hacking to theLeveson inquiry on Monday.

He was still the diffident, self-deprecating Grant who has won audiences around the world as a light comic actor – not a particularly good one, as he occasionally says himself, though his ad libs in the high court were better than many of his scripts. But he also revealed himself to be thoughtful, articulate, brave in an unheroic way and – at least twice – very kind. No longer the foppish stereotype Brit, more high-minded Gary Cooper in Mr Deeds Goes to Town. How his tabloid tormentors will punish him for this if they can.

Actually, no, I was only joking. It's vomit-inducingly sycophantic.

Today the story drags on with an argument between the Guardian and the Sun over a story in the former which states that Carine was doorstepped by the latter which ended up in the Guardian having to apologise. I wish they'd get their facts right - that's the second time this year (the first being when they apologised over Gordon Brown's family medical records) they've made the News International lot look like victims. The wrongs done to them are, of course, nothing to the outrages they committed on other people, as we are now hearing in testimony at the Inquiry.

It's those horrors that should be at the forefront of our mind and we shouldn't allow ourselves to be distracted from them by incidentals and social media frivolity.

Vince Cable in Aberdeen through the tweets of Stephen Harte

Last night Business Secretary Vince Cable did a "town hall meeting" style event with Scottish Party members in Aberdeen.

We had Nick up last week and Vince this week, both, answering questions from activists. The meetings were packed and, although there were some tough questions, both men were on form and well received.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get to Aberdeen last night, but I know not one but two men who did. This first account is the collected tweets of Lib Dem activist Stephen Harte. I've sat in events trying to tweet them on a phone and it's not easy, so don't be too hard on spelling errors - and be aware that the iPhone spillchucker can often change things randomly without you noticing. There is a declined in there that should almost certainly be a devolved.

Here, with the help of Storify, are his collected tweets. Enjoy:



Kristian Chapman, the awesome former president of Liberal Youth Scotland has also said he'll write up an account for me. Vince is a bit like garlic and chocolate - you can't have too much of him, so I'm really looking forward to reading Kristian's account too.

Tweet your memories of Andrew Reeves tomorrow 10 am - 12 noon

Tomorrow we have to say goodbye to our friend Andrew Reeves.

It's going to be a really difficult day after a hideous week.

I had a little idea this morning as I was lying in bed.  Andrew, as we all know, loved Twitter. He'd been a very early adopter of it and in fact, when he first came up to Scotland, it was still done via text message as well as the web. That is how I came to be lying by the pool in Mallorca finding him the answer to a question he asked.

We'll all have little treasured memories like that, things about our time with Andrew that makes us smile.

So, I thought that tomorrow morning it might be a good idea to share some of these memories on Twitter, using the hashtag #andrewreeves. I'd thought between 10 am and 12 noon, but don't feel unduly constrained by these times.

The reason I'm telling you now is so you can, if you want, schedule some in advance if you're not going to be around. There are several Twitter applications, like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite which allow you to do that.

Maybe it'll be a campaign, a particularly garish tie, a bit of old fashioned smut, a blog post, a Twitter exchange, a photograph or something cat related that springs to mind - or maybe all of the above. Tell us about it.

And for those memories which don't fit easily into 140 characters, I shall have an open thread on here from early tomorrow morning, and on Facebook too. Andrew's been a bit part of our lives for a long time now and there will be many stories to tell and more to learn about him. Whether we're able to be at his funeral in person tomorrow or not, this gives us another way of saying our farewells and expressing our appreciation for an extraordinary guy.

If you think this is a good idea, please spread the word as far and wide as you can.

I'm trying to keep tabs on all the online stuff that's written about Andrew so I can give all the links to his family. I know his husband Roger has really appreciated all the messages he's had.  One particularly special one was his obituary in the Scotsman today. It was written by his friend and colleague Graeme Littlejohn. Preparing an obituary about a friend is a hard thing to do but Graeme totally captured his personality, describing him perfectly.

I also missed Anders Hanson's tribute earlier in the week and Edinburgh Councillor Paul Edie's.

#F1 Lewis Hamilton apologises on Twitter. So that's all right then.

Oh, wow. Isn't Twitter marvellous? See when you make a total arse of yourself, all you need to do is get on Twitter 24 hours later and say sorry and all will be well with the world.

I'm not sure that's quite how it works, Lewis Hamilton.

The McLaren F1 driver, who has over the years habitually blamed others and never himself when things go wrong, has lied to stewards to gain a place at the end of a race, who has driven recklessly on track and put others in danger ranted at the stewards after Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix. He was hauled before them at the end of the race for a move on Pastor Maldonado which put the Venezuelan out of the race. This is on top of the drive through penalty for a move on Massa at the hairpin.  He told the BBC's Lee Mackenzie that it was a "fricking joke" that the stewards took such an interest in him after every race and suggested, he says in jest, that it was because he was black.

Last night, he apologised on Twitter, over 4 tweets:

I hope he doesn't think that's it. That he's made amends. I would have had a lot more respect for him if he'd said that he'd picked up the phone to Massa and Maldonado and apologised to them in person. That's what a sincere apology, which acknowledged the effects of the behaviour, would have entailed. I don't know if either Maldonado or Massa follows him on Twitter, but I'd love to see an "Aye, right, Lewis" tweet going back from them.

There's also no mention in Lewis's tweets that he accepts that his comments about the stewards, which include driver Alan McNish, were totally out of order. He should have apologised to them in a manner that takes less than 20 seconds with an iPhone to do.

I never believe in writing anybody off permanently. I don't like Lewis Hamilton, as you might have guessed. We have to remember that not everybody with his talent gets the opportunities he has been given. He's been really lucky and as far as I'm concerned he doesn't show enough appreciation of the chances he's had. However, if he started treating other people with courtesy and respect, and was more ready to take responsibility for his behaviour, then I'd be prepared to reconsider my opinion of him. A few words on Twitter is simply not enough - and the fact that he thinks they are vindicates the low regard I have for him.

Another good guy dies too soon - David Cairns MP RIP

I was really sad to read a while ago that David Cairns, the MP for Inverclyde, died last night.

For a while, I hoped Twitter must have got it wrong because there was nothing on the BBC- and things aren't true until you read them on the BBC, are they? Unfortunately, though, it is true. It wasn't the BBC that convinced me, it was a tweet from Tom Harris, linking to a heartfelt and very moving tribute he'd written to his friend.  In it he paints a picture of a compassionate, honest, very funny man.

I only knew David from Twitter, which he clearly enjoyed. He was razor sharp politically and we had some robust exchanges ,but shared the same interests in trashy television so Saturday nights would find us both contributing to the plethora of Strictly and X Factor tweets.

He was clearly a people person as he always engaged with everyone no matter what their background was.

He had me in hysterics over Christmas when he tweeted something about Tracey Barlow in Coronation Street being let out of prison & slagged off Ken Clarke for it.

My abiding memory I think, is of last year on St Andrew's Day. We were under 2 feet of snow here and it was starting to fall in London. David Cairns was out watching a group of MPs take on a UN team at football  in the freezing cold to mark World AIDS day the next day. The MPs were getting absolutely slaughtered. I was following the match with giggling admiration on Twitter. They could have cancelled and gone for hot chocolate instead, but they kept going for the cause and David's commentary was hilarious.

I feel sad at his passing and I only knew him on Twitter. I can only imagine what those close to him must be feeling at the cruel loss of such a bright and good young man and my thoughts are with them.

A Fab Coincidence of Tweets

This is why I totally love Twitter.

There I was tonight, with emotions completely minced after watching the turmoil and trauma of the Coronation Street live 50th anniversary episode. In my mentions column, I saw this from Fabienne, who tweets as @gift_of_the_fab.

Seemingly connected, but not connected tweets.. @SallyBercow:http://bit.ly/eAp8Xv Followed byhttp://bit.ly/hun78V by @caronmlindsay

You can't but wonder what that was about.

Well, the first tweet was from Labour activist and serial tweeter Sally Bercow:

*whispers* Now off to @torybear's Christmas Party #yesIwasinvited#crosspartybuddies.

And the second was this from me:

Can't believe they let Sally go in there without a hard hat. What happened to health and safety law? Has it been suspended for the night?

I was, of course, referring to Sally Webster's mercy dash to sit with the dying Molly Dobbs in Corrie which, by the way, has to be be the best TV death ever, portrayed brilliantly.
Thank you, Fabienne, for making me laugh so much at the end of a day which has been, shall we say, emotionally taxing for all sorts of reasons not entirely unrelated to tuition fees.

Stephen Fry returns to the fray

I was amused earlier this week to be touted as the poster girl of the intolerant left by Jeff over at Better Nation because of what I wrote about Stephen Fry's reported comments on sexuality

It's quite ironic that I've been singled out for criticism when I as a Liberal Democrat have been the recipient of hyperbolic, hysterical bile, mainly from Labour on Twitter on many occasions. I at least do try to be fair in what I write and I hope I've been consistent in sticking up for people in other parties if I think it's merited. I tend to take the view that most people who get involved in politics are good people who are trying to make people's lives better and I assume that's the case until it's proved otherwise.

What happened on Sunday is that Stephen Fry was reported to have made a comment which I considered to be preposterous and I said so. That doesn't mean I don't like him, just that he's said something I don't agree with. I said at the time that I wanted him to engage in the debate and tell us what he had actually said and how he's been misquoted.

Thankfully he's now resurfaced on Twitter to post a link to a post on his blog explaining his side of the story. It's a long post, but as with everything he writes, it's worth reading. He concludes:

Sometimes I have to pinch myself. I am sitting on an aeroplane writing a blog which tries to reassure the world that I am quite aware that women enjoy sex. No one can say my life isn’t unpredictable, interesting and … well, Fryish…

He expresses disappointment in those of us who believed that he could have said such a thing. Well, when you see what's reported as a direct quote in one of the more reputable newspapers in the UK, you do tend to take it seriously.

If you're going to express opinions publicly, you're going to get people disagreeing with you. Most of the time that criticism will be of reasonable quality, raising legitimate points. At other times it will just be nasty, insulting bile.  My way of dealing with it is to relish the former and ignore the latter. It works for me, at least. I am more hurt by criticism from those I respect and I'm more likely to take it seriously, than that from sensationalist strangers.

The online world in general and Twitter in particular can be a heated place from time to time - that high running passion can be a force for good as well as for bad. Remember how #trafigura ensured that our democratic processes were not subverted by legal procedural malarkey? Remember how #iranelection got news out from Iran of the protests and unacceptable actions of the authorities?

Anyway, I'm glad that Stephen Fry is back amongst us. Even if the comments reported last week were accurate,  his book would be near the top of my letter to Santa this year.

Twitter meme update

After I posted this meme about Twitter and all it means to me on Sunday, I tagged some people and four of them have so far responded:

Kate really was an early adopter of microblogging - I suspect she even joined before Andrew Reeves - but then she was blogging way back before any of us.  You'll have to look to see which celebrity followed her because he liked the word ditsy in her profile.

Spidey explains how Twitter helped her through a really difficult time, giving her both information and support.I also love her confession that when she over tweets, she uses her dog, Mickey's account. I'm looking forward to him tweeting when she's not around;-)

Clair and I have a fair few interests in common but she is much better than me at most things. I was interested to find out that Levar Burton, who played Geordi in Star Trek:TNG was one of the first people she followed. Mine too - along with Brent Spiner, one of my long term crushes of even more monumental proportion than the one I have on Anton Du Beke.

Jeff Breslin asked on Twitter:

Not that I'm stubbornly obtuse but after 3,702 tweets can I get away with claiming I'm still trying Twitter out?

Err, I don't think so. I actually found a post he wrote about a month into using Twitter. I secretly suspect he's more taken with it than he makes out.......

In other news, I took Sarah's advice and found  via Bwitterday.com that I'd been on Twitter since September 8th 2008 - so Saturday will be my 25 month anniversary.

And, best of all, the great Alistair Carmichael is back. Note the fearsome photograph on his Twitter page - befitting of a Chief Whip, I think - and his characteristic modesty in a conversation about the X Factor:

They couldn't afford me. Simon Cowell - the poor man's Alistair Carmichael

Oh, and I loved reading Clair's Spidey's and Kate's stories so much that if you tweet, please consider yourself tagged because I want to read your's too.

My Twitter and I

Sarah, who is one of the very lovely Twitter F1 crowd I've met over the past year or so, has tagged me in this meme about Twitter. In a week where Nadine Dorries has shown such ignorance about social networking, it's great to have the opportunity to properly celebrate Twitter.

When did you join Twitter?

I wonder how Sarah found out the exact date. You used to be able to from Tweetdeck, but not any more by the looks of it. 

Why did you join Twitter?


Mainly because I was sick fed up of seeing my friends' Facebook statuses referring to things going on on Twitter so I joined to see what all the fuss was about.


It took me about 3 months to really get the hang of it and see what it could be used for. If you sign up to Twitter you need to build up a critical mass of people you are following and who follow you before it makes any sort of sense and that can take time.


I think it's great because it means I can share my wide range of interests in Doctor Who, politics, the Lib Dems, F1, Strictly, books, and just attitudes to life in general with a lovely bunch of people,many of whom I know in real life, and loads I don't but have come to know through Twitter.

Who is/was your first or oldest follower? Who did you follow first? Tell me all about them.


There is a surprising amount of reciprocity. My first follower was someone called Tom Griffin, a journalist and blogger. Then came my friend Andrew. I had actually been following his tweets in the olden days when you could do it via text. This led to a funny experience one afternoon while I was on holiday in Mallorca in 2008. There I was, lying by the pool,minding my own business, when a text tweet came from Mr Reeves asking a question about Reliant Robins. Because they were setting up the Glasgow East by-election campaign then, I wondered if this was for a bit of casework so like the helpful little person I am, I texted back loads of info. Turns out he'd just seen one drive past the office. Not only had I wasted my time doing that, but I then had to listen to my husband talking for ages about the history of the dratted vehicle when all I wanted to do was read my trashy novel.


After Andrew, it was my friend Duncan Borrowman, Stephen and then for a few months my Twitter feed was almost exclusively Lib Dems and Scottish bloggers. It used to be great fun to wake up in the morning and read back what my insomniac friends had been saying overnight. I remember enjoying reading increasingly frenetic accounts of the 2009 Superbowl by Malc, now at Better Nation and Stephen. 


Funnily enough it was Andrew, Duncan and Stephen who were the first people I followed, along with the slightly eccentric and always philosophically amusing Charles Dundas. 


It wasn't until the F1 season started in 2009 that I started to get to know some of the F1 crowd on Twitter. I think I have another Duncan aka Doctorvee. Last year's season, with the success of Brawn GP and the shenanigans of Max Mosley leading to threats of a breakaway series bonded fans together. The Maxout campaign with its myriad avatars in various team colours was one example of how we all tried to save our favourite sport. I made friends on Twitter who I couldn't imagine a race without. 


In fact, when the qualifying session for the Hungarian Grand Prix fell on my birthday and I couldn't watch because we were travelling, the lovely Kate tweeted me my ultimate fantasy qualifying session with all my favourite drivers making up the front of the grid and my not so favourites crashing out in various amusing forms. It was a very thoughtful and fun birthday present.

Do you have any celebrities following you, or have you ever had a DM from a celeb?


Well, I have 5 Cabinet Ministers - Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, Chris Huhne, Michael Moore and Danny Alexander! If Lib Dem MPs count, I have a fair few of them - and some from other parties too. Phillip Schofield has been following me for about a year and a half. There's also some political journalists and BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan Jones.


I've not had DMs from celebs who aren't politicians, but I've had replies from, among others, Rubens Barrichello, Nelson Piquet Jr, Heikki Kovalainen, his girlfriend Catherine Hyde, Jake Humphrey and Jonathan Legard and the pinnacle was a follow Friday recommendation from Official Brawn GP last year that pleased me so much I had to blog about it. I've also had replies from Jenni Falconer, a RT and replies from former Strictly pro dancer Camilla Dallerup and several replies from former Strictly dancer Brian Fortuna.


But, actually,good though those are, it's the everyday fun and interaction with all my Twitter friends that makes it so enjoyable, whether it's chatting with Billi about the many merits of Anton Du Beke, or celebrating as James Shaddock finally succumbed to the charms of Strictly last night.


Helen Duffett recently wrote a chapter for Iain Dale's Total Politics Guide to Blogging book in which I get a mention saying  that 

To me, the most exciting thing about Twitter is that it gives everyone - from Cabinet ministers to MPs to councillors, from activists to people who aren’t in politics - the chance to interact on a level playing field. This can and does make political debate healthier.

Twitter has this great capacity to bring people together. Sure, it has its fair share of idiots and negative stuff, but you can choose to ignore that.  That level playing field is really important.

If you could follow anyone not on Twitter – alive, dead, real or fictional – on Twitter, who would it be?

Louis Walsh - he'd be hilarious and he'd just say what he thinks


I think it would have been great to have had tweets from the Suffragettes' campaign. I wonder if there had been a 24 hour news cycle then whether things would have changed a lot more quickly and fewer lives would have been lost.


I want Orkney and Shetland MP and Comptroller of HM Household Alistair Carmichael to start tweeting again. He is so good at it. His Facebook statuses never fail to make me laugh. For example, his most recent refers to last night's X Factor "A painter called Matt? Am I the only one who finds that funny?" 


Michael Schumacher would be brilliant - but he's too private I think to ever take to Twitter properly.


Which came first? Twitter or blog?

Blog - that started in September 2006. I think Twitter has enhanced it because it feeds automatically into my timeline and it's made it much easier to share what I write.


All that's left is to tag some people. It would be wrong not to tag the Queen of F1 Twitter and Schumi fandom Sarah Green, the lovely book loving, F1 loving, Lewis Hamilton loathing Kate, clever, craft loving and fabulous Mammy Dalby, Stephen, with whom I can spend an evening exchanging tweets from across the room and someone who came to Twitter reluctantly because it would be good to find out what he thinks, Jeff from Better Nation. and the feisty Spiderplant who commentates on many things but is particularly prolific during Question Time on Thursdays.

Why Nadine Dorries is wrong - aka Twitter saved my sanity

Spidey and Andrew have already taken Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire Nadine Dorries to task for her ill informed comments about Twitter. Just to remind you, the lady thinks there must be something wrong with you if you tweet a lot:

I wonder if very soon someone is going to identify a Twitter syndrome and we get to read about people who have become compulsive Tweeters. Will we hear stories of people who Tweet, oh I don't know, say 50 times a day and need to go into re-hab?

I will put money on that being a Daily Mail story one day. In the meantime, do you know of anyone else who has Tweeted more than 35,000 times in less than six months? If so, email my office and let me know. Or, better still, if it's someone you know is on benefits, contact the DWP.

To me, the telling phrase is "I will put money on that being a Daily Mail story one day." There's a paper never prone to hysterical hyperbole if ever there was one.

I have managed a mere almost 26000 tweets in 2 years, but I have to say that when I was ill last year, Twitter was my lifeline. I'd joined up in September 2008 but couldn't really see the point in it. When I became ill to the point where I could barely stay out of bed for more than a couple of hours last year, it meant that my social life had to be heavily curtailed. I have always been pretty sociable and outgoing and my friends mean an awful lot to me. While I can be quite happy in my own company, isolation for a prolonged period gets me down.


For me, Twitter was a way of keeping in touch with my friends - and getting to know more brilliant people. It was also something I could do from bed and with a maximum of 140 characters, it meant that it didn't take too much time or energy to take part in a conversation and just feel that I was still part of the outside world.


I am sure that if I hadn't had that sort of interaction that I would quickly have gone under. I've suffered from Depression before on many occasions and I know how scary, dark and horrible a place that is. I credit Twitter as being one of the things that spared me another crippling spell with the Black Dog and thus enabling me to return to my normal productive self as quickly as I possibly could.


And a word to Nadine about how people at a keyboard are clearly capable of working. Well, thing is, you can do keyboard stuff without getting out of bed. I was discussing my illness with a friend of mine with a similar condition yesterday and we both had similar experiences of being able to sit in one place, but actually even walking from one room to another was enough to exhaust me. The end of the street for a time might have well as been on the moon. Commuting to work, walking to the office and climbing a huge staircase before I even started to do anything was way beyond my capabilities. Even now, some days are more difficult than others. Hoovering might one week be undemanding, the next it might floor me. It all seems pretty random.


I'm so much better now, but even a year on, I find that if I don't pace myself properly, I'll end up paying the price. These days I'm often physically able to power on through, do it anyway, and take the consequences later in a way that wasn't possible when it was at its worst. However, because I'm going out tonight (thank you, Willie Rennie, for organising a do on the opening night of Strictly. I am so delighted to be missing the return of my favourite programme, really I am), I know I'll have to ease up this afternoon.


So, Nadine, as ever, is talking absolute nonsense. Her Twitter experience was definitely different from mine. I love to engage and debate and discuss and generally have a bit of fun. She used to block people who disagreed with her, including many people I have a very high opinion of, like Mark Thompson and Matt Raven and Sara Bedford. I remember being involved on the fringes of a debate between her, Mark and Matt in which they wre arguing that alcohol abuse was frequently more harmful than recreational drug use and she ended up blocking either or both of them.


Her final tweet before deleting her account on election night, was to insult Evan Harris as he lost his seat. That sums up the sort of person she is. I'm not taking lectures on how I should spend my time from someone who's capable of that sort of bile.


I've been tagged in a meme about Twitter but I think I shall make that a separate post.

In which I get into the Torygraph for saying nice things about The Almighty Vince

I knew Twitter would get me into trouble, or the Torygraph, which is probably worse, one day.

Last week after Vince Cable's speech, I got a bit carried away with the moment on Twitter which I assumed would vanish into the ether unremarked, like most of the other 25000+ comments I've made. No, the Torygraph picked it up and recorded it for posterity along with some other examples of Cable adoration.

My friend Allan said on Facebook that this was clearly one of my more intellectually stimulating comments. Well, thanks for that!

Do you know what? Vince does rock and I stand by my heat of the moment tweet!

Could Liz Kendall's Twitter blunder be a good thing for Parliament?

Oh dear. Sky report that new Leicester West Labour MP Liz Kendall has earned the disapproval of Parliamentary authorities after posting a photo of the House of Lords after the Queen's Speech on Twitter.

There are people who say that iPhones bring nothing but trouble, because it's so easy just to take a picture and tweet without thinking but to be honest I think that Parliament needs to be dragged into the 21st century. I really don't have a problem with somebody posting a photograph on a social network of an event that's being televised. Parliament belongs to us all and if that over excited tweet gets one person interested in what happens in the place, it's a good thing.

I think the likes of Jo Swinson and Tom Harris tweeting from the Chamber is great - it really brings the proceedings to life for me to have their take on what's going on. I suspect that every second MP taking photos of every debate or PMQs even would be a bit distracting, but I hope that the powers that be will not make too much of a fuss about Liz's post. In fact, they could take their heads out of their ceremonial robes and relax the rules so that as many people as possible can get a flavour of what happens in the Palace of Westminster.

As for Liz Kendall, I love the fact that the earlier episode didn't phase her - within a few hours, she was back to compiling her photographic of her first weeks inside the Palace of Westminster.