Well I gave Twitter a go, and to be honest, I got nothing out of it so I'm calling it a day.
I'm not deleting my account but I'm not bothering with it either. At first I was totally lost and said what little joy it brought me. Then Andrew Collins kindly gave me a few tips and said that I wasn't following enough people, and put out a call to get people to follow me. Within minutes I had 50 followers. Matt Rudd was helpful too, and Chris Hughes actually sent messages to me, which was appreciated. Otherwise, it was vague internet acquaintances and complete strangers.
Following and being followed by a load of people you don't know is too bizarre. With that come endless tweets about nothing much, retweets about silly petitions or urls that make no sense whatsoever. The whole thing seemed kind of pointless. It's okay if you're a well-known comedian or wit who has people hanging off their every word, and likewise if people like that who you followed actually acknowledged your presence and you had a two-way thing going on; then it might be worthwhile. It was Tweeting into thin air. Thankless and boring.
Plus, if you turned your back for even 30 seconds you'd turn around to find about 48 tweets had popped up. I couldn't keep up. And why keep up with people who are tweeting about taking their kids to school in Indiana? I'd rather read about someone walking around Whitley Bay on stilts in order to publicise the danger of warts.
I'll still to blogging. I can do it at my own pace and if you want to read it you can. It's here and not going anywhere. It won't be superseded in the blink of an eye by thousands of posts from old women in Bulgaria who want a posthumous knighthood for John Martyn.
So those of you who do tweet - how's it going for you?
