Paul Holmes: Tweeting ain't for me

It strikes me that you would have to be desperate for attention to tweet. Photo / Herald on Sunday

Let me make one thing clear right at the start. That Twitter site that claims to be mine is not. I have never twittered in my life. I would not know how. There's enough to do in life, enough new technology to learn how to work, enough passwords and codes to remember as it is without learning to twitter. The name we give it says it all, really.

I think tweeting is inane. So the tweet from a "Paul Holmes" speaking insultingly of the Minister of Education is not mine. It is either a hoax or it is an honest twitter from another Paul Holmes.

There are quite a few people called Paul Holmes around the country. But it seems quite a coincidence that this particular twitter mentions Education Minister Anne Tolley who just happens to be on Q+A this morning. If it is a hoax it is potentially embarrassing professionally.

The first I knew about it was in a phone call from the esteemed editor of the Spy gossip section of this newspaper, Rachel Glucina, on Thursday, as I sat on a bench watching Nigel planting native bushes and trees in a glade of very tall and very old trees along our driveway at Mana Lodge.

These natives are to replace the worn-out, borer-ridden Mexican orange blossoms.

I thought as I spoke to her that the notion of my tweeting that I was taking a walk to watch Nigel putting natives in the ground to replace the worn-out Mexican orange blossoms in our glade would be absurd. "Hi everyone, now I'm walking down to the mailbox to see if the mailman's been."

I know Barack Obama used tweeting very effectively, as he used all new media, during his election campaign. "Hi everyone, I'm in Toledo at the stadium tonight. Tomorrow night, Scranton." I can see the point of that.

I scanned a few tweets in the Los Angeles Times, I think it was, the other day, and could not believe them. Mariah Carey, who never sang anything I could identify as a melody, tweeted that it was so great being back in LA. Or that it was so hot in New York, something like that. Like, inane. I mean, who cares? Maybe I am missing the point but it strikes me that you would have to be desperate for attention to tweet.

Tweeting might be sweeping the world, and, of course, it helped keep the world up to speed in the Iranian riots after the re-election earlier this year of Ahmadinejad, but in that case people had important information to relay. Whatever tweeting is - and I genuinely don't know what it is - it ain't for me.