Last summer when I was staying with my friend India Knight in Cornwall she said I absolutely must join Twitter. Besides being a Sunday Times columnist, she is a Twitter queen, No. 73 in the Top Twit 100, with 57,000 followers. Better still, she has a ‘peer index rating’ — whatever that is — of 58, which is higher than Alan Rusbridger’s, tee hee. I read some of India’s tweets and wasn’t convinced but then she said: ‘Look, Lynn, editors take it seriously. They think if you have 57,000 followers you have 57,000 fans; they see it as proof of popularity.’ ‘But I haven’t got 57,000 followers,’ I whimpered. ‘I haven’t got any.’ ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I will fix it.’ And so she did — wrote a great fanfare saying at last I’ve persuaded Lynn Barber to join, and blow me, when I came down the next morning, I had several hundred followers! All sending nice messages saying welcome to Twitter.
Get Britain's best politics newsletters
Register to get The Spectator's insight and opinion straight to your inbox. You can then read two free articles each week.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in