Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

It is the narcissistic middle-aged, not the young, who love Facebook and Twitter

Rod Liddle says that the generation born between 1955 and 1985 has an epic sense of self. Its members are forever poised just outside the confessional, ready to divulge the most trivial details of their lives. No wonder they love the real-time exhibitionism of the web

issue 18 July 2009

I wonder what Stephen Fry would write on Twitter shortly after he’d been hit very hard on the top of the head with a large spanner? Most likely nothing: the dead don’t Twitter — they probably use Facebook instead. But what if the blow didn’t quite kill? Give him a couple of hours and he’d be back. ‘Head hurts. Strange viscous fluid leaking onto the carpet out of my ears. Can’t see anything. Hey ho, Stephen! The dinner gong has sounded! Must soldier on.’

Or something like that; certainly a sentence where he refers to himself in the third person and some whimsical exclamation or exhortation last used when Hilaire Belloc was in his prime. Stephen, remember, is Britain’s most brilliant man; as a symbol of excellence, he is what we have right now and probably what we deserve.

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