Friday, July 01, 2011

I Won’t Bite

My relationship with Twitter is absurd. In fact, in common parlance, it would be considered abusive.

I use Twitter. I use it only when I want something from it. Once it’s delivered I drop Twitter like a hot potato. I neglect it. I go off elsewhere, leaving Twitter to sob pathetically on the shoulder of a girlfriend while I’m down the pub laughing about it all with my mates. Treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen.

It seems to work. Twitter is always there for me when I want it. It never says no. Sucker.

I say this so you’ll understand that my use of Twitter is highly infrequent.

Now. I Follow a few celebs. Mostly just to be nosey. And I realize that this whole enterprise is utterly pointless because I’m not on Twitter often enough to read any of their Tweets. Every time I dip into Twitter it’s full of people moaning about their children not going to bed properly and people who I don’t Follow trying to sell me something. I’m rarely online when Barrack Obama is for example. I guess we are like ships that pass in the night.

Very, very occasionally though, I get lucky and find myself Tweeting when a celeb is Tweeting.

It’s tempting, isn’t it? To reply. They’ve come out with some lame witticism or other and you think, I can top that.

And so you Tweet and hit Reply.

And then you feel dirty.

And a little sad.

Because none of us like to think of ourselves as sad star chasers. None of us would go into work the next day and boast that William Shatner had replied to one of our Tweets and aren’t we absolutely amazing as a consequence.

OK. That’s a bad example. I probably would boast about William Shatner replying to one of my Tweets. It’s William Shatner, for God’s sake.

But in general. the celebs don’t reply anyway.

And then you move from feeling dirty to feeling insulted. Hey! Cameron Diaz! Don’t ignore my 140 character review of your latest movie! At least have the grace to say thank you when I made the effort to spell ‘vacuous’ correctly!

But what did you expect? It was dumb to send the Tweet in the first place.

But I do get caught like this occasionally.

On Wednesday when I was doing my usual Twitter based sniping at The Apprentice (about the only time I use Twitter to be honest) Lisa Rogers, star of The Big Breakfast, Scrapheap Challenge and possibly at least one other TV programme that is still being shown on Dave (and pictured above) entered the snarling ring of Apprentice putdowns with the conjecture that the contestants were all “nobbers.”

Given the biscuit based activities of this week’s task I automatically responded with the Oscar Wildeian “don’t you mean ‘HobNobbers’. (Excuse me while I snigger to myself again... ahem ahem ahem; I’m just so funny sometimes.)

Lisa didn’t respond.

I mean, come on. What girl doesn’t like a biscuit based joke? A digestive jest? A drink is surely too wet without one?

I did get annoyed. But then I calmed down and thought it through. I was being unfair. I can imagine what it must be like. You’re a celeb. A star of TV, stage and screen (or maybe just Heat magazine) and all these people are Following you on Twitter. Every time you log-on you get thousands of Tweets from desperate Twits desperate for your attention. It’s easy to see what happened.

Amongst all those tens of thousands of Tweets that Lisa was receiving that evening my superbly crafted slice of immaculate comedy gold must have blazed forth like the sun shining into Bryn Celli Ddu barrow on Midsummer’s morning. Her retinas would have melted with mirth.

No wonder the poor girl couldn’t bring herself to reply. I mean what on earth could she bring to the table after that little hydrogen bomb of hilarity had gone off and vaporized her funny bone? She probably thought that anything she said after that would just sound wet and as funny as one of Eamonn Holmes’ jokes. Best to keep schtum and not reply.

Lisa, what can I say?

It would have been fine. I’m brilliant at summoning up polite laughter to bolster other people’s fragile egos. I would have made allowances for your comedy ineptitude.

I don’t bite.

I’m like a big cuddly HobNob of comedy.

You don’t have to be a high class biscuit yourself to appreciate my fulfilling oaty base. You can dunk me in your best China and it would be fine.

You wouldn’t cramp my style, honest.

And I’d even be prepared to sample a couple of your custard creams in return.

Now I can’t say fairer than that.

P.S. And I didn’t even make a joke about Ginger Nuts. That’s how good I am.




43 comments:

Martin Lower said...

Brilliant! Obviously Lisa isn't fit to inhabit the same planet as you.
Mind you, I used to like Scrapheap Challenge.....

Suzanne said...

Been there, done that, felt the shame.
I think your biscuit joke was quite funny, clearly she has no sense of humour.
BTW the role play on 'The Apprentice' was cringeworthy don't you think?

Steve said...

Martin: I think Lisa's sole remit on Scrapheap Challenge was to bring some blonde pneumatic bouyancy to the otherwsie Testosterone heavy grease monkey mechanic-based shenanigans of the show's premise... and she did it so admirably.

Steve said...

Suzanne: it could only have been worse if they'd performed it with some homemade sock puppets with bottletop eyes and spoke in chipmunk voices.

Suzanne said...

You sound like you're talking from experience :0

Being Me said...

Right! Take two....

I just adore the humble nature of your posts, Stevo. It's so self-effacing.....

All I can remember of my initial comment (that got eaten and spat out by Blogger) is that one of my enduring memories of my 2-month honeymoon in Britain was The Big Breakfast. Damn. That's all I've got, dearest!

Steve said...

Suzanne: I have to do something to fill my days at the asylum.

Being Me: do hope they were the Chris Evans & Gabby Roslin years... or at a push the Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen period. Anything else was a pale reflection and not worth getting out of bed for. Trust me because I did.

P.S. Do you think I overdo the humility thing occasionally?

Anonymous said...

Captains Blog. Stardate 2011: Okay Davey boy, I give in…you’ve got me. Last four decades I’ve battled Romulans, Klingons, Uhuras Gazongas and the Borg. I’m still the outright intergalactic heavyweight champ of the Kobayashi Maru test but…I’ve gotta tell you Dave…your persistent & sharp witted tweet phasering at me these last two years, have got me all in a stun bloke. I don’t often teleport into fellow tweeters blog kingdoms, but for you I’m making an exception. No idea what your blogging about here Dave. Uhura’s doin her best work right now, tryin to translate it all into something we’ll understand. But ‘Hey’…just thought I’d drop by and say hi. Thanks for your great tweets Dave. The Federation needs geeks like you…for phaser practice! Ha ha!!

Old pointy ears says hi too by the way. He can’t do ‘the sign’ thing with his fingers these days. Vulcan arthritis see. All shot to Botany Bay he is. Live long and prosper Dave. See you…’Out There’ again maybe, in a ‘tweet out’ on a planet, far, far away.

More warp speed to you Dave,

Bill Shatner.

(but you can call me ‘Jim’)

Steve said...

Bill: good to hear from you, dude, though I still have a soft spot for your V.D. Hooker years. Sorry. Scrub that. T.J. Hooker. That's it. "Book 'em, Romano!" Nobody could deliver that line like you. You're in a class of your own. Which apparently is how your co-stars prefer it.

Being Me said...

Steve, it was 1999. Denise Van Outen rings a bell, but that could be for some other reason. Does that help?

Steve said...

Being Me: it does indeed. I had to Google it but Dr Google didn't let me down (well, apart from the time I found that rash but you don't want to hear about that)... 1999, you say? We're talking Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen with maybe a little Lisa Tarbuck (daughter of Jimmy) thrown in for good measure. We're talking second best vintage. Which is not bad going.

Not From Lapland said...

clearly the woman was so intimidated by your comical prowess that she didn't dare reply. Either that or she was looking up how to spell restraining order and got distracted by something shiny.

Steve said...

Heather: you plainly know the mind of a celebrity so intimately you could very well be one. Probably explains why you also ignore me on Twitter.

Between Me and You said...

I once tweeted Michael K Williams (Omar(`you come at the King, you better not miss` - the best line ever) in The Wire) and asked him if he would tweet my son and tell him to give me back my whole `The Wire` collection which I hadn`t clapped eyes on since he had `borrowed` them. He duly did.....my son now thinks I`m The Mother of all Mothers!!
Have a good weekend Bonnie Lad.

Steve said...

Nana Go-Go: you do know that you've just made me feel very inferior, don't you?

Between Me and You said...

Sorry, just to reiterate..in this context,`Mother of all Mothers`pertains to my standing as a Goddess in the eyes of my children!I got distracted by the tennis...for gawd`s sake Andy (Murray), man-up....ooops there I go making a man feel inferior again!

Steve said...

Nana Go-G0: thank you. That has actually made me feel a lot better; at least I haven't just lost Wimbledon like Andy Murray. Right now I'm probably feeling a lot better than he is.

libby said...

Want to write something Steve but am feeling left behind here....I don't tweet or twitter or facebook and following slebs would just depress me....as far as I can tell they are missing out on your fabulous writing and quick wit...and all I'm thinking about now is biscuits......

Steve said...

Libby: thinking about biscuits is always a good thing. Much better than Twitter et al.

Gorilla Bananas said...

I have two words for you: Kola Boof. She always replies to her followers and if you don' know who she is you're an ignoramus. As for Lisa Rogers, she must have thought you were a sad old git who wanted to nobber.

Steve said...

Gorilla Bananas: me and Kola Boof have just got intimately acquainted on Google. I'm wondering if she'd be averse to a garibaldi?

Between Me and You said...

ps I`ve stopped using Twitter now - it was just a phase I was going through and I got really despondent when Russell Crowe just kept ignoring me....that`s when I knew I had a REAL problem!!Sun`s shining here and dare I say it, it`s positively Mediterranean today - off to enjoy it, hope you all do too.

Rol said...

I think she needs to get that restraining order in place, sharpish.

Steve said...

Nana Go-Go: Russell Crowe uses Twitter? Which accent does he use?

Rol: she obviously thought the superinjunction would be enough.

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Funny that Stephen…I also reviewed Cameron’s latest ‘Avatar’ 3D film thingy a while back. Cept I could only manage 4 characters. She never came back to me niever. What a mooer.

When I’m bored, I just love twitting Lord Sweetex there. He’s always up for a larf is old Alan. He uses an automatic ‘Twit responder’ ping back thingy, meaning…the very nano second you send your twit – he instantaneously twits you back with his ‘auto twit’ responder message “Yor Fired!” Works a tweet too.

The trick is to send him a four letter word tweet, then try and immediately ‘exit’ out of Tweeter as awfully very very fast as you possibly can before his automatic twit response message “Yor Fired!” shows up on your tweet page. He’s pretty darn quick though Steve, even for an old git. At the moment, the score stands at: Lord Sweetex – 42,673 / Me – 0.

Yeah I’m working on it. Well kind of.

Yawwwwn.

Never heard of Risa Logers…or Hobnobs. Had to click all over your link there to swat up on that one. Loved the link to ‘Bryn Celli Ddu’. Wow what a place! Sure I seen that on Grand Designs last year. Cool.

Ginger Nuts – You’ve ‘Really’ got to get yourself some of these for the office… http://www.sillyjokes.co.uk/p-jokes/biscuits/gingernut.html

Hmmm




Can’t think of nuffink more to say at the moment.




Sigh.







What’s the weather like up there today Stevie?






I’ll slope off then now shall I ?

Go and practice my speed tweets for a day or two.

Steve said...

Phil: four letter review, eh? "More"? "Good"? "Nice"? Am I at the right end of the spectrum of four letter words or do I need to head further south into dirtbox country? As for the Lord Sucrose. I always get in first with the ol' Yor Fired Tweet. The old git can't fire me if I've fired him first, can he? Doh!

Weather: not bad. Sunny spells. Cloudy spells. Harry Potter spells later on DVD.

Organic Motherhood with Cool Whip said...

Steve, you are a genius. PS I LOVE biscuit jokes. Particularly ones that are digestive in nature.

Steve said...

Organic Motherhood with Cool Whip: the best ones are covered in a thick layer of comedy chocolate and contain choc-chip quips.

Löst Jimmy said...

I think more likely her broadband connection went down hence the lack of a retort?
Or perhaps she was otherwise engaged in some scrapheap or other or perhaps reprising her role in Lock Stock and Four Stolen Hooves...

Steve said...

Löst Jimmy: I've never seen her role in Lock Stock but Dr Google located some very interesting images when I asked it nicely.

Owen said...

All these tweets and twits flitting about, a good thing they didn't name it "Twatter"...

The Sagittarian said...

Never trust anyone named Lisa.

TimeWarden said...

Did I tell you about the comment I left Leonard Nimoy, on the website Vulcan Verisimilitudes?

Steve said...

Owen: although that might be more apt...

Amanda: have you been talking to Bart again?

TimeWarden: in truth, you didn't.

Gappy said...

I got a reply from the pub landlord himself once - Al Murray. How cool is that? Except his reply was 'Ha ha ha.'
I could feel the sarcasm dripping through the screen.

Oh dear.

Steve said...

Gappy: I'm so sad I would have seen the sarcasm as a victory.

femminismo said...

Glad to see you still posting and Twittering! You're right: Twitter never turns one down.

Steve said...

Femminismo: Twitter is the bike of the internet. ;-)

Fran Hill said...

I don't know what I think of Twitter yet. Still making judgements ... I did have a rather tart reply from Susan Hill, author of Woman in Black, to something I said about her writing. Oops. I think I'll have to work on my Twittertone.

About Last Weekend said...

Hilarious! Have not gone to Twitter yet, maybe I'll meet you on the other side, but all so dispiriting when you see that celebs who LOLBTWWTF intelligences have so many followers...or maybe the followers are waiting for you to tweet.

Steve said...

Fran: it's difficult to be nice in 140 characters, but very easy to be scathing. I love it.

About Last Weekend: I think a lot of celebs use Twitter as free publicity... which is fair enough 'cos that's exactly what I use it for.

Unknown said...

ROFL! Brilliant! I'm sure you're right, she just didn't want to make a fool of herself by cracking a below par joke...!

Steve said...

Livi: yes, she was holding herself back in acknowledgement of my comedic prowess. ;-)