Twitter on a Friday is usually good fun. People are preparing for the weekend, everybody is relaxed and some throw a joke in for fun, as I usually do when I post my weekly Tommy Cooper quote.
Imagine my utter consternation when that ex-mohawk-wearing, under-performing cricketer and wannabe Englishman who left South Africa because he (allegedly) didn’t like black South Africans in the team, Kevin Pietersen, passed off one of Mr Cooper’s jokes as one of his own.
‘I went out to get some camouflaged trousers, but I couldn’t find any’ no doubt tickled his motley crew of followers, but it was an utter rip-off and pretending it was one of his own 140-character-or-less ideas is shameful. I almost hope we lose the Ashes as a result… No, sorry I’m stupid, what was I thinking?
Pietersen is one of a band of sportsmen who have inflicted their instant opinions on us and what’s worse, these dense people can’t even spell. Using ‘your’ instead of ‘you’re’ is one of the more irritating misuses of the English language, but Rio Ferdinand, Robbie Savage and co seem to think grammar is a school where the smart kids went to.
While really thick people have managed to benefit from the internet by a computer spellchecking their documents for them, it perplexes me that Twitter doesn’t have a spellchecker or a warning system that prevents people such as Pietersen from using other people’s words. Google would, if and when it owns Twitter.
All of this reminds me of an ex-boss of mine who was in the room when I was Power Pointing (sorry, appalling use of language but you get the idea) to some potential clients and who stood up pointing and shouting ‘typo, typo!’ when he’d seen a mistake in one of my slides. He couldn’t help himself and I admired him for it. Of course, we didn’t get the gig, but you know.
Back in the sporting world of Twitter there was better news this week when the journeyman Everton defender Phil Neville began super-trending. Everton supporters who had seen Neville outplay overnight sensation Gareth Bale a few weeks ago began the craze and before you could say Kevin Pietersen is a pratt, Neville was globally famous.
This beautiful type of bonkers was summed up by his ex-colleague Landon Donovan now back in the US playing for Team Beckham, er the Los Angeles Galaxy, when he wrote: “Phil Neville is trending?!? What has this world come to?!?!?!?”.
Indeed, Landon, but rather like Pietersen I made my own Twitter cock-up this week because I was sick of bloody Gareth Bale and tweeted:
‘ENOUGH. ALREADY. OF. CHRISTIAN. BALE.’… Yes, I know he’s an actor, not a footballer, Gareth Bale isn’t Batman, blah-blah.
Still, at least I’ve admitted I’m a Twitter-twat occasionally, unlike Kevin bloody Pietersen who will probably be passing off Churchill quotes while he is playing in Australia or ‘I told the doctor I dreamt I was a marquee and a wigwam and the told me I was two-tents’, but that really IS Tommy Cooper.
Just like that
Monty
Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.
