If Twitter's motto is to simply 'join the conversation', a form of Babel's charter, then the uninvited now have the license to announce themselves crudely, ambush the unsuspecting, talk at you, over you or down at you. Unleash torrents of abuse, bad grammar, feeble arguments, poor spelling, etc, whilst others struggle not to sink into the mire.

Joey Barton, the outspoken captain of Queen's Park Rangers has reacted to claims that a recent spate of tweets might have predjudiced a forthcoming race case involving Chelsea's John Terry and QPR defender, Anton Ferdinand. He tweeted: "I will gladly go to jail for a month, in the name of free speech. I have no problem with what I said. Make me a martyr..."