The real reason I’m a target for the twitchfork mob
Shortly after midnight on 1 January my phone began to vibrate repeatedly. Happy New Year messages from absent friends? No,…
Ignore the Twitter cry-bully brigade – on social media, you reap what you sow
The nastiest person on Twitter has quit Twitter. Because I’m so generous I shan’t mention his name. All I’ll say…
Calling Paddock a ‘lone wolf’ isn’t racist
It’s been nearly two weeks since Stephen Paddock committed mass murder in Las Vegas and the FBI is still casting…
The writer behind the brand
Few publishing phenomena in recent years have been as gratifying as Chris Kraus’s cult 1997 masterpiece I Love Dick becoming…
Diary
Monday morning and I am heading south on Harley Street towards a rendezvous with ramifications, a date that is also…
Diary
It has been an unqualified delight, even if it is mildly absurd: I have been chairing the judges for this…
Joan Collins: The celebrity trend I just can’t stand
Not only are today’s young girls having to work hard on their abs, butts and glutes, now the likes of…
Nicholas Soames’s Twitter account is a miracle (and so is his diet)
Miracles are not ceased. A few years ago, a kindly educational therapist took pity on John Prescott and set out…
The internet’s war on free speech
The web was meant to empower us all. Right now, it’s empowering censors
Life gets faster — as the Earth slows down
Modern life is too fast. Everyone is always in a hurry; people skim-read and don’t take the time to eat…
I have seen the future, and it’s a racist, filthy-mouthed teenage robot
‘I’m a nice person,’ said the robot. ‘I just hate everybody.’ Maybe you know the feeling. The robot in question…
What happened when my son went to school as Goldilocks
Whenever I hear a leftie complain about being abused on Twitter, I think: ‘You should try being me.’ A case…
Here’s how I would deal with the dorks who spread lies online
One reason I do not tweet, text, use Facebook or Instagram, and only wield a mobile when a landline is…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, spent time in Brussels before a meeting of the European Council to see what…
Why I won’t be picking up litter for the Queen
I am sure that the Queen disapproves of litter as much as anyone else, but she’s hardly ever exposed to…
Long before Twitter, Wogan offered continuous conversation
For once, the superlatives that have greeted Terry Wogan’s death from cancer have been entirely in keeping with the man.…
Is your quotation secretly Nazi?
I couldn’t help laughing when I found that an Australian senator, Cory Bernardi, had deleted all his tweets from Twitter,…
If you believe the internet, I was Israel’s answer to Jason Bourne
One of the strangest and, in a weird way, best things to have happened to me in the past year…
Ian Rankin’s diary: Paris, ignoring Twitter and understanding evil
After ten days away, I spent last Friday at home alone, catching up on washing, shopping for cat food, answering…
The most dangerous word in the digital world is 'send'
Those who forget the pasta are condemned to reheat it, tweeted Jon Ronson, a man I’d never heard of until…
Sorry, but the Bullingdon Club really doesn’t help your career
I’m getting a lot of abuse on Twitter for saying that having been a member of the Bullingdon is more…
Isis takes its British schoolgirl jihadis seriously. Why don’t we?
When the first schoolgirls ran away to Isis I had some sympathy for them — at least, I could see…
A lesson in graceful Twitter style – from a resigning shadow minister
‘Tweeting’s like text messaging, isn’t it?’ said my husband confidently, though not, as usual, from any knowledge of the matter.…
‘Free bleeding’ and the stupidly clever feminists who fell for it
Did you know that tampons were just another brutal expression of the oppressive patriarchy? I must confess that I didn’t…