'Tis the season for speculation

We are now in the thick of the 'Silly Season', that summer tradition when nothing of any great note happens and, as a result, the media resorts to non-stories to pep up* an otherwise moribund news agenda. This summer has been somewhat different, however: the front pages have been consumed by nationwide political dysfunction, from Theresa May's aversion to coherent governance to Jeremy Corbyn's abject inability to provide any form of recognisable opposition. To distract from all this we've had Boris Johnson on manoeuvres and the ever-manic circus that is the 45th President of the United States. The only summer consistency has been on the back pages, with their bi-annual rumour mill surrounding the football transfer window, some of which came good, some didn't, but which always managed to fill the void evacuated at the end of the World Cup by actual news.
*Not to be confused with 'Fake news'.

Showbiz doesn't need a silly season, as most of it is silly all year round. But if it does allow a periodical lapse into speculative fantasy, it is over the unanswered future of the James Bond franchise. What we do know is that Daniel Craig has agreed to a fifth and final outing as 007 (for now known only as 'Bond 25'), which will commence filming, presumably, later this year for release in November 2019. What happens after Craig - who'll be 51 when the film comes out - hangs up his Walther PPK, is still open to speculation. As this blog has commented before, the lead character in cinema's longest-running action franchise is one of the most sought-after, which means there's been no shortage of names linked to it, from James Norton and Tom Hiddleston to Tom Hardy and even Gillian Anderson. But the one name that seems to remain fixed in the speculation is that of Idris Elba.

Ever since he first emerged as The Wire's sinister but sophisticated Stringer Bell, Elba has demonstrated an immense screen presence, not to mention a broad range of roles. He is supremely blessed in the charisma department. The question is, is he Bond? Could he be Bond? His tweet the other day - "My name's Elba, Idris Elba" - sent the media - and Bond fans - into a frenzy, reopening the debate about his Bond candidacy and even suggesting that he was not-particularly cryptically telegraphing the fact he had the job in the bag. The official line from Eon Productions is that there isn't a line...yet. Presumably they are focusing on producing Bond 25, still more than a year away from cinema screens. But given their responsibility as custodians of the Bond cinema legacy, and that it had been possible, since Spectre was released in 2015, that Craig wouldn't make another film, surely they've been giving some thought as to who will pick up the licence to kill next.

A few days ago it was reported that Bond supremo Barbara Broccoli had suggested that "it is time" for a non-white actor to play Bond. This, inevitably, has got a lot of people up in arms, not necessarily for racist reasons, thankfully, but for the fact that Ian Fleming's literary creation was somewhat specific and, in most people's minds, manifested perfectly by Sean Connery in Dr. No in 1962. George Lazenby's casting for On Her Majesty's Secret Service (before Connery returned again), was also pretty on the money, much like Timothy Dalton (who captured Bond's more brooding nature) and Pierce Brosnan. Roger Moore and indeed Craig both successfully challenged the idea that Bond couldn't be dark haired (or, in Craig's case, tall), but to date ethnicity hasn't been a matter of discussion.

Just as Jodie Whitaker's casting as the new Doctor Who caused a minor rip in the space-time-continuem, people are very protective of the Bond legacy. Personally I think Elba would be a brilliant choice: from The Wire to Luther, Elba has demonstrated a tremendous screen presence, underpinned by gallons of charisma. The actor certainly would fit the part from all those perspectives. My one doubt, surprisingly, is not the colour of his skin. It's his age. At 46, Elba is, today, older than even Roger Moore when he took on the role, which means that by the time photography would begin on Bond 26, he we will be closer to Daniel Craig's age now. The actor has, himself, also suggested that he may be too old to play Bond (especially with Craig suggesting the physical demands as being a reason to quit, as the series has modernised to compete with the more raw Bourne and Mission: Impossible series). Thus, it's still possible that Elba is simply undertaking a massive wind-up by his tweet. And given the usual tightlippedness surrounding any of the Bond films until they're announced, it's unlikely that Elba would be damaging his chances of being hired by telegraphing it so prematurely.

The reality is that the Broccolis have no need to project their next Bond, just yet. By the time 25 appears, it will be four years since Daniel Craig's last outing, and given his initial reluctance to do a fifth film, the producers, writers and, especially, director Danny Boyle, are going to have to pull something magical out of the bag to keep things fresh. Which is why some are suggesting that the next Bond might have to be an even younger actor - perhaps rebooting the series again with a Millennial-age 007, taking the approach of The Young Indiana Jones or The Young Montalbano. But for now, let's see how this all plays out. A post-Craig James Bond film is still a long way away: it's just that with precious little to write about, the Elba speculation is doing a nice job of filling up otherwise threadbare news pages. Not to mention this blog.

Your move, Mr. Bond

As friends and family will attest, I have a ridiculous affinity for pop trivia. This only worsens when I find myself in, or perilously close to, a location with a strong pop culture connection. For example, I once spent an afternoon in Los Angeles getting shots of street signs on Mulholland Avenue and Ventura Boulevard just to make a short video set to Tom Petty’s Freefallin’. Later in that same LA trip I risked arrest for 'doing a Hugh Grant' by driving repeatedly through the ‘No Cruise’ zone on Sunset Boulevard, purely - and obsessively - to get the perfect shot of the sun setting in order to match it to Steely Dan’s Hey Nineteen (which begins with the line: “Drive west on Sunset to the sea. Turn that jungle music down, just until you’re out of town”).

In the Seattle suburb of Renton - principle attraction, the factory that makes the Boeing 737 - I spent a wet Sunday morning trying to find Jimi Hendrix’s grave. When I did I was astonished to discover that, at the time (1998), there was nothing more to mark the final resting place of rock’s greatest guitarist than a slab with the outline of a Stratocaster on it and the inscription “James Marshall Hendrix - 1942-1970”. I'm pleased to report that since then the grave has been appropriately ‘upgraded’ with a gazebo that now draws in fans to pay proper respect.

More recently in Paris, on discovering I was living right across the road from an apartment which featured in a pivotal scene in The Bourne Identity, I launched a tour of other locations from the film, mostly to satisfy myself that they were as seen. I’d already set a precedent for such film-nerdishness when I first moved to Paris, realising that I was just around the corner from Avenue d’Eylau, which appears in Thunderball as the HQ of SPECTRE.

Here in Florida this week I am equally doused in film and television trivia, especially due to how much the state has appeared in the Bond films, most notably Licence To Kill and Daniel Craig’s first outing, Casino Royale. Which leads me neatly - if highly tenuously - on to the prospect of whether Craig himself will put in another appearance as 007.

“I'd rather slash my wrists than do another one,” was the somewhat nihilistic statement Craig gave Time Out last year when asked. Even taking a little actorly petulance into account, Craig was reacting to the fact he'd taken such a physical punishing making Spectre. Perhaps, at the time, the prospect of a fifth outing as Bond was too much. Cue a flurry of rumouring and theorising as to who could take over, with Tom Hiddleston instantly installed as lead favourite, purely, it should be noted, on the back of The Night Manager (and despite the fact he would be too fey and too posh). In the same frame came Idris Elba (a good shout, actually), the bloke off Poldark who takes his shirt off a lot, Tom Hardy and Damian Lewis, and sundry other himbos on the Equity register. There were even some creditable attempts by the likes of Gillian Anderson and Emilia Clark to throw their respective hats into the ring.

But, while a female Bond or a black Bond might make for interesting change of direction for the 54-year-old series, it would still be regarded as tampering with the DNA of the most longest-running and lucrative franchise in film history, something producers Barbara Broccoli and her half-brother Michael G. Wilson have had little room to play about with. Whether they or anyone else likes it or not, the mould for the screen James Bond was set by Sean Connery, and Craig apart, the Bonds that have followed - George Lazenby, Roger Moore (to some degree...), Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan, have been more or less the same type.


Craig, of course, was the “wrong” Bond, when he was announced: five-feet-ten-inches and blond. And, yet, he has revitalised the franchise. Some would even say that he has finally unlocked the hold Connery’s legacy had over the character. For those of us - and there are many - who found the final Brosnan outing, Die Another Day an overblown and, frankly, ridiculous mess of CGI and ludicrous plot devices, the Craig films have restored Bond to the gripping spy adventures that Connery established in the first place.

“I got the best job in the world doing Bond,” Craig said on Saturday at the New Yorker Festival, sporting blond hair for a new film which recalled Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love. “The things I get to do on a Bond movie, there’s no other job like it,” Craig said. “If I were to stop doing it I’d miss it terribly. I get a massive kick out of it. And if I can keep getting a kick out of it, I will.”

So, is this a change of heart? Well, for one thing, Craig is believed to be contracted to do a fifth Bond film, but such arrangements are never absolute. However, when challenged about his wrist-slitting remarks, Craig joked: “They say that shit sticks, and that definitely stuck,” adding that: “It was the day after filming [had ended on Spectre]. I'd been away from home for a year,” adding that the physical strains of one of film’s most physically demanding roles had taken its toll.” But, not wishing to appear ungrateful, said: “Boo-hoo. It's a good gig. I enjoy it.”

Even if his comments to Time Out were somewhat in the heat - or the pain - of the moment, his quip about “It would only be for the money” may have a ring of truth about it, being reportedly offered up to £120 million to play Bond again. Officially there are no plans for ‘Bond 25’, but given the way these films are made, don’t be surprised if, next month or in December EON productions calls a press conference at Pinewood Studios.

“A Bond movie is by the skin of your teeth,” Craig explained in New York on Saturday. “You get it shot and six months later it’s released. There’s no time for focus groups. You make the movie and then you put it out. It’s one of the most thrilling things as an actor you can do. It’s the way Barbara likes to shoot.”

Ultimately, Broccoli will make the decision on Craig being offered the role again, or whether they move on. “There’s this constant debate about who's going to be the next Bond,” Skyfall and Spectre director Sam Mendes has said recently. “The truth is – and here’s the headline: it’s not a democracy, it's not The X Factor, it's not the EU referendum, and it's not a public vote. Barbara Broccoli chooses who's going to be the next Bond: end of story.”

Craig himself has confessed to being ambivalent about who might take over the Walther PPK if he did decide not to do a fifth Bond film, but has also suggested that the calibre of replacement needs to be high. “You’ve got to step up. People do not make movies like this any more. This is really rare now. So don’t be shit.” One thing is certain, there’s little chance that Bond 25 won’t get made - this is Hollywood, after all, and if anything, the four Craig Bonds have revitalised the series. Anyone taking over now would be stepping in to a golden opportunity. And for Craig himself? He’s only 48. Roger Moore was 58 when he ‘retired’ from the role, although by then it had become preposterous. Craig clearly has a strong sense of his own ability to play he role. It would be nice to think he’s got one more in him.

Now pay attention: let's get Bond right

So let's get this straight: will there be a new James Bond the next time 007 appears on the big screen? Though Daniel Craig hasn't exactly said he won't appear for a fifth time - and the BBC recently reported a source saying that "no decision is likely be made for a while" - the increasing weariness with which he's appeared to talk about a character he revitalised would suggest that, at 48, he will be hanging up the shoulder holster for his Walther PPK. According to another anonymous source, "Daniel is done - pure and simple", and despite being offered oodles of money for another two Bond films, Spectre may prove to be his last.

Which, let's be honest, may be for the best. Not that there was anything wrong with Craig or indeed Spectre itself - a fine addition to the official Bond canon - but as he heads towards his 49th year (as I am - being just four months older), I can see why all that running across rooftops, getting shot at on ski slopes and generally getting beaten about will be losing its lustre. I know I struggle with the Paris Métro first thing in the morning.

So now we must endure the time-honoured tradition of the media guessing game. Without much guessing going on. The press has convinced itself that the next Bond will be Tom Hiddlestone, mostly on the back of his performance in The Night Manager. As good as that was - and he was terrific - Hiddlestone is not Bond for me. Too fey, too posh. Too nice, even.

Now, I know that when Daniel Craig was announced as Pierce Brosnan's replacement the reaction was "too blond, too short, too Scouse" (well, my reaction), and he went on to be arguably the best 007 since Sean Connery. So a tall, lanky, Eton-educated actor like Hiddlestone might surprise us still. But, really.

Connery set the mould; Lazenby replicated it, before Connery briefly returned; Moore turned the character into a camp 70s playboy; Dalton added some celtic grit to the character, again in the Connery manner; and then Brosnan came along, and the franchise gradually descended into self parody with the ridiculous Die Another Day. No surprise, then, that Hiddlestone's portrayal of John le Carré's unlikely spy Jonathan Pine in the BBC's sumptuous adaptation of The Night Manager auto-suggested the idea that he could be a Bond.

There are, though, better candidates. Henry Cavill is the obvious one, being physically closest to the Connery frame, while Tom Hardy would be another to fit the delta of muscularity and sophistication. Damian Lewis crops up, too, in the lists, and that wouldn't be a bad shout, either. And why not Idris Elba, despite the obvious? But then I read that Nicholas Hoult and Jamie Bell are potentials, even though the latter is still, for many of us, Billy Elliott.

Pictures: Twitter/Gillian Anderson

And while we're on the subject of outside bets, Gillian Anderson and Game Of Thrones' Emilia Clarke have thrown their hats into the ring, sort of. Here is, though, where a line must be drawn. And I'm not being sexist in saying so.

James Bond is James Bond. Not Jane Bond or Jamelia Bond. James. Ian Fleming's literary vision was of a tall, dark haired man, resembling Hoagy Carmichael, a fact Bond's ill-faited lover Vesper Lynd remarks upon in Casino Royale - "something cold and ruthless". That description, along with Bond's facial structure and hair colour, cropped up throughout the Fleming books and, of course, influenced the choice of Connery when Cubby Broccoli came calling to make Dr. No into a film.

I've got nothing against Anderson - quite the opposite as it goes - but why would it not be possible for the Bond people, MGM studios and Eon Productions, to create a franchise for her, or any other actress? Are we so insistent on political correctness when it comes to fictional characters that the search for a new James Bond must be turned into an equal opportunities debate? It has nothing to do with the physicality of the part, either. It's really about gender: Bond is male. Has there ever been a debate about a male actor taking over the role of Lara Croft?

I know that I have just come across as the "sexist, misogynist, dinosaur" that M herself accused the Brosnan Bond of being in their opening encounter in Goldeneye, but is it so wrong to keep fictional characters as they were intended, as they were invisioned? And is it so hard to come up with new characters that give actors the opportunity to create a new franchise? There's such a paucity of good, strong characters for female actors as it is, so the idea of repurposing an existing male role seems counter-productive.

Picture: Heineken

Whomever gets the gig, however, will have a lot to live up to. The four Daniel Craig Bond films over the last 11 years have brought the franchise up to date in so many ways, not least of which a welcome dourness to counter some of the needless frivolity that the Brosnan Bond indulged. The two directed by Sam Mendes were both terrific action films and stunning cinematic experiences (Roger Deakins' photography in the Shanghai scenes of Skyfall are amongst my favourite in any movie).

These harder, darker and more contemporary Bond films may not be everyone's Vesper Martini, of course, but the Craig films - even the much-criticised Quantum Of Solace - have, though, demonstrated that Bond could be different and, yet, at the same time, make the character stronger. I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised if, indeed, the job does go to Hiddlestone (or Anderson, for that matter). I just need a lot more convincing of its wisdom.

As Twitter turns 10, is the Twittocracy out of control?

In comparison to the world that exists in the comment sections of online articles of the Daily Mail, the 'mood slime' oozing through New York City in the Ghostbusters films is relatively benign.

Should you make the fatal mistake of going to the Mail Online for anything other than its excellent sports coverage, and you then click on a story - really, any story - you will be, at a glance, rewarded with the most frightening representation of modern society. It is one which makes Faustian visions of the underworld look beatific. It will remind you of Jack Crawford's advice to Clarice Starling in The Silence Of The Lambs: "Believe me, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head", such is the insanity let loose in these forums.

The Daily Hate is where the unmoderated go to dispense their batshit-crazy opinions, their apalling spelling and even worse grammar (be warned if easily offended by "your" instead of "you're"), and their utterly noxious views on celebrities that have just appeared in a miasma of covert bikini pictures (supported, as the paper's 12-year-old caption writers invariably write, by descriptions of "a leggy display" or "a busty display", or pointing out "plenty of side boob" and its escapist cousin "under boob"), and to generally contribute to a seeping wound of unsolicited bile about people they would never otherwise be able to engage the world at large with directly.

Twitter/Danny Baker

The simple solution, of course, to taking umbrage at this somewhat unsolicited and mostly anonymous bile is to not "go directly to comments", as appears to be the activity name for people who see one of the newspaper's crackpot headlines (such as one once hilariously announcing that Goebbels was paranoid about Adolf "Hotler" - HOTLER! - sleeping with Frau Goebbels) and make straight for the veritable cuckoo's nest below the main story.

In this regard, the Mail is rather like Australia. Knowing, as you do, that throughout its landmass and coasts lurks most of the world's things that will kill you, you are empowered with the knowledge and good sense to avoid it. By the same token, you know that anything directed by M. Night Shyamalan will render you in need of clean underwear, and anything with Mrs. Brown's Boys in the title will leave you reaching for the will to live. So the Mail's readers forum, and indeed the Mail itself, is put sensibly off limits.

Twitter, however, is another matter. Depending on your popularity - and, face facts, it is your perceived popularity that determines this - you are completely at the mercy of the world. Twitter is like actually visiting Australia and spending your entire time naked as the day you turned out, coated in honey, while attending a meeting at the corporate HQ of the entire wasp species before scheduling a restorative dip later in the country's tiniest body of water known to harbour crocodiles. Who haven't dined in months.

This may sound a tad over-dramatic, but there have been times - moments of idleness you could characterise them - when I have been drawn to individuals' tweets and then gone crashing foolishly into the "conversations" that have either preceded them or come afterwards.

A recent example concerns Al Murray, a figure known to British audiences, mainly, as the ironic 'Pub Landlord', a standup comedy character based on the boorish, right-wing UKIP-loving barkeeps who, like Londom black cab drivers, will opine on many things that get liberals hot under the collars of their hair shirts.

Whether in character or not, Murray - an Oxford-educated descendent of the 3rd Duke of Atholl and a great-great-great-great-grandson of the novelist William Thackeray - appears to take great delight in engaging Twitter fascists to the extent that you actually see their little rubber bands going snap. It is an art, and an intelligent one, and one in which - credit where due - Murray will march straight into his own online Agincourt without so much as the blindest concern for his own safety. A recent engagement by Murray on the not-too-light topic of anti-semitism was like watching Jason Bourne take down allcomers in an alley, except even now I can't recall who was fighting whom about what, largely because it was a Saturday night and I was in decent supply of gin, tonic and ice cubes.

Another admirable troll jouster is Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for the Birmingham consituency of Yardley. I mention Phillips not out of any political affiliation, but as an example of how Twitter has gone too far in giving people an unbridled voice. In October last year, Phillips appeared in a House of Commons meeting to discuss a debate about International Men's Day. "As the only woman on this committee, it seems like every day to me is International Men’s Day," she commented. "When I’ve got parity, when women in these buildings have parity, you can have your debate. And that will take an awfully long time."

Cue the River Styx itself breaking its banks, with Phillips facing threats of rape - yes, rape. On the one hand, you can rationalise it by saying that such people use the anonymity of Twitter as their shield. But on the other hand, you have to recognise that someone capable of making such a threat could also live right next door.

I really have very little interest in or regard for politicians (who are largely self-serving egos on legs, sorry), but in Phillips I genuinely admire her integrity to speak freely and with authority (her recent brouhaha comparing New Year's sexual assaults in German with an ordinary night in in Birmingham had the sound basis of Phillips having worked closely with womens' abuse charities). Quite understandably, on this occasion she lost her sense of fun: "No internet today. Being told that 'I asked for it' regarding threats to rape me is not fun. Its not 1st time in my life I've heard it." she tweeted, adding: "Today my son is 7. I'm glad he is not old enough to go on internet and find all the people threatening to rape me."

Most of the nonsense Phillips puts up with on Twitter is deflected with good humour. But on this occasion, lines were crossed. This, of course, raises the question about why anyone would want to put their head in the proverbial lion's mouth on a platform as public as Twitter when such swivel-eyed, foil hat-wearing lunacy lurks predatorially in the bushes. Least of all celebrities. There are many questions one might ask of Lindsay Lohan for posting lascivious pictures of herself on Instagram, but is there any - any - justfication for members of the populace to openly call her a "junkie whore", just because there's a button beneath her post that allows you to write something?

As with the Mail, looking up replies to celebrity tweets can be a frightening, faith-in-humanity-sapping experience. I'm very serious when I say that you simply should avoid them. Because you will wonder what sort of society we live in. You will question what absence of civility allows people the belief that even with their Twitter identity completely unguarded, and their name and profile photograph on show, they can say anything to anyone, let alone the famous, via this passive-aggressive medium than they would have the bollocks to say to their face?

For those of us in the communications game, Twitter - unlike Facebook - has been a boon. Companies and corporates have leapt upon it for its instantanious immediacy. Celebrities have embraced it in a way that, as someone who used to court the PRs of the famous, I find quite refreshing.

There are many celebs out there who do Twitter just right: Gillian Anderson, an actress who by my book can do no wrong, is one of the funniest celeb tweeters out there, especially when she's baiting David Duchovny.

But even she can't put out something of genuine interest to her fans without some dipshit tweeting something juvenile to her. So is it right that they can, or should "@GillianA" just ignore the serious invasions of her public image that she often has to put up with?

My point here is that in the olden days our contact with the famous was strictly controlled by their publicists. We only knew what they were saying or thinking because a journalist, or a magazine or a TV interviewer had been granted annointed access to the schleb, and even then under some threat of violence, or worse, if agreed terms of reference were breached.

Now, we don't have to wait for showbiz hacks to describe the mood of a Hollywood star as they wilt from that day's umpteenth interview. Because, thanks to Twitter, we know that Johnny Famous isn't the surly hack-hating git an interview might portray him as, because he's just tweeted a Vine of his cat doing something cute, leaving us under no misapprehension that JF is, actually, normal and a bit of a laugh in real life.

Sometimes, however, it works against them. Stephen Fry has been, without doubt, one of the most prolific users of Twitter and one of its earliest celebrity proponents. However, he has also fallen vulnerable to its darker side, and has taken himself off it three times in sensitive reaction to twiterverse reactions to things he's said and done, including last month's BAFTAs when do-gooders thought he'd caused genuine offence by describing costume designer (and, actually, close friend) Jenny Beavan as "a bag lady".

Despite stressing his longstanding friendship with Beavan and that he was indulging in nothing more than joshing, Fry closed down his account on February 15 following a night of trench warfare with people accusing him of mysoginy and worse. In a post on his personal blog entitled "Too many people have peed in the pool", Fry wrote that he hadn't so much slammed the door on Twitter as "stalked off in a huff throwing my toys out of the pram as I go", adding "It’s quite simple really: the room had started to smell. Really quite bad."

He described Twitter's early halcyon days as "a secret bathing-pool in a magical glade in an enchanted forest", noting how "we chattered and laughed and put the world to rights and shared thoughts sacred, silly and profane. But now the pool is stagnant. It is frothy with scum, clogged with weeds and littered with broken glass, sharp rocks and slimy rubbish. If you don’t watch yourself, with every move you’ll end up being gashed, broken, bruised or contused. Even if you negotiate the sharp rocks you’ll soon feel that too many people have peed in the pool for you to want to swim there any more. The fun is over."

Of course, Twitter remains what it is to its 300-plus million active users. But Fry does have a point, if a tad melodramatic, when he said "Let us grieve at what Twitter has become, a stalking ground for the sanctimoniously self-righteous who love to second-guess, to leap to conclusions and be offended – worse, to be offended on behalf of others they do not even know. It’s as nasty and unwholesome a characteristic as can be imagined...the tipping point has been reached and the pollution of the service is now just too much."

Ending his post by quoting Martin Luther King ("I am free, free at last"), Fry left no one in any doubt that he was glad to be rid of a beast which he, in some part, helped to build. When I joined Twitter in February 2009, it was because celebrities like Fry and Jonathan Ross had been raving about it. And, yes, part of the attraction was indeed the somewhat voyeuristic proximity with which it brought us mere mortals to the famous.

But there is a genuine argument that, with Twitter, you had to be careful what you wished for. In the ten years to the day since Jack Dorsey sent his first tweet, it has brought about a global emancipation, even if - as an early market research study found, it is still predominantly split between a predominance of "pointless babble", conversations, items of interest, self-promotion, spam and news.

Unless you hold a position of great prominence, you can tweet in the manner to which the concept was born - 'microblogging', which to all intents and purposes means "stream of consciousness". It can be funny: got a good joke? Tweet it. You won't even be bothered by the tumbleweed blowing through your timeline as you get zero likes or an absence of retweets. And then again, you get lucky and your under-the-influence bon mot about the Eurovision Song Contest gets launched into orbit and the retweet count goes berserk.

Twitter does put you out there. If you're prepared to commit yourself to the Twittersphere, be prepared for unsolicited reactions. I admit to have indulged in a little light trollery myself recently when Lord (Alan) Sugar tweeted his barmy idea that José Mourinho got himself fired deliberately because he wanted out of Chelsea.

I was prompted - pint in hand, it must be said - to repost his tweet with the comment that it was "either the dumbest theory since Mourinho said he could revive [Radamel] Falcao's career, or Lord S is on to something". This then prompted Sugar - who doesn't suffer fools gladly at all (and manages his own tweets accordingly) to reply "Shut up". And, I think, he blocked me.

You can't blame him. However, here began the beginning of a painful afternoon. Retweets of my post, comments to it, comments to his retort - Sugar and I were dragged unwillingly into other people's personal dramas. It very soon became the worst 'reply all' nightmare you could muster. Three days on, like remote outposts returning their ballot boxes, comments, retweets and likes were still appearing like random aftershocks, all from what I'd thought was a measured piece of smart-arsery, albeit from the relaxed confines of the saloon bar.

And that is how it happens. I would still maintain that my banter with Sugar was just that, and he is more than grown up enough to not take offence (in fact my exchange was quite mild in comparision to his baiting of Piers Morgan...). But such is Twitter's openness that there isn't much between light ribbing and the kind of wholesale billiousness the likes of Jess Phillips and Stephen Fry have endured. And there's worse, much worse. In fact, there are times when Twitter emulates the darker spaces of the Internet with some of the exchanges people become embroiled in, of a breed that makes the Mail Online's comment sections look as serene as a summer's day on the Serptentine.

Working as I do in corporate media relations, I recognise that social media has its boundaries. Even though anyone in a position of responsibility will make clear "views are my own" in their account bio, you can never, ever cross a line. Even my invariably grumpy missives about Chelsea, written within Guinness-sweetened distance of the pub's big screen, must submit to the social media breathalyser before I commit them to the general public.

It's called self-restraint, something clearly lacking in the nefarious ocean that bubbles just below the apparent freedom of speech Twitter provides. Before the age of social media, I'm sure people led more civil lives. Nutters who wrote to newspapers or public figures would do so in green ink (this is not a myth, by the way) but there was moderation, not to mention a good deal more respect at large. Now, there are no such screens.

The Internet has democratised society, but there are occasions when you wonder whether it has become overly emancipated. And in the process, you do wonder who who - or what - is lurking out there...and possibly only next door.