The Twitter naysayers have been out in force recently.

After Graham Linehan's comments on Channel Four TV on American lies about the NHS a few journos have been rather disparaging.

Janet Street-Porter calls it a 'middle-class badge of honour... fanned by nerds like David Miliband, fame-addicted slebs like Demi Moore, and techno bores like Stephen Fry.'

Jackie Ashley at the Grauniad completely misunderstands it.

The BBC report that 40 per cent of posts are 'pointless babble' - surely an accusation that can't possibly be aimed at any other form of communication (apropos of nothing, have you seen some episodes of Horizon recently?). We all know that phone voice calls, emails and texts are only ever used for mission critical, vital, life affirming and inspirational communication.

Twitter is a tool. And like all tools it can be very useful. And amusing, pointless, drivelly, arcane, obscure and more by turns.

Is that really so awful?