Observe a son of Leinster lurking on Twitter, without conclusion

I like browsing Twitter, as long as I don't get stuck trying to work out what it is, exactly. It's mostly a fun thing to check when I'm at a loose end. For example, yesterday an old college friend, John Moynes - he writes limericks for a living these days, from what I can tell - was practicing satire on the internet.UPDATE: John tells me Facebook for Chimpanzees actually happened

Another friend, James Kelleher (James is a talented designer and developer of the great Lonely Beast apps, & we're about to start sharing an office) was playing along. It turns out Twitter lets you just jump right in to any conversation, so (five hours after the fact) I added this.

That's it. That's all my personal Twitter account is for. James starred my tweet, which was nice. Wait, is that another way of being polite? I did just jump in here. Also I seem to think a 'satirical voice' is Kenneth Williams narrating Jonathan Swift.

And if that was that, great! But instead sometimes this happens: I get 'followed' by people I meet professionally (weird how 'follow' transitions from something creepy in real life to something desired online) and, each time, I become marginally less likely to tweet. Due to cringing. Please don't read these! I'm just dicking about, here! You're welcome to glance through the half-realised pokes and grunts I pack in to those 160 characters, but subscribe to them? Are you sure you want to do that? Now I feel bad, for the inane nonsense flitting past your screen. There should be a polite way to unsubscribe somebody, for their sake.

Is it considered polite to follow back? Why? My personal Twitter account is mainly for me to see what my friends like to tweet about, not for work stuff; that's what my work twitter account is for. Not that I use it for that. My work account is subscribed to so many industry bigwigs, many of whom seem to have people tweeting full-time, going by quantity, that I never look at the thing. It's the roar of a packed crowd at a sporting event you got a free ticket for, but it's a sport you've never heard of, the ball's a funny shape, and are those horses?! Thanks, but I have to get back to work.

Nobody can have the time to hang out on TwitterWays I misspelt 'Twitter' while writing this: Teitter, Titter, Twutter (my favourite). all day. James has tried explaining to me that you dip in and out, a bit like checking the weather, I think. But people write this stuff! Don't they expect to be read? Plus, dipping in seems to be done wherever you can. I have friends who do it in the pub. Pint in one hand, phone in the other. It's like those Matrix scenes where they had indecipherable vertically-scrolling green sigils represent the interminable code of the world. They were so close; swap the green for Twitter's colours, and you're there.