Is It Just Me? by Miranda Hart Page A

them?
    You don’t need to see them – you tell them immediately online.
    But then you don’t see your friends . . .?
    Well, it’s good for, say . . . you could post pictures up there of your holiday and stuff for your friends to look at. But sometimes people other than your friends look at them. Which you know they’re going to do, and that’s sort of half the fun.
    I wouldn’t let Milly’s friend, Minnie, look at MY holiday photos. She’s creepy. She sleeps in gloves.
    Yeah, but you don’t know whether or not they’ve looked at your photos.
    Oh, great. That’s not weird at all.
    And if someone wants to get in touch but doesn’t know you that well, then they’ll just poke you or something.
    They’ll POKE you?!
    Forget it. I don’t actually do Facebook that much, anyway. I prefer Twitter, which is just messages, and people choose to follow you and what you’re saying.
    What kind of things are you saying?
    OK, let me look at my last thing I tweeted . . .
    Tweeted? What are you, a bird?
YOU ARE OFFICIALLY INSANE!
    I AM NOT! It’s called social media. Loads of people tweet.
    OK, what did you last tweet on Twitter, you twerp-er?
    I said: ‘My cat has rolled in the compost – disgusting.’ That’s not necessarily the best example. I also said afterwards: ‘Is it OK to Febreze a cat?’ which I thought was quite funny.
    * long pause * How many people are reading this groundbreaking news?
    Well, I have around half a million followers.
    OH MY GOD, ARE YOU A CULT LEADER? 500,000 followers! You must be the worst cult leader ever if you’re asking whether or not you can Febreze a cat. I don’t want to turn into you. I really don’t.
    That’s it. I’ve had enough. Little M, it’s the future and it’s going to happen, whether you like it or not. Feel free to call up your friends on your big metal plugged-in phone and tell them all about it. I’m exhausted, and I am going for a bath. MDRC, feel free to join me (but in your own bath, in your own home – our relationship isn’t quite ready for bath sharing. I don’t think any relationship’s ready for that actually: I find the idea confusing, both for reasons of logistics and hygiene). So, to MY bath. Where I shall be taking my laptop –
    What’s a laptop?
    Oh, no . . . it’s a computer. Now go away.
    WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU PUT A COMPUTER IN THE BATH?
    Give me a break! I might just want to listen to the radio –
    HOW THE HELL DO YOU LISTEN TO THE RADIO ON A COMPUTER?
    AAAAAAAHHH! Enough. This is over. Over, I tell you. OV-AH (as you can imagine, MDRC, with that spelling I said that in a very aggressive, ‘street’ way. Ov-ah, innit).
    What does
innit
mean?
    I think it means ‘isn’t it’. But I couldn’t be 100 per cent sure. Now leave me alone for I am to bath . . .
    No, you listen to
me
, granny-pants. I may only be eighteen, but I’m VERY worried about you and what this ‘technology’ is doing to you. Might I politely suggest that you’re so obsessed with screens, keeping up with trends, tweeting with thousands of unknown ‘followers’ on a computer and getting over-excited about your gadgets that you aren’t actually living a life? It seems to me that if you have a bath, you should just have a bath; if you go on a train journey, you should just go on a train journey; and when you go for walk, just be in the moment and walk, not chat on a ‘mobile’ phone. Don’t you remember we would sometimes go for a walk making up songs and little plays?
    There’s no need to share that . . .
    Don’t interrupt me, you mad digi-loon. You need to hear this. Do you remember what our life used to be like? Do you remember spending hours alone, just playing and being present and losing yourself in whatever you were doing? I think with all your gadgetry you are never really present, never really focused on making an effort to meet people and talk, because you can communicate so easily and quickly. But it’s not real communication, is it? Do