Warning. May contain nuts.

Some Tweeters should come with a health warning: “Hair Trigger. Do not disturb” Then again many Tweeters arrive in this virtual playground pre-disturbed and ready to fly off the handle at the least provocation. I enjoy a good argument as well as the next, but in order to argue you sort of have to be able to get a word in edgeways. I fully admit to having stoked the coals in the first place, but I didn’t need to fan the flames as what somebody described as a “misandrous harpie “ got to sticking me the big one. As I write this, the formerly frequent contributor has not tweeted a single thing since. Maybe venting all her spleen on me was cathartic, in which case I reckon I should be able to charge a fee; I’m a doctor now.

So, it all kicked off when I investigate a re-tweeted comment and found the following string of tweets, seemingly prompted by no particular event, just a hatred of all things Tory:

“One of the most incredible things about the Tories is their Malevolent Arrogance and their comfort with lies and distortions of the truth”

“One of the most incredible things about Britain is the imposed class structure and the way that many people 'believe' and buy into it”

“One of the most incredible things about people in Uniforms is the way that they believe in the over-inflated plastic authority vested in it”

“The Tory edict is based upon Fascist ideology - how much more demonisation of those with the least must you see to understand this.”

To which I, being a heartless brute of the right, responded:

@Nutter You silly, gullible fool... How the socialists must chortle when they see how you fell for that line.”

That was the previous evening. When I returned the next day, there was a reply:

@Battsby I say, let them chortle - if your uniform is anything to go by I can glean the sanctimonious political nincompoop behind it...

This was, of course, a reference to my current Twitter avi, which just happens to be an old photograph of me, but as a rule a Twitter avi is generally fairly poor grounds for drawing conclusions. As a sanctimonious political nincompoop, I felt compelled to deliver what I naïvely assumed would be a Parthian shot before getting a cup of tea to start the day:

@Nutter  Haha! Enjoy the bleak emptiness of a life of 'equality' under your ideologues.

@Battsby I will Battersby, and you enjoy a bland and meaningless existence behind a military uniform believing the contents of your pants

I’m assuming she ran out of characters at that point – the Twitter equivalent of drawing breath, because she immediately followed up with:

@Battsby (you cock-hair)

Well, I’m one nasty muthafucka because instead of leaving well alone I responded with this unnecessary and ultimately unworthy jibe:

@Nutter Oh, you're one angry lefty aren't you? Daddy didn't love you enough, was it?

It went quiet for a while from her end, so I thought it was all done and dusted, but on reflection she was obviously writing her response. In the meantime a few of my followers were monitoring the exchange, re-tweeting bits and adding some comments of their own. Well, talk about lighting the blue touch paper… to comprehend what happened next you need to know one thing about Twitter - the one thing that nearly everybody knows – and it’s this. You are limited to 140 characters per tweet. So what I render below as a dense stream of consciousness was delivered, rapid-fire, onto my timeline in a series of 23 separate tweets. Are you ready?

“first, I noticed that you brought a lot of 'friends' with you to 'make your point', which has 'no point' save the insults you began - this is the kind of action I credit to mindless jerks who have no point save their own inflated sense of righteousness - otherwise known a s'bullying' - s'funny really because it was Orwell who stated that 'the word fascist doesn't really mean anything - to British people, the word 'bully' is used with more weight and the same meaning' but herein, fascist will suffice - secondly, i can sense through your sense of self-entitlement that you are indeed right-wing and militarist, most likely the kind - the kind of chaps who enjoy dishing out a good kicking on behalf of an ideology that you have absolutely no understanding of - save the uniform, the pay and the sense of entitlement you are bestowed from other, bigger, wealthier bullies who will insist that - British Imperialism has always been and will always be the only way forward. On this basis i would say that all of you to a man - are most likely excellent Misogynists and will probably have enjoyed a gang rape or two on your way around the globe, almost - certainly stopping to agonise about the whole thing in some London Dungeon as you take it up the ass whilst in rubber bondage - probably because I spend a lot of time insulting the Right - big mistake Battsby, but you single-minded one celled chaps can only - see things in black and white terms, its probably your military training, but its also miost likely a sign of in-breeding somewhere - back in the family trree, the kind of thinking that leads you to conclude, all to readily, that there is only either black or white - opinions in the world, Fourthly, and probably most importantly, you have demonstrated a complete lack of understanding - when it comes to 'Fascism', old fascism when it was originally incepted by the Italians, and modern fascism, which is Corporate and - like all and any political ideology, has changed and adapted to 'suit' the needs and changes of the 21st century-Corporate fascism - is a relatively new phenomena which most people do not understand, however, its alliance with militarism, perjorative treatment - of minorities, bullying, use of private venture to further state ambitions and its love of uniform still ring true to the core - ideals of original Fascism, so I don't think you're in any position to lecture me about something that you don't understand yet - obviously buy into and hold dear because you appear to have become 'inflamed' by my use of. But please, don't mind me, do carry on - with your fascistic views, bullying, trolling and use of your friends voices to try to stifle mine - I am happy to watch a vapid - collection of uniformed pricks prove my point by demonstrating themselves to be nothing more than a gang of idiotic ill informed - misogynistic bullies x” [sic]

Don’t you just hate it when people won’t come straight out and just say what they mean?