Who is going to follow Darlington?

No post yesterday!! Sorry all about not posting the promised quality post. My laptop had an unfortunate run in with a glass of Sprite. Let me tell you all now, if there is a glass of fizzy, sugary pop by your laptop, MOVE IT. It seems to be that you can throw a Toshiba laptop in the boot of a car, drop it from a great hight, even leave it in direct sunlight for 6 days straight, but it just simply won't tolerate a glass of ice cold Sprite being poured over it! Anyway thanks to a next day delivery from e-buyer, we are back and able to blog.

Any way on to the main reason for the bog, which I stumbled upon at itsopen.co.uk. It turns out that towns are now Twittering. If individuals and businesses can tweet, then why not towns too? Darlington in County Durham has appointed a “tweeter in residence” whose job it will be to alert citizen followers to what’s occurring in the area. Many towns and cities have artists and writers in residence, so why not a Twitterer, says the Darlington Partnership, the organisation behind it.

A non-essential service? A waste of taxpayers money? Perhaps, but this is a job for an enthusiast, and secondary teacher Mike McTimoney, who has taken the role, is only being paid £140 a year for what he clearly sees as a labour of love, rather than paying for a social media consultancy

It should be good for local arts, as well as for building crowds at events organised by charities and public organisations. If it takes off perhaps we’ll start seeing other local authorities following suit.