Scrabbling for news

Booker-winning author faces Antipodean pop princess in internet word-off. Dave looks on in wonder

Ah, the internet - how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Where else could I bid against fellow functioning members of society for an (all-too-rare) copy of Lauren Laverne's solo EP? Or settle a pub argument concerning the difference between apes and monkeys in a matter of seconds? And where else could you find Salman Rushdie and Kylie Minogue "locked in a Scrabble deathmatch series"?

Official confirmation that Twitter is no longer solely for narcissists and social unrest enthusiasts arrived this week in the shape of Salman Rushdie joining the micro-blogging site. The novelist has already Tweeted fellow highbrow celebs including Stephen Fry and Bret Easton Ellis, and become involved in a hotly contested word-based challenge with everyone's fave pint-sized Aussie popstrel. Fair enough.

I read this story on the website of a left-leaning national paper - to spare its blushes, let's call it The Grauniad - and some of its readers were none too happy about its reporting this as news.

One commenter said: "This ‘article' feels to me like it's just pointless padding, writing for writing's sake, and would be more suited to the pages of a mindless glossy celeb mag."
Which is where I got the idea for covering this in CRN.