Gia Malinovitch has written quite a thought-provoking article in The Guardian today (28th August 2010) - the subject of said article is as per the title of this blog, with the added tagline "Invisible Wife Syndrome".

I thought it quite a thought-provoking and very well written piece - reflecting the the (bad) behaviour of today's media-connected public that have their fads and fashions together with their inherent rudeness.

Just for your information, Gia is American (born in Minnesota) and presented such shows as Channel 4's Demolition Day, Sky Sports, Nickleodeon and Radio 5 Live shows as well as providing the "geeky" IT support for the BBC Programme "Electric Dreams" in 2009. She's a photographer, mother and blogger, describing herself as "American ex-pat, a science groupie and professional dork." She produces websites and writes. So it isn't as if she's never done anything, eh?

In her article (at http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/28/invisible-wife-syndrome-celebrity-relationships?CMP=twt_iph) she describes her life living with her husband Professor Brian Cox (oh him, I hear you say!) and his fame since presenting his hit TV programme series "Wonders of the Universe", of which he is just about to commence filming the second series. She describes the prejudices [towards her] surrounding them both, as his fame "took hold" and she describes the sheer ignorance of people in general.

So this - as the title suggests - is a blog entry about Twitter. Not really a rant as such, but more of a comment on the idiosynchrasies of the general public - of which I am a member.

I've been a "twitterer" for quite some time now - since around June 2009 and I have to say that I do enjoy using and reading tweets quite a lot!

For those that aren't familiar - Twitter is what is known as a "microblogging" environment. In other words, you get 140 characters to comment on anything (and possibly nothing in particular). So it could be anything from advertising something, informing people of something, or even what you're going to have for tea.

Sometimes I am (probably) more than a little slow to pick things up. These aren't objects that I've dropped. No. These are things that people write or sometimes say. Takes me a little while to pick up the gist of things. This is not due to a bad education, either. I had a very good Grammar School education thank you, even involved some classics along the way (Latin was just awful).

However. Reviews, or what's probably more to the point, reviewers, is what I'm meant to be ranting about. Reviews have been around for many, many years of course. Ever since people started entertaining other people, there have been the Critics and therefore the written reviews.

Before the dawn of the Internet (and blogging) the review was usually written in newspapers, by usually the same people. So you wanted to see a show, read the review in the newspapers, then make your own mind up (based on the information written by the reviewer) whether you want to see it or not. That's pretty much stayed the same for many years, television reviews were commonplace (and probably still are) in the popular press.

Now, of course, the Internet brings a whole new medium to the review process. Blogging, microblogging and the accessiblility of the Internet from almost any device nowadays means that anyone can be a reviewer or a blogger. Prime example is me blogging here, of course.