Clarkson on Twitter?

The latest bandwagon our illustrious British celebrities (especially the cooler ones) seem to be jumping on is that bastion of micro content - Twitter.

Stephen Fry is a regular Twitterer and has something like 30 thousand plus followers - mainly because he is actually a very good twitterer with interesting things to say.

Robert Llewellyn is also on Twitter (AKA Kryten) with something like 2000 followers and, killing time before getting back on the air in a couple of months, Jonathan Ross (under the username Wossy).

And now (although I’m still not convinced it is actually him - a post on the Top Gear Transmission blog would go a long way to proving it) none other than Jeremy Clarkson has found himself tweeting away.

In fact I WILL need to see a post on Top Gear.com to believe it really actually truly is him - until then I’ll read it as if being written by a Clarkson/Top Gear fan.

When I first checked this morning JC had around 250 followers - at the time of writing this blog post (12:45) he has nearly 550 and it seems to be increasing every time I refresh.

His first post was on 19 November as was the second but then nothing else until 29 December. There have been new posts every couple of days since then with five so far today alone.

If this really is Clarkson he may well be the first Brit to beat the American Technorati into the top five on Twitterholic - although Stephen Fry might just beat him to it.

What other British geeky celebs would you like to read on Twitter?

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Kryten Kryten Kryten Kryten

I was going to write a post about one of my new favourite shows and it was going to be called ‘Love the Show - Hate the Player’. That isn’t the name of the show, just the name of the post.

The show is called Top Trumps - it basically does what it says on the tin and sees two grown men playing real life Top Trumps.

One of those men is Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf, Scrap Heap Challenge, Various uber geek web projects) and the other is Ashley Hames (Sin Cities).

The idea is a simple one, in fact as simple as the game that inspired it. Robert goes in one direction looking for something (first episode was a boat, second was a plane) and Ashley goes and looks for something else of the same thing.

They test their things out, see what they can do and gather facts. They then meet at the end to swap notes and gather scores - and as with Top Trumps the winner is the one with the most high scores (the best card).

It’s a simple format for a show but one that works so well that I’m shocked it hasn’t been made before to be honest.

The series started on the 8th September but I didn’t hear about it until after that - actually through a Tweet by Robert Llewellyn himself.

This is where the crap player bit of my title comes in - it has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with the fact the Five insists (as does 4 and ITV) on using that craphole piece of arse - Windows Media Player - as its platform of choice.

But I don’t want to talk about any of that. Not the brilliant new series, not five’s arse end of a donkey’s nutsack of a player - no I want to talk about Red Dwarf.

The actual bit that the title refers to

You see I’ve been so busy with work recently that I missed a story that would normally have had me heading for Wordpress within seconds - Red Dwarf is coming back.

Now I’ve already admitted to being a member of the fan club as a teenager - I own all the DVDs twice (box set for saving, vanillas for watching), have brought the books and the Audiobook versions of those books.

Image via Wikipedia I’m now trying to get my five year old son into it - he likes the slapstick but, and quite rightly, most of it goes well over his head.

Anyway back to the point. Red Dwarf is coming back. Let me say that again: RED DWARF IS COMING BACK!!!

After what is approaching a ten year break - Robert Llewellyn has let on (at a convention and on MacBreak Weekly with Leo Laporte) that there will be some kind of special episode or mini series.

I don’t know anything else about it and I’m guessing you all knew about this long before me (the video at the top of the page was originally posted last week and the MacBreak Weekly was also from last week (I’m seriously behind on my podcast - I’ve got about 40 to listen to if I want to catch up - and I do) and I think the originally story was like two weeks ago.

So I think, with all that in mind - the only thing left to be said is: RED DWARF IS COMING BACK!!!

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Kryten is on Twitter

I’m like most people who use Twitter - I have a love hate relationship with it. My divide falls along the lines of loving how easy it makes spouting bollocks and I hate how addictive it can get.

The other thing I hate is how often it seems to not be working, how for what seemed like several generations of time, it wouldn’t let me check responses or look at older posts.

I hate the stupid whale.

But there is more to love - especially now I’ve discovered Ping.fm that automatically lets me post the same comment to Pounce, Jaiku, Twitter, Facebook and others.

What I also love is that more people are suddenly discovering Twitter - people both famous and funny, not famous and funny and just plain dull but worthy.

The latest discovery - I say discovery but that’s only because I’ve just found him - is Robert Llewellyn - his posts have been pretty much about the mundanity of his life so far.

It’s not just his life though - it’s HIS LIFE - it’s about the projects he is currently working on and gives you an insight into the behind the scenes of a British geek icon.

This guy played a robot in the greatest sci-fi comedy in televisual history.

It’s KRYTEN and he’s on Twitter - how cool is that. It’s so tough to contain my childhood fanboyness - I was in the fan club, I obsessed over this series as a teenager - it was a big part of my teen years.

Fortunately I don’t obsess like that any more - ok so I might have every book by each of the three Top Gear presenters, I might have print outs of all their columns, I might have every Top Gear DVD released, I might have every Clarkson, Hammond and May DVD (TG related or not) and I might have it all organised alphabetically - but thats just a normal geek obsession.

I have a similar one, although not as extreme for Doctor Who - the toys are for my children - honest!

Robert Llewellyn has always been a cutting edge British celeb - he was at the forefront of online video before it became fashionable, he had a website and posted content before blogs and podcasts were an essential part of modern broadcast.

So it makes sense he is on Twitter. The question is who will be the next celebrity British geek to take the plunge - I’m thinking it will be Dave Gorman or Danny Wallace and would be first in line to follow Stephen Fry or Ricky Gervais.

In fact if Fry or Gervais ever sign up you could probably say goodbye to Twitter but it would be worth it for the five posts they’d get out before it dropped dead.

Now Robert only had 76 followers at the time of posting - he deserves more - he’s a legend. So go follow him at twitter.com/bobbyllew.

Oh and it looks like he’s a Twit fan - he follows both Twit Live and Leo Laporte so if by some small miracle Leo ever reads this - get Robert on the show as he would be amazing.

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