For a long time I swore that Twitter was a step too far for me. Now I am slowly getting to grips with it. Is anyone out there on it? If so I am @emily_barr, the one looking baffled in the corner.

Meanwhile, in the real world, I am off to a primary school tomorrow, to talk to the children about what it is really like being an author. I am slightly hampered by the fact that they are not my target audience and my new book is wildly unsuitable for them, so scanning through it for a passage to...