Among many people tweeting lies about me, @NickyAACampbell, @GaryLineker and @Rylan yesterday was someone called @AndyPlumb4

I do not know who Andy Plumb is, but a defamation lawyer advised me that what he did on Twitter yesterday is the quickest way to lose £20,000. I messaged Andy to that effect:

A quick 🧵 that might warm your heart a little. Below you can see the “Lady in Red Plasterer” last night, along with @itn news anchor @NinaHossain (I should say that the Lady in Red, @NaimaBenmoussa3, is on the right 😉). 2. So Naima is a plasterer with red hair. But there's much more to her story. A year ago one of my producers, @RebeccaHBM @BBCRadio2, saw this photo in the Buxton Advertiser.

I'm not at home at the moment, so these guys just served an “anti-vaxx writ” on my wife instead. They are angry at the BBC’s #CovidVaccine reporting. They were polite, for which I'm grateful, but coming to my home on a Sunday? And I'm a little unnerved by the heavy breathing too I have only just seen this: if my wife hadn't accepted the “anti-vaxx writ” on my behalf, this group waiting near my house would then have “taken the whole street.” The original video shows street name and house number really clearly.
Always happy to engage but not like this.

Journalists of the future. Chatting with the @PalatinateUK team @durham_uni yesterday. So great to see people who are totally committed so young. Sorry to Amelia who got cut off on the left of frame. The event was organised by the great @TCHL who I've know since the last century and who I was delighted to see is settling into his new job as Master of @South_CollegeDU, Durham's newest college. Tim’s been a BBC editor and editor of @TheScotsman and he will be ace in this job

Thread. Here's what happened when I brought together a very old thing and a very new thing.
The old thing — it's not me — is a penny farthing bicycle.
1/ The penny farthing was invented in 1880. The large front wheel was necessary because, although mass steel production had allowed spokes to be built for bike wheels, as yet they didn't have bicycle chains and therefore gears.
2/

Thread. I recently reported this Lamborghini driver.
/1 You'll see from the still pic that he ran a red light — in fact, the whole body of his car was the wrong side of the line.
The key moment in my original tweet is here.
/2

I guess this will be my last time on the High Street Kensington cycle lane. They have only been in place for two months, and they are reportedly being ripped out next week after residents' complaints. But I had an interesting encounter when I headed there today: And from Pimlico Plumbers, an accidental endorsement of the whole reason behind building separate space for cycling

Here's how I got hacked on WhatsApp. Hoping this helps you avoid the same experience! The first thing that happened was pretty unexciting: I got a text message, for no obvious reason.

Last night saw exceptional levels of traffic near my home in west London. This was caused in part by a serious car crash in Shepherds Bush. But there was also a massive surge onto the roads by people running errands, including Christmas shopping, before the second lockdown. Disappointingly, a number of people have since used the exceptional traffic levels to argue that places like Chiswick, Kensington and Hammersmith should now rip out all their cycle lanes — which have only just been put in place after years of campaigning.

THREAD. Today I turn 55 with the country still mostly in lockdown ("happy birthday to me"), so living in the present is weird enough. But I will also be remembering these thirty-one men, average age 40. Around 25 years ago, the BBC threw out some tatty books which were their (very old) way of cataloguing their sound archive. I kept one and found my birthday, 17/5/65 in it. That's how I first heard about the Cambrian Colliery explosion which happened in 1965, the day I was born.

Loads of people say, “How can there be any downside to wearing a mask to stop #Coronavirus?” And it's true, you'd think at the very least a facemask outdoors can do no harm. Since I've now done about 25 interviews on the subject I thought I would summarise the arguments against: 1. You touch your face more. You may even touch *under* the mask because your nose and lips itch.

Here's my five-step guide to appearing on TV programmes via Skype or Facetime. We are seeing some very weird shots at the moment, so ... 1. Put the sun BEHIND the camera. I am currently watching a cabinet minister who is sitting in front of a window. Her iPad is having a nervous breakdown, focusing on her net curtain instead of her face. Smartphones can't help it — they always search for light.

Difficult to put this into a short thread, but I'll try.
One of the greatest British bands, Joy Division, had only been professional for six months when their lead singer Ian Curtis took his own life aged 23 in 1980.
Devastated, the remaining members formed New Order. New Order enjoyed spectacular success in the eighties, most notably with Blue Monday — a dance song with a gothic feel. At the heart of their sound, as with Joy Division, was the bass guitar of Peter Hook.