REVISIT SERIES -  An edited post from October 2009 Some of the old posts I'm revisiting are merely still interesting (hopefully), but I was surprised to see as far back as 2009 that the impact of social media on the spread of news and views was already clear, even if I perhaps underplayed the negatives. It's also notable as I had totally forgotten about this story in writing my new book,   Brainjacking , out next month, which very much picks up on the way the ability of storytelling to inform, influence and manipulate has been amplified by technology, from writing through to AI. There has been much comment  and complaint  in the electronic world as a result of  Jan Moir's unpleasant Daily Mail article  about the death of  Stephen Gately . What I found most fascinating was how out of touch Moir was in her response to the wave of complaint that surged around the internet like a tsunami. She described this as a 'heavily orchestrated internet campaign.' Th...

Halfway through the poppy field - it was rather impressive On Monday I had the pleasure of taking on another stretch of the Ridgeway (just two or three more to reach Ivinghoe Beacon!). As usual the walk was a mix of tracks and paths through farmers' fields, and at one point I felt I had been transported to Afghanistan. Because we were walking through a huge field of poppies. It is striking how much the media influences our thinking, because the only association I could come up with immediately was that these must be opium poppies. Despite being on one of the best-known long-distance footpaths in the country, I nervously joked with my walking companion that any moment we were going to come across the farmer toting a machine gun and shooting anyone who discovered his crop. Even beyond the joke, the first assumption was that these poppies were being grown for opium, though admittedly for a more benign application in the production of morphine for medicine. And perhaps they we...