Young Adult Book - Free

I've just updated the original blog site that lists the first ten chapters of Inner City for free....

Have a read if you like... it comes with pictures! If you like what you read then follow the links and read the full book at Smashwords.

Read the blog - here

And if you like the book please let others know.... this starving writer will thank you!

Laughing Animals - Why? Why not!

Inner City - New Draft

Excerpt from Inner City - Full copy Now available at Smashwords

Chapter 1.

Callen sat on a plastic bench in the empty corridor of the Family Administration Agency. His feet swung back and forth, his eyes riveted on the large doors in front of him, his mind desperate to know what was going on behind them.

The seven year old looked out of place as he sat alone, orphaned in the cold open space. His parents, Leona and Jonathan Carrus were behind the imposing doors fighting for their lives. The City’s authorities had charged them with being financially unfit to raise a child and they were struggling to convince the Judge they could reverse their business fortunes.

 “I don’t understand why I’m looking at all this technical data,” the holographic image of the Judge said, his frustration towards the speed of the trial starting to show.

All City officials were holographs. Officials of every kind within the City worked in plush, secure buildings well away from those they had to pass judgment or enforce rules upon. Their holographs were the new government public relation conduits, projected out amongst the population and supported on the ground by minimum wage employees and automated systems that enacted their decisions.

 The holograms were projected onto a clear, reactive, computer encoded silicon substance that linked and mirrored every move the corresponding official made. In this way the three dimensional form and image of all officials, including Leona and Jonathan’s Lawyer, oversaw their duties.  

“We are demonstrating, Your Honour,” their lawyer argued, “the potential for a breakthrough. Every person in this city carries a crystal containing their personal scan, every person. That’s almost ninety million potential clients.”

The Judge was losing patience. 

“We are dealing with a very simple question of wealth. The defendants are no longer earning enough or hold enough assets to meet the requirements of parenthood and their son is not yet nine years old, so he’s eligible for reassignment. Is there anything else I should be considering?”

The Judge’s duty was a grave one, but his decision was delivered for the good of the community. Within this City the average life expectancy was one hundred and forty years and the longer lives led to overcrowding. New lives were at a premium. Each child had to be carefully assigned to those best suited to provide and raise a new citizen of the City to the standards demanded. Millions of couples were working towards a child of their own and their businesses were flourishing, not going backwards. 

While the Judge knew the pain his decision would cause in the short term, he remained convinced he was doing the right thing by all those who lived within this city’s walls.

 “Callen Carrus is to be taken from his parents and reassigned immediately to a new eligible couple who meet the financial requirements to raise a child.” The hammer fell. The decision was final.

Leona wept uncontrollably. Tears streamed down her face. Jonathan sat beside her. For the first time in his life he did nothing to comfort his wife when she needed comfort. They had lost their son. When they were granted the right to have Callen their business was going from success to success and their luck held out through the citizen’s genetic program. They were both young and proved genetically appropriate to be given permission, through the invitro process, to donate egg and sperm as the biological parents of their own child. In this modern world it was akin to winning the lottery and both Leona and Jonathan felt truly blessed.

How had it all gone so horribly wrong so quickly? Here they were, less than a decade later, listening to a judge destroy their lives and take away their child. They had lost their family. 

A guard came and stood behind Leona and Jonathan as the Judge looked to them.

“Your son is to be escorted from this building. You are to have no further contact with him and no record of his existence with you is to remain. If you try to contact the boy in any way, you will be charged and face a sentence of fifteen years incarcerated public service. Do you understand?”

Leona sobbed and nodded. Jonathan hardly moved. 

“Yes”, he said without ever taking his eyes off the Judge. They had no choice but to accept that Callen was no longer their son. 

Chapter 2.

A neat woman with a painted smile entered the far end of the corridor. She walked directly towards Callen. Her conservative skirt and button down blouse sung of her position within the government and try as Callen might to ignore her approach, he couldn’t.

“Callen”, she said from about half way down the hall. “Come with me, please”.

“I’m waiting for my parents. They’re in there”, he said pointing to the doors in front of him. 

“No, they’re not sweet-heart. Come now, I’ll explain everything”. 

Callen looked to the women. She was trying to look like a friend. She offered a hand, her delicate fingers extended. Callen jumped from his seat and ran at the large doors guarding the courtroom. He pulled hard on the handles but hardly managed to cause any movement. Callen cried out. 

“Mummy! Daddy!” 

In the courtroom Leona and Jonathan tensed to the sound of Callen’s cries. They reached for each other’s hands and squeezed tight. Legally their son was now someone else’s concern.

Callen was led down the long corridor. He struggled hard, but a dissenting seven year old proved little problem to the experienced escort.

At the end of the corridor a door swung shut behind them. The ensuing silence made a mockery of the life changing drama that had played out along the hard polished plastic floor moments before.

Callen sat in an empty room. It was the third room he’d been in since being taken from the floor housing the court rooms. Every now and then someone would come and talk him through legal protocol, but Callen’s head was swimming with information and he’d taken to pretending he understood simply to cut the complicated explanations short.

The wheels of administration were suffocating him in procedural red tape and his seven years of experience didn’t help him understand the mechanics of what was happening, no matter how well explained. All he knew for certain was that his parents were not with him and would never be with him again.

 His mind protested the fact. He remembered the lessons about families at school. The icy cold fear of every modern child surrounded him. He wasn’t going to let this happen; not to him. He wouldn’t accept reassignment. He didn’t care who his new parents were or what the law demanded, he’d never give up the parents he loved.

 Towards the end of the day, Callen was collected by a young man who took him to a dormitory. He was assigned to a bed within a plastic molded room. It was explained he’d stay for the night and then his new parents would arrive to take him to his new home. Callen said nothing. He didn’t want anyone knowing the thoughts he was having. When the reassignment was finalised he’d go with the strangers and play at being a dutiful son, but at the first opportunity he’d be away to find his old home and his real parents.

 Callen took a long time to fall asleep. As he lay in darkness his mind drifted to a memory of a holiday taken beyond the City walls, to a sister city by the beach. He’d been given a window seat on the plane and as they began their descent, Callen stared in fascination at the barren, inhospitable land they were passing over. Then he saw movement. It was a band of savage ‘Outlocked’ moving across a sandy clearing. Callen had always suspected the terrifying stories of these people were made, or at very least exaggerated to scare and entertain, but here they were, in the flesh and real, Outlocked savages.

He shrieked with fear and excitement and others went to look out their windows. Callen’s parents had to calm him. Then they answered a barrage of questions. They recited the well known facts about the Outlocked people: how they lived a poor excuse for a life in the exiled wastelands. How they’d been shut out hundreds of years before for causing dissent and threatening the economic survival of the prosperous, hard working citizens within the modern cities.

Callen was amazed to have actually seen them. When he returned to school he’d gain celebrity status over that fact. He’d seen the savages from so many popular horror movies.  

 The thought of those Outlocked creatures, so close to the walls of the resort they were travelling to frightened him so much he couldn’t sleep. He lay in darkness in his hotel bed and every time he closed his eyes the terror of the savages gripped him. His parents came each time he cried out, but they struggled to ease his fears or answer his many questions: What if they were cut off on holiday? What if they were overrun by Outlocked? What if the horror movies came true?

His parents reassured him the modern automated security systems would never let that happen. As long as he stayed inside the walls of their cities he’d stay perfectly safe; every City citizen knew this one rule by heart. Callen’s parents held him tight in their arms and it was this that helped him finally drift asleep. Now, on the first night of his reassignment, that memory of being nursed and reassured by his parents gave Callen the peace he needed to fall asleep again.

In the morning Callen woke and was taken to a shower where he was rudely scrubbed by a woman wearing rubber gloves and an apron. The task left him humiliated, but more was to follow. He was taken, still naked into a doctor’s surgery where he was strapped down on a full length chair. The chair whirred to life and stretched him out until he was lying flat out. He tried to turn his head to see all the instruments, but straps around his forehead and chin held his head firmly in place.

There was no colour in the room. There had been no colour in any of the rooms. Not the room he slept in, not the shower room, not this new room. A doctor's hologram flickered to life beside him. Even the projected image of the doctor was wearing white. Callen lay, strapped down, fully exposed, embarrassed and vulnerable. The doctor was a young woman and her holographic image mimicked her movements as she manipulated controls on a panel that caused robotic machines around Callen to buzz and whir to life. Instruments on long metal arms began to examine his body on her command.

Measurements and checks were made without any explanation. Finally the doctor spoke as she typed her notes.

“You’re a very fit young boy. You’re going to make some lucky parents a wonderful son.”  The doctor powered off and her image disappeared. 

The restraints around Callen's body snapped open. He jumped from the chair. The door to the room was open and Callen hid behind it peering out. Had everyone forgotten he was naked?

The woman who had scrubbed him down re-entered and took him by the hand. Callen couldn’t take being treated as less than human any longer.

“Can I have some clothes?” He whined. The woman looked at him in astonishment.

“You’re about to get a whole new wardrobe if you’d just be a little patient.”  Callen gave in and walked with the woman as she navigated the hallway. There was no-one else to see him, something he was extremely grateful for.

Another room waited; another white room. He sat on a cold plastic bench molded into the wall. His hands stayed fast to his lap. The woman in white left him for a moment, then re-entered, wheeling a large plastic cage. Callen stared at it. All he could think was the cage was for him; they were going to wheel him around on parade. The woman swung open a door and revealed clothes. The large mobile box was a wardrobe now displaying, shoes, socks, underpants, pants, shirts and jumpers. 

“These are all yours, paid for by the Helfners.” 

Callen had never heard of the organization and he gave a mystified look.

“Your parents,” the woman answered off his look. Callen stared motionless. In one day his entire life had been turned upside down and shaken. The woman left the room and Callen swiftly went to the cage to dress. He searched for his favourite labels. When he'd finished he looked like a mannequin in a department store, displaying the unmistakable creases that new clothes hold.

The door was still open and once Callen was happy with his appearance he walked from the room to be met again by the woman in white.

“Good, you’re finished,” she said. “We’ll get all the other clothes sent around to your home some time later today. Your Mum and Dad are waiting for you. I think they’re a little excited.”

Callen had been doing his best to remain brave, but having two strangers referred to as his ‘mum and dad’ was too much for him and he broke down in tears. Within seconds Callen was a sniffling, snorting, hyperventilating mess. The woman in white showed compassion; the tears of a seven year old had managed to reach past her hard, professional veneer. She hugged him close until his tears stopped.

“You have to be brave about this. The Helfners are going to love you very much. You’re a lucky young man.”

“I don’t want new parents. I want the ones I’ve got; they want me too, I know they do,” Callen whimpered. The woman was thrown by the statement. She didn’t know how to react.

“But you’re seven years old,” she said, as if this explained everything. Callen stared at her, searching for meaning.

“Surely you’ve been taught about families at school? You must know how people have children?” She asked.  Callen chilled. He did know. He’d been remembering the lessons since this nightmare began. He could virtually recite every word he’d ever been told about family reassignments, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept.

After a moment he reluctantly nodded that he understood. The woman showed relief. Had he not known, for whatever reason, she could have been facing a delicate situation. She moved quickly, brushing a few stray fibres from Callen’s new clothes as she encouraged his recovery.

“See if you can’t cheer yourself up. Your new parents don’t want their first sight of you to be in tears.” 

Callen ran the back of his hand across his eyes.

“Good, boy,” the woman said. “Now let’s put on a smile and go and meet your new mummy and daddy.” 

Callen was led through a door into a room of colour, a room of synthetic seats and viewer screens, a room of sound and activity and milling, expectant mothers and fathers. Raegher and Annie Helfner sprang to their feet as their number was called by the digital voice. They raced across the short space, threw their arms around and hugged Callen as if he was a long lost son, which, in a way, he was. Callen suffered the smothering without a word. There was little else he could do.

The trip home was uneventful. The route was entered in the transporter’s computer, it locked onto the magnetic tracks and both Raegher and Annie were left to tell Callen all their plans for the rest of his life. They could have been talking about revolution for all he knew. He kept nodding and changing his focus from one to the other, all the time watching the passing streets. He was frantically trying to map the direction of his old neighbourhood. The Helfner’s unit was almost two hours drive from the administration buildings. By the time they arrived Callen’s head was spinning with landmarks and turns taken and all the while the incessant chatter continued. 

On their arrival at the Helfner’s home Callen was shown straight to his new room. The walls were bright yellow. A bright blue bed with bright red cupboards set them off. A mobile of the solar system hung from the light and as the planets rotated, so did the colours they gave off. Callen was overcome with the vibrant room. He sat on the bed and the Helfners retreated to prepare for their first dinner together. Callen began planning when and how to leave this new and unfamiliar family. 

Dinner was a feast. Everything a seven year old could want; largely synthetic, but far more nourishing than anything natural. The ham and vegetable simulates were a forerunner to the sweets, a simulate ice cream pie with a crust of chocolate biscuit all covered in fudge so thick it stopped running as it cooled. Callen’s appetite had not suffered over the past twenty four hours and he happily had a third helping of dessert to the delight of his new parents. 

In bed, he was visited and kissed on the forehead no less than three times before Annie and Raegher finally turned in for the night. Callen waited a good hour, desperately trying to keep his focus, his eyelids grew heavy and he’d throw them open in a torturous battle against sleep. When he thought the time was right, he got up from his bed and silently inched along the hall to check on his new parents. They were sound asleep. He headed back to his room and rummaged quietly in his wardrobe. He located a back pack perfect for what he had in mind. He loaded the bag with anything he thought might come in useful and he left the room.  

Quietly he navigated the stairs, stopping only at the kitchen to add food. He looked at the chocolate sauce now sitting left over in a container, useful or not, he’d have that too. He closed his bag and then walked to the front door and silently opened it and left. He rode the lift to the ground floor and for the first time in days, relaxed. He was beginning his journey to find the parents he loved and refused to give up without a fight. Everything he’d planned was working out perfectly. He’d have the whole night to search before anyone ever knew he was gone. He opened the building’s door to walk out into the night. 

The building’s alarm wailed to life. A flashing light above the door lit the surrounding space with its intermittent piercing blue light. Callen couldn’t believe he’d forgotten something so obvious. Every building in every modern city had an alarm. He turned and ran. His plan would remain the same. The only thing changed was his head start.  

Stefan's Jumper

It is moving into Winter in Melbourne. 

Deep, deep in my winter closet I find the jumper Stefan bought from the second hand shop when he visited me years ago. A hideous, terrible jumper that even the second hand shop was surprised they managed to sell.

When Stefan left I tried to give this jumper to a dirty, alcoholic homeless man who had defecated in his pants and left it rather than clean himself - he wouldn't take the jumper - he said - 

"I don't want people seeing me wearing that."

 So once a year I wear this jumper in memory of my distant friend Stefan.

Inner City - Scott Norton

I recently began redrafting Inner City - my first novel, published online about two years ago. The book was listed free to try and gain a fan base as a writer and has so far downloaded close to 6000 times on both Smashwords and another site where it is available to be downloaded and read for free.

The book has had many reviews from wonderful readers who took the time to have their say on both the Goodreads and Nook Book sites. I really can't thank these people enough, strangers to me and only connected through my writing - if you are one of them, you will never know how important you are to me.

My stories evolve over time. They start like a fog and slowly clear. I don't know why and I wish they delivered themselves more fully formed - but beggars can't be choosers.

The reason for the redraft is I adapted Inner City into a screenplay and it has had some interest. That means nothing of course until finance is raised and production begins - and having been down the road before with other projects, even optioned projects, even development funding, even attached actors and directors, nothing is guarantee until the movie goes into production - and even then, cross your fingers it gets finished and released.

It also made a decent level in the Page Awards, before I withdrew, not having realised that money earned for writing TV scripts ruled a writer out of entering a screenplay. This still seems unfair to me as writing television serial drama and writing a screenplay are worlds apart - but I had definitely written more than the $25000 earned cap, so I did the right thing - embarrassed to not have read the rules properly before entering, I might add.

But, adapting the story for the screen and making it fit the 105 - 115 page model meant I had to make some very tough choices. Not all worked, but a couple ended up being so much better in story structure terms that I have been compelled to change the original to meet the story of the screenplay in those few areas. It makes the story far more suspenseful, it creates better rendered secondary characters and it will hopefully give me a chance to attract a publisher. It suddenly occurred to me, since I posted the book online two years ago, I haven't sent it to anyone.

The reason for this is that as a writer you go through peaks and troughs and somewhere around 2009/2010 I came very close to throwing in the towel. I had lots of work as a free script doctor, was involved in many volunteer production projects, writing and directing shows for the Melbourne International comedy festival etc, but unless I went back to working on television shows in production and giving up the dream of finding a way to tell my stories my way and getting them to an audience, it seemed I'd hit a brick wall.

That's when I published online. I published under my middle name of Norton to make sure friends and family didn't review or download - I wanted an unbiased view of whether or not my stories were worth telling.

So thanks to everyone who downloaded and a special thanks to those who reviewed - especially those who gave me the good with the bad. This sounds far too dramatic than it needs to be - but those people, for good or bad, have kept me writing. They are why I decided to try and tell the story as a film, my first choice in storytelling and the one I'm most experienced in, and they are also why I'm redrafting. My view is, nothing I write will ever be as good as I would like it to be - but with the help of those who have taken an interest and commented, Inner City is certainly headed in the right direction.

Will Inner City ever be offered for free again? Of course - to those who ask. If you read some of my blog posts, you will know I advocate free content in the belief that, if something is good enough, the free samples will generate paying customers down the track. Maybe by word of mouth or maybe through the next item produced... so feel free to ask for a copy... like some have already done. Ask and you shall receive.

As soon as the story is redrafted I will make sure those who asked get a free copy. And it's my pleasure to do so. Enjoy reading!

Google the Evil Face of Facebook.

I find advertising to be the scourge of a modern life. I've never understood how companies, big and small, are allowed to blatantly lie in an effort to farm our dollars and not be held accountable. From the ordinary on TV, radio and in films, to the billboards, spam and fliers plastered across every opportunity to reach an individual.

When I lived in other countries I marveled at the blatant lies of advertising. The German doctors on Polish television promising cures for the incurable, the large multinational pharmaceutical companies in Indonesia pushing 'whitening' skin cream and the blaggards in Russia selling devices that make fat literally drop off while you sit watching television and nosh on a bucket of chips.

Thank goodness I live in an advanced society that doesn't allow advertising to be conducted with such amoral codes of conduct.

Then I began to take note of the actors in white lab coats pushing scientific breakthroughs in beauty products - has anyone yet defined 'Hypoallergenic'? There are spruikers on television pushing products under the guise of finding us, the viewer, the best product on grounds of health, price and convenience and all that information is presented in a thirty second breaking news bulletin under headings like consumer watch or brand facts.

In friends we saw Joey, the human dildo, hired as the 'average person' who simply could not work the spout mechanism on a standard milk carton. Luckily for him there was a five dollar product that would solve this annoying problem and allow him to get his daily milk. How we laughed at the stupidity of it. But we still allow hundreds of like products to advertise in just this way.

Why more of these 'idiot' neighbours haven't ended their lives by misadventure in some sort of Darwinian cull is beyond me. They seem unable to do anything - like the woman who seems to have a complete mental breakdown because she can't match the lids to her Tupperware! These people fall off ladders, strangle themselves with hoses and burn their hands with spilled cooking fat. They need George Forman's grill pronto or they'll be in emergency faster than you can say - 'but wait, there's more'.

I remember seeing Minority Report and thinking what a scary advertising-centric world we were heading for. The smartphone has made that a reality and will soon be talking to us with displays we pass and teeing up messages designed especially for us. It will read our calls and search our conversations for key words to make a profile that determines what gets advertised to us and when. We will become human spam magnets with every word we utter and thought we divulge a trigger for that next great offer.

But no-one saw Facebook or Google coming.

They have us lining up to do all the dirty work of recording our lives for them. We like, record, watch and declare our every interest. It is the data collectors wet dream of personal information. These online juggernauts have put an end to those pesky clipboard people who try to catch your eye as you rush from A to B. They have taken the place of the recorded personal information at the checkout where any snippet of information tying you to your purchase would be used to direct other products at you down the track. It is the beginning of the end of those little boxes on forms that ask if you want whatever company is behind whatever you are signing, to send you further offers and marketing opportunities in the future. Now they no longer need to ask because you will volunteer to look without being prompted.

Facebook and Google have become the ultimate personal profilers. They see our likes and dislikes, they records the pages that make us click and those we ignore, they sift through our contacts and the things that made us act or stay passive. George Orwell envisaged Big Brother as a central amoral government hell bent on control of individuals in order to maintain their control over the masses. Oh so close! It's not the government that cares about everything we do, at least not the old form of government. It is the new form of capitalist government that cares - the multinational branded government. It is the boards of the international companies, the conglomerates, the mighty One Percent. They want to know everything you do, not to benefit you, but to benefit them by enticing more dollars from your pocket for all manner of things.

“Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don’t have on something they don’t need.” (Will Rogers)

Recently I noticed a surprising number of my friends were liking large multinational corporations on Facebook: the huge supermarket and discount chain stores, financial giants, beauty and pharmaceutical companies. When I saw a particular friend or other had liked one of these corporate behemoths I would stare in wonder at how and why? Has my greener than green, tree loving Miranda really sold her soul to become a corporate spruiker? Suddenly my Facebook news feed is filled with such likes from friends. I would guesstimate a third of all posts are from friends, posting links designed to appeal directly to me with offers from some companies that eerily match exactly what I have been looking at recently online.

The tip off to this camouflaged advertising is, as a writer, I research many weird and wonderful things. To write this I have already searched at least three sites I have no personal desire to re-visit or act on by purchasing anything, but no doubt in the next few days my friends will 'like' a series of purchasing 'opportunities' on Facebook that relate directly to what I have looked up. And on Google the sidebar sponsored links will be full of all sorts of revealing and personal offers that relate to my age and things I have liked or sites I have visited in the last few days.

Do they really think I have a friend who would like a cordless impact drill so much they felt the need to shout about it to all and sundry?

I am being asked more and more to link or shout about my purchases when I make them. Pages want to know my views, my web explorations want to be linked and all of these, if I agree or press the wrong button, those actions will automatically list a product or site through my Facebook profile, creating an enticing portal for my friends to click and visit.

We have unwittingly become one of those annoying people with the clipboard trying to grab someone with offers they have no time to hear. I already receive too much spam from Youtube, Linkedin and Twitter about posts or updates that may interest me - they rarely do and the idea that my online activities are now generating more of the same for all I know is shocking.

Where will the restraint come from. What will be the comparative online 'do not call' register - a register that has tried to tackle that strange distant phone line that clicks at me around dinner time, where an oddly accented Filipino or Indian with access to a phone addresses me by name and follows an 'oh-so-polite' script, that promises me a very special offer that involves an upfront garuantee not to try and  sell me anything - and then they try and sell me everything.

Controls always follow well behind a developing technology or practice. It usually takes until the penis enlargement people get your direct mailing address before legislation is brought on, chiefly through annoyance of enough people to demand action.

I predict Facebook and Google will go the same way and we will have to endure endless postmortem committees set up to discuss, uncover and get to the bottom of why such an invasive personal affront was allowed unchecked for so long. Because who could ever have predicted that a young man given billions in his twenties, who modeled his fortune generating, fact finding beast on a design that rated hot chicks, could ever turn out to be amoral in his design of the ultimate capitalist money generating profiler. Winkle twins - want to weigh in here?

Facebook and Google now pervade and invade my everything, When I have that chilling health scare that makes me diagnose myself to a sure death online, I find my Google and Facebook ads only moments behind, offering therapies and counseling. It is the equivalent of the salesman turning up at the wake to sell a burial plot to the widow.

The Tweet that made Anne Frank a Belieber.

Twitter is revealing just how hard it is to be a celebrity.

Imagine if everything you did and said was interpreted and used to highlight a cause or taken personally?

The comedian who tells a joke about cancer, or deafness, or being overweight and suddenly has an audience member heckle and scream of offence because they are personally affected by the issue; a family member died or suffered or they have battled through whatever is now the butt of the joke.

I am a master at upsetting my small circle of friends and family over things I say without enough thought. Imagine what it must be like to have every word you speak analysed and taken to heart by millions.

Being a celebrity is clearly hard work. The ones who master the art of not offending, of being supportive and gracious towards fans shine long and bright. The ones who fall foul are quickly cut off at the knees or allowed to wither and die as a fallen star.

Recently Justin Beiber visited Anne Frank's house and wrote in their visitor's book this: "Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber."

This was tweeted by the Frank house - very cleverly - as it will no doubt attract huge publicity and thousands or visitors. Bieber has been pilloried for being egotistical and making a tragic event within the holocaust about him. 

The tweeted words don't have room to explain the curator of the Frank house had been talking to Bieber of how Anne was heavily influenced and into the pop culture of the day and would most likely have been one of his fans had they shared the same time together. That is why Beiber wrote what he wrote. Out of context he's a self absorbed narcissist.

In context, as a 19 year old, he may well have been flattered by the idea of one of the world's most remembered teens being a fan. Certainly no one has made much comment of the very thoughtful comments he wrote before the belieber reference.

Lady Gaga tweeted:  "Just killed back to back spin classes. Eating a salad dreaming of a cheeseburger #PopSingersDontEat #IWasBornThisWay."  

She was attacked for advocating severe dieting.

Gwyneth Paltrow was labelled a racist when she twittered the N word - only to later explain it was the title of a song. The furore realised their mistake,

Miley Cyrus infuriated fans over this: "You are all stardust. You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded... So forget Jesus. Stars died so you could live." 

Fans of Jesus tweet: "Miley, you are dead to us - Bitch!"

There are countless other 'Twitterstorm' contoversies. 

Some justified like Gilbert Gottfried tweeting that -"Japan is so advanced - they don't go to the beach the beach comes to them," before the waters of the tsunami had receeded.

Others are overblown and overhyped and perfectly illustrate how, as a celebrity being scrutinized, it is probably better, certainly easier to say nothing. Because saying anything will always offend someone. 

Twitter, that stupid short spray of ideas that was lampooned for it's modern irrelevance and inability to address any issue in enough depth to ever be important, turns out to be the most important social media tool going around. Why? Because it does two things well - it condenses ideas into the modern attention span and much like the log line of the pitch to a good film, allows people to grasp the idea being tweeted in 10 seconds or less. And two - it condenses complicated ideas into their bare bones - not allowing elaboration or spin - it just has room for the core idea - and often, as with both the radical left and radical right - be they from the media, politics or everyday life, that core idea is clouded in emotive, caressing rhetoric and backed up by massaged facts and figures to make that harmful, spiteful, self serving core idea seem plausible and less offensive. 

Not so the naked tweet.

To tweet is to live or die by your ideas and true beliefs without any spin or supporting propaganda. You cannot hide your central theme in misdirection in an attempt to make a hurtful or misinformed idea seem more palatable to the masses.

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the tweet is proving to be instant death unless you know how to use it.