My thoughts were:

1. He seems a bit keen – we’ve only just got reacquainted.
2. Why is he asking me to join him on Bebo – he’s even older than me.

A few days later, the explanation came:

If you have ever emailed me, or been e-mailed by me, you probably received an invitation to join Bebo a few days ago … I wanted to see how the ‘invitation’ system worked so I let it see my Gmail address book, and – you know how it is – when it offered me the option of mailing everyone or just picking one or two people, I somehow managed to reverse it.

As it happens, Paul isn’t the first. Facebook also makes it a little too easy to email everyone in your address book, and several old chums have got back in touch with me that way (or so they say – I prefer to think that they were just itching to contact me but were too shy to say).

One reason for making such mistakes is summed up by Steve Krug, who eight years ago published “Don’t Make Me Think”, the first (and still the best) book I ever read on web usability: ”The main thing you need to know about instructions [on web pages] is that no one is going to read them – at least not until after repeated attempts at ‘muddling through’ have failed.” And us seasoned web hacks are the least likely to read instructions – and therefore the most likely to screw up. 

On the other hand, Paul’s more succinct explanation probably says it all:

In fact, search for Baby P on Facebook and you’ll find more than 500 groups – never mind members. Some are more upfront in their aims:

• DIE A SLOW PAINFULL DEATH TO THE BASTARDS WHO DONE THIS TO BABY “p”
• get the scum social workers sacked who didnt help baby p
• Baby P Killers should be hanged Drawn and Quartered
• BEAT THE PARENTS TO DEATH WHO KILLED BABY P

After a while it becomes hard to distinguish reality from parody, though I suspect Slaughter those who allowed Baby P to die, in the face is the latter:

this group is 4 every1 who hates the mother and other ppl who were lukin after baby p. fuckin scum. join this group and express your absolute horror at nu labour for allowin this to happen. thanks to gordon brown and useless social workers, this poor child who i really care about, is dead. its because of nu labour’s negligence that this child was allowed to die, i hate them. did i mention that i hate nu labour? hang every1 in nu labour and hang every social worker in the country. then find the sick mother by using social networkin websites like facebook and hang her. then rape her dead body and cut her breasts off, fry them in a wok and send photographs in to the daily express so that they can join in the RIGHTEOUSNESSEz.

Much more terrifying than any self-righteous anger is the mawkishness of discussions such as what song to dedicate to Baby P (which isn’t a parody – as far as I can tell). Suggestions include James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful”, Celine Dion’s “Fly” and Chris Rea’s “Tell Me There’s a Heaven”. The Rea track is proving a hit, and has – inevitably – gained its own 8,000-strong group, A song for Baby P. Please join 2 make this happen!!! Shouldn’t there be a law against this sort of thing? Or at least a Facebook group?

Meanwhile, I was wondering whether my own group could benefit from a change of tone – perhaps a poem in praise of capital gains tax OR LOTS OF SWEARY CAPITALS – when I came across the eminently sensible Stop the fake moral outrage over Baby P and give the council a break:

Manifesto:
1. There are hundreds of children a year who die because of neglectful or violent parents. If you care, do some voluntary work; give money to a good cause; or become a social worker.
2. Don’t sign up to mindless groups simply to ease misplaced guilt.
3. Councils do not have enough money to maintain the excellent levels of service they provide or to recruit and train the additional staff they need. If you must blame someone, blame central government for cutting the money they give to councils.

Then again, they’ve only got eight members. FUCKING LOSERS.