Dominic Cummings has achieved the impossible and united the nation | Elise Brewerton

I wasn’t convinced though and it took me a few years to really get it.

Now I’m hooked. I love the political gossip – it feels as if you have a direct line to the corridors of Westminster if you follow the right people.

And I follow people across the political spectrum because there is no point living in an echo chamber.

My partner is conservative but makes it a habit of his to get wound up by the left-wing commentators he follows, on a daily basis.

It is not good for his blood pressure.

The memes are tremendous and, overall, most people can spell and string a sentence together – unlike on Facebook.

You follow people you share interests with, rather than because they are your cousin’s ex-boyfriend’s best mate and you feel like you have to.

By turns it is hilarious and moving. I’ve read more first-hand accounts of the devastation felt by people who have lost loved ones to Covid-19 on Twitter than I have in online news stories.

I follow quite a few members of the clergy who are brilliant and insightful.

There are plenty of feminists, comedians, journalists, artists, scientists, barristers, parody accounts, radio stations, authors, and normal folk without a blue tick to verify they are a ‘somebody’. They are just really, really funny.

A normal day would see all those people reacting to news stories and shouting their wildly different opinions on them at each other IN CAPITALS.

In my decade in the Twittersphere I have never, ever seen every one of the people I follow so united, until the past week when Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings revealed their complete and utter contempt for the Great British Public.

They are the gruesome architects of the country’s shambolic and devastating response to the coronavirus pandemic and they should be so ashamed of themselves that both should go.

Slattery BBC documentary was very difficult to watch

When I was a teenager in the 1990s, Tony Slattery was everywhere.

Every time you turned on the telly, there he was, devastatingly handsome and just fizzing with energy and absolutely oozing confidence.

But then he disappeared, lost first to drugs – up to 10 grams of cocaine a day – and then to drink.

The documentary, What's the Matter with Tony Slattery? was an attempt by him to understand exactly why his mental health shattered.

He was supported by his completely devoted partner of 35 years, Mark Hutchinson.

It was a very difficult watch but I came away feeling that, actually, the fact that he is still alive now is a testament to love.

Beach hut was my own little private retreat by the sea

After almost 10 years I’ve said goodbye to my beach hut in Eastney.

I had been on the council waiting list for seven years and the letter arrived on what was already shaping up to be a joyous day – my sister’s wedding.

In the summer I’d cycle down, meet up with friends, have barbecues, sunbathe for hours, and cool off with a dip in the sea. In the winter I’d take a hot water bottle, blankets and plenty of hot chocolate to while away afternoons reading books. Bliss. Now I’m a busy stepmum and I’ve left the city, I just don’t have the time to visit. So this weekend I cleared out my stuff and said a very tearful goodbye. I hope the next person treasures it as much as I did.

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