Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Wednesday 11/02/2004
I don't know if you've ever considered running a blog. They are, one hears, all the rage -- and no surprise! What joy, to be able to share the events of the day and your thoughts with that silent friend the computer. I've done the same myself, and it's both therapeutic and creative.

But today, I read a terrible rumour in the press. Normally, I dismiss the pseudo-technical meanderings of the mainstream media as so much uninformed waffle, but this has the ring of truth. First-person reportage: it actually happened to them.  But enough, let me share with you what happened to a pauvre petite as reported in that stalwart organ, The Daily Telegraph, today.

The woman -- we must not call her girl, not after she has so rudely been divested of her innocence -- at the heart of this shock revelation is none other than Peaches Geldof, daughter of noted Oirish rock god, honorary knight and hairy foul-mouthed saviour of the world Bob. She too started out enamoured of the joys of blogging, but as she said:

"I knew I would be mortified if someone I knew read it. Diaries are meant to be private and sacred. All the same, I found myself writing more and more intimately about my thoughts and what went on in my life. I wrote boring things, as well as risque things that I definitely wouldn't want Dad to read."

All well so far -- but then her best friend found the blog, and moreover read what Peaches had been saying. Tragedy.

"I felt sick and violated -- how could they? And then I realised. It was inevitable that if I broadcast my diary on the web, someone I knew would read it."

Did you know that? I've checked, and apparently it's true -- if you put personal details into your blog, then people you know can read it. What's worse, all they have to do is type in your name -- or even just their name -- into this World Wide Web thing, and it sends them to the right place!

So a lesson to us all. If you upload stuff onto the Net, people can read it.

Who knew?