Cantonese, which has up to nine tones as opposed to the five in Mandarin, is much more versatile and one of the richest dialects in Chinese.

About 90 percent of what's out there in cyberspace is hearsay - or lies - and opinion, often misinformed opinion, and it's all repeated over and over again.

Twitter is very impulsive and impermanent and you only have 140 characters. There is no greater 'Emperor' of Twitter than Stephen Fry.

I can't establish the veracity of what people say because only they know whether they are telling the truth. I can't look into your mind, can I?

I'm not terribly technological. I'm awfully backward about iPads and BlackBerries and suchlike; I still have a great fondness for Teletext, and I clung onto my fax machine for as long as I could, but eventually you have to move with the times.

Cantonese, which has up to nine tones as opposed to the five in Mandarin, is much more versatile and one of the richest dialects in Chinese.

The beauty of the Internet is that there's no space limit.