It’s a perfect way to highlight the dangers of do it yourself PR; like some hapless DIY electrician, the celebrity who tries to engage in their own publicity is likely to burn the house down if they are not really careful.

If even an articulate, interesting, engaging and thoroughly metropolitan man such as Stephen Fry, a man who knows how to shimmy around a crowd and impress or charm the best of us, can get into hot water and be unable to fix it via Twitter, there is surely something to be said for good PR after all.

A good publicist would surely have deflected the furore away from Fry’s personal Twitter feed (in the short term at least) and prevented him from taking it too personally – and since Fry is again suggesting that he will withdraw from the social networking site, there can be no doubt he is taking it very personally.

This is as good a lesson as any that you are right in the firing line if you engage in the great social network revolution – it is an excellent leveller at the moment when hubris reaches it’s peak. Many may have forgotten that Fry is at heart a wit and comedian under the blanket of ‘national treasure’ that has enveloped him, even Fry himself.

A publicist would have tried to guide him towards crafting a witty, comedic and, most importantly, carefully thought through response to the broadsheet ire rather than to the huffy Tweets with which he seems to have signed off Twitter with – for now, at least…

West has been letting rip on Twitter with unrelenting detail about himself. He has picked a fight with a journalist from the LA Times music blog who had the temerity to accidentally miss out a word from the title of his album but the incident that generated the most ire was his use of a robot to pump out 300 tweets in a few minutes containing lyrics and some nasty invective.

With a lot of people complaining about his bombardment and suggesting that it was “time to give that ego some beautyrest”, it’s clear that Kanye has been digging his own grave in public.

You only have to go to his Twitter site to see the lurid details. As Grace Dent put it in a tweet yesterday morning: “kanye is actually a complete twitter bellend. they should suspend his account for spamming about himself.” He has proved that a sleb can disengage a fan base in mere moments.

Other celebrities take note – the world really is watching. Take your publicist’s advice and quell the urge to pick fights with the world. And please find something to talk about other than yourself.

It is well past the time that someone came up with something new; startlingly, compellingly new and strange that we can all rail against and then learn to love. Instead, 2010 offers a year of slight tweaks, starting with the Apple brand in the shape of the rumoured iSlate – which, if it is more than mere rumour, will be a rather obvious cross between the iPhone and iMac.

There will also surely be more of the same from the performing poodles at Downing Street, searching for the perfect soundbite to distract from wrong-doings via the medium of Twitter and YouTube. An election will not change this quest – we have spent the last 35 years learning that it really is the case that the Government always gets in. With worrying certainty, the BNP will be attempting to build on their form at the election – and may do better than they deserve if, as I suspect, the expenses scandal makes a comeback for the campaign period.

From racism, we move to sexism and agism. One can only hope that the BBC will cease and desist in its attempts to refresh struggling brands in a way that suggests that the execs at the BBC are interested only in chasing ratings. Ironically, their attempts are usually at the expense of ratings – as happened with Alesha Dixon’s arrival on Strictly Come Dancing last year replacing the older, smarter but less obviously attractive Arlene Phillips.

This will be yet another X Factor year, too, a year of Tiger Woods remaining in the news as he attempts to salvage his brand, a year of uber-comedians like Michael Macintyre (how long is it since comedy was last pushed as the new rock and roll?), a year of Katie Price and Peter Andre maintaining their presence in the media (already two of Katie’s exes are rumoured to have been fighting on Celebrity Big Brother).

I can well imagine that someone will fill Jan Moir’s shoes as ‘most hated journalist’ after making off colour remarks about a dead celebrity this year. You never know, it might even be Jan Moir again.

Stephen Fry will doubtless be continuing his on-again-off-again affair with Twitter (he’s currently away for some months as he writes a book – a better get-out than reacting to accusations of tediousness as he did last year); brands like Coca Cola will surely continue to try and hijack social media for their own ends; stars will attempt to ride the notoriety of other stars a la Sacha Baron Cohen, as Bruno, descending on Eminem at an awards ceremony – a stunt which had to be retrofitted as prearranged after the rapper appeared to take serious umbrage.

As global warming seems to be blurring the seasons, I am left wondering if someone hasn’t simply decided to replace nature’s seasons with commercial seasons; a cycle that allows us to put the world in some sort of order, however facile. If I’m right – and not just jaundiced – then the commercial seasons are driven by Simon Cowell, movies, fashion and human frailty. Technology changes the way things work at a ferocious rate – we need something to hide behind, especially as the bodies of soldiers continue to come back in bodybags and we lose control of the things we understand.

But this patina of formula also destroys innovation, so unless someone breaks through it and brings something new – as well as a furious amount of energy – to the mix, we are doomed to another stifling year of more of the same…

However ugly and unpalatable Moir’s insinuations were, there will always be celebrities and personalities in the public eye facing deconstruction, valid or not, and there will always be snarky columnists at the Mail. But it would help, if there is to be a mass outpouring of fury on Twitter in response, if it were more akin to constructive debate; it was disappointing to see that much of the response was simply mass retweeting of a few salient tweets from the likes of Stephen Fry.

It was an effective campaign, certainly, given that the Mail lost a number of high profile advertisers from the online article. But it was very much a case of an angrily bleating herd retweeting a few choice points – in much the same way as Moir’s supporters reiterated her views.

It’s interesting to note that the Mail have run a couple of big articles looking into the Twitter phenomenon over the weekend – they were clearly unsettled by the likes of Marks and Spencer pulling adverts – but I am not sure that, once the dust settles, the Mail will change its modus operandi significantly.

The only way that is likely to happen is if the masses use Twitter to voice their own opinions, rather than just relying on a few informed celebrities to dictate their opinions. The only way Twitter can become a truly democratic tool is if people find their own voice.

It will certainly be interesting to see what Moir has to say on Friday, once the dust has settled, and what reaction her response engenders.