@RaoulMoat

Ten days ago, Raoul Moat was released from Durham Prison. two days later, he shot his ex-girlfriend, Samantha Stobbart, and her new partner, Chris Brown. Brown died from his injuries; Stobbart is in hospital. The next day, Raoul Moat shot David Rathband, a police constable, and sent a long letter to the police containing a list of grievances. The following day, a fish ‘n’ chip shop near Blyth was robbed at gunpoint; police believe the robber was Moat.

There followed a week-long manhunt that centred on Rothbury in Northumberland after his car was discovered abandoned there. The search spread into the surrounding areas, concentrating on farm buildings and the woods. They discovered a tent, another letter, and three mobile phones used by Moat.

Then yesterday, on 9 July, at 7.00 in the evening, he came out of hiding. A long stand-off followed. Moat lay, sometimes sat, with his shotgun pressed against his neck, while police negotiators and marksmen, journalists and curious townsfolk massed around the scene. After six hours, at 1.15 in the morning, Moat pressed the trigger and shot himself.

Twitter, the ‘micro-blogging site’, is a medium which only allows 140 characters per message. There’s a number of ways that this restriction can be used. People tweet links to websites, reply to each other, create #hashtags to link conversations on topics. Two interesting features of Twitter are livetweeting and retweeting. Retweeting is very simple - someone says something you like on twitter and you just retweet what they say, so all of your followers can read it too. Livetweeting is when various twitterers watch a TV show or an unfolding news story and comment on it; usually comically, but often seriously too. I watched the 2010 election saga largely with Twitter as my running commentary.

When Raoul Moat first went on the run, I thought it might be mildly funny to pretend-retweet messages from him. Initially, the joke was two-fold: partly the tweets would jokingly give away his location; partly, it was that they were absurdly out of character for this violent ex-bouncer and jailbird. These tweets, which were not maybe in great taste, got a small following, especially yesterday during the day when Caitlin Moran, India Knight, Sali Hughes and others started recommending them.

Yesterday evening as the story leapt forward, I started livetweeting the story through these fake-RTs. They started being comic but very soon, as the news coming through got darker, I guess I stopped trying to be funny and just started imagining his thoughts. Some people found them extremely offensive, and told me so, but I think they were people who still thought I was trying to be funny. Lots of other people have been in touch to say that they found them moving and a valuable counterpoint to what was a crazy bit of voyeuristic live television. (UPDATE: and I found this very generous assessment on a blog.) I am chilled that @RaoulMoat’s last message - a farewell - was sent only a few minutes before the real Raoul shot himself.

They’re nothing really but I was interested in how theatrical the writing was - mainly because it’s in character and it was ‘live’. It was interesting, too, to try and express complex thoughts in not much more space than a haiku.

Here they are:

Oh bugger. RT @RaoulMoat I've changed my mind. I've decided not kill policemen any more; instead I shall go for playwright-academics. 6:09 PM Jul 6th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Apparently the police are under orders to shoot to kill. I am in Jeremy Clarkson's house, lads. Do your worst. 8:11 PM Jul 6th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat Well Day 3 in my hideout and I'm low on food & water. On the plus side, I finally have a chance to finish Anna Karenina. Yay! 9:54 AM Jul 7th via web

RT @RaoulMoat I've been queuing for the iPhone 4 since Sunday. Crazy but I can't help myself. 8:04 AM Jul 8th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Can't wait to get home, stick on some Michael McDonald, just really soak in a Radox bath, with a glass of Orvieto. Bliss! 9:38 AM Jul 8th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I'm bored. I think I shall spend a couple of hours today disco dancing. 9:41 AM Jul 8th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Sometimes I just want to run amok in Muji with a store card. Their stuff is GAWJUSS. 9:52 AM Jul 8th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat God, I love Jacques Tati, don't you? 10:50 AM Jul 8th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I need to find a farm with a DVD player. I'm on the run with a Lionel Jeffreys box set and nothing to watch it on! Typical me! 11:23 AM Jul 8th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Don't tell anyone but I'm just had a very exciting offer of a place to stay. *cough* Big Brother House *cough*. Shh! 5:23 PM Jul 8th via web

RT @RaoulMoat Just back from seeing Jimmy Carr at the Gateshead Arena. £37.50 and no encore? He's going on the list. 10:20 PM Jul 8th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat Sat in that Question Time audience for 90 minutes and they didn't let me ask my flippin' question! 11:40 PM Jul 8th via web

RT @RaoulMoat It's only 9.30 and I've written a sonnet! Yay me! I think I might wander into town and get a scone to celebrate. 9:35 AM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RoaulMoat Sometimes I think of handing myself in but then I am captivated by the perfection of a flower and I think, what is this world? 9:38 AM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat At night I lie alone on a mattress in a disused farm building and I think, but what if Schopenhauer is right? 10:05 AM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Sometimes I wonder what all this killing is for so I lie in a field and imagine the clouds are talking to each other. 11:47 AM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Hey hive mind! Keep this one hush, but anyone know what reception the iPhone 3GS gets on the Orange network in the Kelso area? 12:28 PM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I don't know why, but sometimes I just want to kiss the sunshine and give the morning a big hug. 12:35 PM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat There's an odd freedom to be found out here. Just me, the spring air, my battered copy of Villette, and a T65 Assault Rifle. 12:56 PM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat J'apprends le français mais je ne pourrais jamais vivre là. C'est seulement pour lire Maupassant dans l'originale. 3:05 PM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Weird! Apparently the police have found my mobile. But I ring them and they won't let me have it. I only need the numbers! 3:08 PM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I take comfort from Shaw who said "a life spent making mistakes is more honorable and useful than a life spent on nothing". 3:59 PM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Let's play a game! If I were a TV programme, what TV programme would I be? I think A Year in Provence but what do I know? 4:55 PM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat It's so hot I've fashioned myself a sort of bonnet of leaves and straw. I must look a SIGHT! 5:48 PM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Isolation. Head full of doubt. Do I want Clyde McPhatter's 'Lover Please' in my Desert Island Discs? I don't know any more. 5:55 PM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Police are telling everyone in the area to stay indoors. I don't need telling twice! Hunkering down with my Frasier boxset. 8:02 PM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat The doorbell rings. Went to answer it. Policemen with guns. Gave me the fright of my LIFE. 8:03 PM July 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I keep telling them, I haven't seen anyone. They're not listening. As Alice put it, curiouser and curiouser! 8.05 PM July 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I don't have an instinctive distrust of authority. In some ways I am a lover of order. But I hate to see authority abused. 9 July 2010 20:06:08 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat There's an unmannerly manner that the police have perfected. It tears at me, I will confess. 9 July 2010 20:07:11 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat You would think I would be hardened to this. Years away, I don't need to explain do I? But I'm not. I try to stay civil. 9 July 2010 20:08:07 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Inside I am shouting. (WHAT is shouting?) Inside I want to be bold, resolute, daring. I keep my voice down and I'm respectful. 9 July 2010 20:09:08 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I tell them please to put the guns down. They tell me to put mine down. I stare at it. (I'd forgotten it was in my hand.) 9 July 2010 20:11:15 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Such a thin skin protects our civility. (Who said that?) I might raise an arm. Press my finger down. Why would I? 9 July 2010 20:12:28 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Absurdly, the thought springs to mind that I should ask them in 'so that we can talk about this like gentlemen'. Dismissed. 9 July 2010 20:14:24 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I have always been confused by introspection. Raise your arm and try to hear your mind forming the command. There's nothing. 9 July 2010 20:19:04 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Sometimes when I look into my heart I find the same nothing there. It tires me to carry this darkness. 9 July 2010 20:20:00 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat The officer at my door has a bead of sweat on his upper lip. I believe the word is 'filtrum'. He is a boy, really, a boy. 9 July 2010 20:21:18 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I have a box of Mr Kipling French Fancies in my pack. I admit I nicked them from the Spar. I am ashamed by their unmanliness. 9 July 2010 20:24:14 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat If I placed a flower in the barrel of his rifle, perhaps he would laugh and that would break the ice. 9 July 2010 20:26:16 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I ask the policeman his name. He won't give me his name. Why won't he give me his name? 9 July 2010 20:27:45 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat He knows my name. It seems to me that I should know his, if this is a negotiation. Is this really a negotiation? 9 July 2010 20:30:53 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I am beside the river. The grass beneath my feet is parched. The officer is stiller even than the air. 9 July 2010 20:32:02 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I see nothing behind his eyes. He's so young. Was I ever so young? Was I always this old man in a middle-aged man's body? 9 July 2010 20:33:53 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I feel the barrel of my gun against my skin. It's me holding it there. Would I do it. I don't know. I actually don't know. 9 July 2010 20:35:35 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I don't know what I can do. The world, in all its infinite variety, has closed around me. The moon. 9 July 2010 20:41:24 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Can a good man do bad things? This is what I turn over and over in my mind. Can you do bad things and still be a good man? 9 July 2010 20:42:31 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat How did I get here? Was I always going to stand here by this river, in these clothes, on this day? The sun and the moon. 9 July 2010 20:45:44 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Never bin darker. Never bin heavier. Never bin wearier. 9 July 2010 20:51:58 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Empty. Oh I am so empty. That feeling like you wish you could beam up into somewhere else. The only feeling left. 9 July 2010 20:55:00 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Can you do bad things and still be a good man? Can you do bad things and still be a good man? Can you do bad things and still 9 July 2010 20:56:17 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat A single bird above me who knows nothing of all this. I am too tired to be envious but something in me longs to be there. 9 July 2010 21:00:32 via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I was once a child, I say. They don't hear me. I lift my head slightly. I was once a child. 9:32 PM Jul 9th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat Is there grace? Is it indifferent to what it touches? Could it touch this man? This flower? This gun? 9:51 PM Jul 9th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat My chest against the earth. The minutes, the hours. The sky is dark. This officer is all I have now. I love even his gun. 10:05 PM Jul 9th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat This is - when it all comes down to it - two guys talking. We might be in a bar or queuing in an airport for a plane. 10:11 PM Jul 9th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat The river is tinkling behind me. The cloudless sky is starting to star. I'm sorry, what did you say, officer? 10:22 PM Jul 9th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat We've been talking, the officer and me. I can't concentrate on him. It's like I can touch being alive. It's bright and rich. 10:37 PM Jul 9th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat I can't die. I haven't loved enough. 10:40 PM Jul 9th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat Gazza means well but life and death can easily tip into farce. I pricked my thumb on a blackberry thorn. I, the gunman. 10:51 PM Jul 9th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat The officer and I have fallen silent. The river is quiet. The leaves are still. Is this, actually, what it's like? 10:59 PM Jul 9th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat The officer said 'Think of the future'. I wanted to say I think of it all the time. But nothing comes. 11:06 PM Jul 9th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat I look at the officer. He has green, steady eyes. What purpose does that serve? The green. 11:08 PM Jul 9th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat I think of my body. This scar, that old ache. Sweat now down my back. My body doesn't see any of this. The officer, the gun. 11:14 PM Jul 9th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat I keep the officer's gaze. Night is falling all around us. This is what it comes to: my eyes on his eyes and the stars. 11:46 PM Jul 9th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat Oh this is small. Oh tiny. Blink. Oh this is nothing, really. I haven't moved since seven. A flick of my eyes is an epic. 12:15 AM Jul 10th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat This night sky; purple horizon slightly. I try to fix it. Shots of silver. But still, just one night in the endless nights. 12:22 AM Jul 10th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat Where do tears go? They're on my face. But they are evaporating, I feel it. They hang in the air. We cry one another's tears. 12:27 AM Jul 10th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat The officer asks, why are you crying? I say, what's your name? He says, my name isn't material. I fall silent. Am I crying? 12:29 AM Jul 10th via TweetDeck

RT @RaoulMoat I'm kneeling by a river. But in my head I'm taking a glass of water upstairs to bed. Who is in this house? Everyone. I am ten. 12:45 AM Jul 10th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat I am oddly detached now. Cold to it. I'm on the other bank. A policeman and some guy, I can see them. I sit down to watch. 12:48 AM Jul 10th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat The officer looks young. The kneeling man looks old. I could have been either of them. 12:53 AM Jul 10th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat I am unable to hear what the officer and gunman are saying. I think they are apologising to each other but who knows? I lift. 12:55 AM Jul 10th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat Level with the branches, then the leaves. Now treetops. I know really I'm down there. But this is something. 12:59 AM Jul 10th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat My head snaps up. My arm tenses instinctively. I thought I was over there? I was in the trees? I'm awake. Ground beneath me. 1:04 AM Jul 10th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat Just two guys, time of day, making conversation, by the river. I dig my nails into my palms to keep awake. For what? 1:06 AM Jul 10th via Twitter for iPhone

RT @RaoulMoat Good night ladies. Good night sweet ladies. Good night, good night. 10 July 2010 01:09:46 via Twitter for iPhone