This woman probably fought in a war or something. What price dignity?

Wow everyone – there’s a 104-year old woman tweeting away on Twitter!” That was the cry that echoed around Bitterwallet HQ on Friday when The Sun broke the story of decrepit computer user Ivy Bean and her tweeting antics.

Naturally, along with tens of thousands of other Twitterers, we headed over to Ivy’s page to see what she was up to, expecting some random gibberish about how it used to be all fields around here or a minute-by-minute guide to the incontinental activities in the nursing home where she resides.

But none of it – although she’s 104, Ivy has got a mind that’s as sharp as a tack. ‘I’m on Twitter! Come and follow my feed at IvyBean104’ she tweeped on Friday. Hmm, ‘feed’ – that’s a modern world for a relatively new user who’s got a wall filled with birthday cards from the Queen.

It all got a little stranger when she posted a Tweetpic of herself with a Geek Squad employee, the mysteriously-named Agent Dix. He’s got a beard but no moustache so is therefore not to be trusted under any circumstances. A quick peek at the Geek Squad Facebook page revealed that they had posted some more pics of Ivy on the same morning as the story broke in The Sun.

Prior to that, their previous Facebook posts came way back at the start of February, when they posted some video tutorials they had made in conjunction with The Sun. Hang on… The Sun! They’ve got history together! We then cast a cynical eye over Ivy’s tweets, including some guff about cheating at Connect 4 against her blind friend and dissing the banker from Deal Or No Deal (‘Grrr’ says Ivy – how many 104-year olds say ‘Grrr’ for fuck’s sake?) and our cynicism glands were ready to burst.

It was the same over at TechCrunch. Oh, so it’s all just a big PR stunt for the arseholes at Geek Squad, orchestrated in tandem with The Sun then? That’s the paper owned by Rupert Murdoch, who actually wants us to start PAYING for online news? News like this shite? Yet, as Ivy’s thousands of followers on Facebook and Twitter would show, we keep falling for it.

It’s a sad fact but newspapers are solely in the business of selling newspapers to us and they don’t give a flying toss how they do it. You’re more likely to get genuine news by sticking your eyeball up the exhaust pipe of a revving lorry than you are from looking in The Sun.