Having picked up a tweet asking me if former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was really dead, I went on the internet and found out it was a hoax emanating shockingly from Canada - shockingly, because Canadians are officially the nicest people in the world, as any regular viewer of Family Guy will tell you.

Why somebody would turn to me, of all media people on Twitter, for confirmation of Maggie Thatcher's continued existence or not was a mystery. I mean, I have not exactly got a hotline to the Conservatives, although listeners to my legendary late shows of blessed memory may consider me an expert on dead people, having pioneered the dead-or-alive quiz format in this country.

Anyway, I felt it only right I should inform worried citizens on Twitter that Lady Thatcher continues to be a going concern, and this is the tweet I came up with:

"Thankfully, Mrs Thatcher HASN'T died.  I say 'Thankfully' because I've got her in a double with the Duke of Edinburgh."

Obviously I'm only joking, love them both, together with all humanity etc. etc., no matter what race, creed, sexual orientation, gender assignment, even the French, but given that Tweets are easily misunderstood, I thought better of it, and decided not to Tweet. 

On a website where you have to make a conscious decision to access the content, the appalling taste seemed more palatable, so there it was; a tweet that might have been mildly amusing in 140 characters, but sort of has the life sucked out of it in a couple of thousand.

Still, the BBC will bless me for not bringing shame and scandal on the family, as we have just made ourselves all cuddly and lovable again at the Olympics.

Twitter, though.  Such a brilliant vehicle for getting into trouble, eh Rio?