Doris Lessing is my only friend on Myspace. I only joined it because, intriguingly, the 86-year-old writer of such classics as The Golden Notebook has just set up a profile, or someone has done so on her behalf.

I can’t believe how bad MySpace is. I’ve never really bothered hanging around before. It’s full of awful blinking ads like “Press this fart button” (noise on/off) and “You’ve been selected to win a great prize!!!!!” and all that sort of distracting drivel. I wonder why Lessing has allowed herself to be associated with it? Are her publishers honestly expecting to attract new readers for her books in that environment? One of the most serious-minded of 20th-century writers, she is the antithesis of such pap.