...and online critics can f*** off, too

Stewart Lee has blasted an imposter who set up a fake Twitter account in his name.

The bogus feed, @Stewlee, was taken down hours after the comedian launched an expletive-riddled invective at the online phoney last night.

In his monthly newsletter, an even grumpier than usual Lee raged: ‘A cunt is pretending to be me on Twitter, which is annoying. It is not possible for me to stop this cunt without joining Twitter, which I will not do.

‘The cunt is using a picture that is mine as his avatar. It would be good if this cunt would stop pretending to be me before he creates problems.

‘I will never appear on Twitter. I will also never pretend to appear on Twitter. The fact that a cunt can do this is partly why.  I will not be held hostage by you people.’

A total of 186 Tweets had been posted from the bogus account, which linked back to Lee’s official home page, and featured a publicity image from the latest show with the description: ‘I am a standup comedian. Now a content provider.’

Last year, Lee said of his dislike for Twitter: ‘I don’t want to make a joke in 140 characters. I want to explore one funny idea in 140 minutes.’

In his ill-tempered July newsletter, the comic also railed at online criticism that the newly-released DVD of the second series of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle contained a lot of material that Lee had previously put out on his stand-up DVDs.

After cataloguing the sections that had been on his previous shows, he wrote: ‘The total of previously commercially available material on the DVD is about 15 mins of the 180 mins of the TV series, or about 15 mins of the 200 mins or so on the DVD. It is not “over half” the series, as you petty on-line pricks keep saying so fuck off.

He added: ‘Some twats are complaining that there are no extras. The series’ budget was reduced by 54 per cent. There is no extra material. Everything we shot we used in the series.

‘The Red Button extras were other people’s material so it would not be appropriate to steal them off them for commercial release when they thought they were doing stuff for Red Button content only.

‘People complaining about the lack of extras are complaining about the lack of SOME STUFF WHICH DOESN’T EXIST. There are extras on the DVDs of more expensive shows because THEY CAN AFFORD TO OVERSHOOT.  We couldn’t. There isn’t any more. Fuck off.’

Published: 28 Jun 2011