It's been a good week for transparency, which is bad news for people who get undressed with the light on. Last Tuesday, Gordon Brown said: "We have clearly got the balance wrong when online businesses have higher standards of transparency than the public services" and announced that, as a result, people are going to be able to comment online about GPs, hospitals, nurseries, schools and the police, just like they can on Amazon, eBay, TripAdvisor and, indeed, the Observer website.
I expect that'll sort everything out. The prime minister is deploying what he calls "the enormous democratising power of information". Well, you don't have to do much surfing to find books, CDs, YouTube clips, newspaper articles, restaurants and theatre shows that have all had the shit democratised out of them. He's invoking the collective wisdom of the nation to pass judgment on and improve our public services. Unfortunately, he'll mainly attract the same self-selecting bunch of inexplicably livid weirdos who infect the comment sections on all websites.
There are many perfectly reasonable remarks put online, and others that are only bland or harmlessly nonsensical, but if there's one thing the internet demonstrates it's that a lot of angry people can read. Their writing, on the other hand, needs work. If you're in any doubt, go to ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com which provides a hilarious selection of the most illiterate, prejudiced and irate posts from the BBC's Have Your Say site. It not only makes me laugh, it makes me angry at what people write, thus providing a moment's insight into what it feels like to be a member of the incensed posting community.
I reckon I've got off pretty lightly from online comments (until now) but still, whenever I indulge in a drunken self-googling, I inevitably find, among the compliments or fair criticism, a smattering of remarks that are eye-wateringly personal, mean, hate-filled and unforgettable. There's always someone who reads my column or watches a TV show I'm in and doesn't just disagree or dislike it but reacts as if I've stamped on their foot and punched their mother.
It's like I've said the very thing they have been furiously expecting me to say their whole life. Like they're a teenager and I'm their maddening sibling who, with just a syllable out of place, can release a torrent of rage because they SO knew I was going to say that because that's EXACTLY the sort of CRAP that I ALWAYS SAY. To them, I typify a horrendously unfair world that's all wrong, but will never change because it's run by the likes of me and Gordon Brown and JK Rowling and Bono and Lulu, sitting at the top table guzzling money pie in hypocrisy sauce and laughing in their apoplectic faces.
Last Sunday, someone with the username Veganjules rabidly exhorted me to calm down about teenage spending. It was about as logical as screaming at someone to relax or they might set off a landmine. You can't see the comment any more because it was removed by the moderator as it ended with the words "you fat cunt". The fact that that phrase is allowed in articles but not comments is, as I expect Veganjules would be the loudest to point out, everything that's wrong with this country. Obviously I was insulted - I'm not fat! As for the rest, I'm sure Veganjules knows one when he sees one. But maybe he's got an unusually reflective computer screen.
Hard copies of this newspaper which are subsequently used to wrap chips, blow noses, wipe arses, start fires in major public buildings or for post-masturbatory clean-up will all end up with more eloquent adornments than many of the comments that are posted online. And unlike the salt, vinegar, snot or semen, they're not even biodegradable.
So if I, as someone whose work doesn't really affect people's lives, am subjected to this online abuse, what are GPs, nurses, consultants, police and teachers in for? They're obliged to tell people things that they don't want to hear: to arrest them, give them homework, make them stop eating fried breakfasts, announce that their gran died on the table.
While scrutiny of these professions is vital, a single lay opinion is simply not as valid as a professional one in those contexts. A democratising strategy of endorsing abuse could have unfortunate consequences. Some things shouldn't be that democratic: "I'm afraid you've got terminal cancer." "No, doctor, I vote that I don't. It's a hung parliament, I won't die." The only consolation for hospitals is that the patients they most fail won't be in a position to criticise.
Most people don't comment much online. They're not arrogant enough to think their opinions, or anger, are of general interest. But the convention of inviting comment from the benign many has put a metaphorical speakers' corner at the bottom of every web page for the poisonous few.
A friend of mine has come up with an idea to stem the tide of bile. He wants people to post, as a comment, on as many opinion-garnering web pages as possible, as often as they can be bothered, the phrase: "It just goes to show you can't be too careful!"
It's perfect; it seems lighthearted without being a joke. It's vaguely pertinent to almost any subject without meaning a thing. It's the ideal oil for the internet's troubled waters.
I invite you all to join me in doing this. Let's drown out the screeching with this peaceful, bland, meaningless psalm to not being constantly consulted.
Wherever that phrase is seen we will remember that the self-appointed abuse-hurlers are few and unrepresentative, as is so often the way with the products of well-meaning democratisation.
I need you all to do this now and for many days to come, particularly at the bottom of my column. Writing this will have drawn the eyes of the angry upon me. Without your help, it will have been nothing more than a red rag to their bull.