OK, so using my sat nav program to send location texts to Twitter didn’t work.

You can set the sat nav into “beacon” mode to send a message at an interval you specify. I had it running this afternoon whilst scouring the Derbyshire countryside for stationery.

According to my SMS log, the messages it sends look like this:

!NLOC1.1:o|W1.39792|N53.20134|329|556466871|

It’s fairly easy to pick out the bits – it includes Northings and Eastings in decimal longitude and latitude. The 329 is probably a bearing. If you pop W1.39792 N53.20134 into Google Maps, it helpfully converts it to +53° 12′ 4.82″, -1° 23′ 52.51″ and puts a green marker down in Grassmere, where I was at Frank Berry the Stationer.

Unfortunately, Twitter doesn’t like the format, and every time sat nav fired off a missive like that, Twitter responded direct to my phone

Sorry, we didn't understand your message. Try again?

Probably just as well, because the machine format text message wouldn’t have made a whole lot of sense to either of the people who seem to be following me on Twitter. They’d be in sharp contrast to the ones from MikeTD, which are always entertaining when they turn up on my phone.  Slightly freaky that the technology allows you stalk someone you know only slightly!