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What if Socrates had used Facebook? After all, he was a great one for sitting around and talking about himself. And isn't that what Facebook is for?

The one and only Verity Stob treats the whole subject with her own inimitable style...

Extract from Plato's The Banana Republic.Socrates and Glaucon are discovered in the Facebook group called'Philosophy is the new iPod'. Socrates has created a new thread.

SOCRATES has 6 friends in the network Philosophers.

SOCRATES:I thought I would kick off a new one on the nature of human companionship. 'Be slow to fall into friendship; but when you are in,continue firm and constant' as a great man once said. Oh yes, I did.

GLAUCON: Nice one, Socco. Talking of friendship, I hear that Catherine Tate is all set to return to the Tardis to reprise the role of Donna. My heart is sore.

SOCRATES: And how does this bear on the nature of friendship?

GLAUCON: My reasoning is thus.

In the first place, Donna's grating voice and her sarf London accent– apparently a prerequisite to getting hold of a Tardis key these days,by the way, no matter how many hearts you possess – offends my ear,even so that my enjoyment of The Mill's special effects is disturbed.

In the second place, this seems to be a continuation of Russell T Davies celebrity obsession, which is running wildly out of hand. Tate, Kylie, that actor off of 'Life on Mars'. What will he do next?Reintroduce Bonnie Langford?

And in the third place, why couldn't we have that posh blonde out of the scary statues episode? That would make more sense in terms of continuity.

Read on for more philosophical social networking hilarity...

Enjoy the fun of a Torchwood/Under Milk Wood pastiche courtesy of the one and only Verity Stob.

Come close now. Zoom in, chopper-shot to crane-shot, down over Roald Dahl-As-We-Expected Plass and its mobile phone mast fountain and, deep, deep below, in his secret underground headquarters,

SECOND VOICE Captain Jack,

CAPTAIN JACK
Hi. I'm Captain Jack Harkness.

SECOND VOICE the insomniac bicon; snug as a hobbit, pretty as a choirboy, immortal as carbon dioxide, wooden as a horse. He is passing the small hours sweeping up pterodactyl droppings,

CAPTAIN JACK
They get everywhere.

SECOND VOICE and cataloguing his prize collection of alien artefacts,

CAPTAIN JACK
One off gadget for choosing the quickest queue at Tesco, check. And one off purple wig for a girlie going to the moon, check. And one off bottle of stuff for getting pterodactyl pturds off greatcoats, check.

It says it all, really, it does...

The ever hilarious Verity Stob has a new regular home - The Register.

"It's a great honour to be working full time for The Reg," says Ms Stob. "I've always wanted to contribute to a really down-to-the-metal, ultra-technical website. One that never holds back the details of in circuit voltages, or of template template parameters in particularly obscure bits of C++. I can't wait to get started."

Good for them. We need more people to take the piss out of Visual Basic.

And for all you Doctor Who fans out there, here's her triumphant return: "Candid Dalek Shares Thesp Tidbits".