Did that blog title intrigue you? Do you possess nerves of steel and resisted, or did you click through to the full text with more than your usual alacrity? If so, you probably share my lack of readerly restraint: I’m not good at resisting spoilers in any shape or form. So, I tip my hat to the developers who have created a website for Breaking Bad fans through which you can view your twitter feed with any unwelcome revelations blanked out: SpoilerFoiler. I could have done with a real life version of this on Monday.

I was grateful to my husband when he gave me a heads up that details of the new Bridget Jones novel were doing the rounds in the news. Cue me clamping my hands over my ears and humming very loudly. That, somewhat low-tech spoiler technique, worked fine until I opened up the BBC News app and was confronted with a very clear indication of a plot twist. I will spare the details in case anyone else remains in a state of blissful ignorance.

This was at the start of my morning commute and having tutted over the spoiler, I ploughed on with my current read: Stoner, by John Williams. As we approached London and I tucked the novel away, my husband asked me how I was getting on with it. And then, he blindsided me: mentioning how he’d picked it up the other day and had read some of the introduction. Plot twist after plot twist poured out of his mouth before I had a chance to clamp my hands back over my ears or over his mouth. He mistakenly thought that I would have read the introduction before starting the main body of the book. Which, while it might have served him well for GCSE English, is not how I approach any novel for the first time. Sigh. In my head, the real life version of SpoilerFoiler would work a bit like the klaxon in QI – drowning out any possible unwelcome information.

Anyone care to share worse spoiler experiences?

Lesley Crooks, Sales & Digital Manager