Oh Gillian.

Gillian, Gillian, Gillian.

An almighty brouhaha has arisen over on Twitter. And it appears we could yet be at the calm before the storm. Here's the story (for the history see here):

Gillian McKeith, of You Are What You Eat fame, appears to have taken umbridge umbrage at a relatively innocuous tweet from Rachel E Moody:

McKeith, currently promoting – ahem – a new book, was incensed – or at least the person operating what has previously been described as her official Twitter feed was. Scienceblogs caught the reaction before the angry missives were taken down:

Note the word "lies" in reference to Ben Goldacre's Bad Science. Enter Mr Goldacre, who tweeted: "hi @gillianmckeith, i'm writing a piece about you libelling me in the context of #libelreform, can you pls contact ben@badscience.net thnks". UPDATE: Goldacre later said he regards McKeith's comment as "a very serious and undefendable defamation".

And that's when the whole situation turned plain weird. Evolving miraculously into third-person mode – just days after a first-person verification – the McKeith feed sought to take apart those questioning her qualifications.

But it wasn't long before the collection of McKeith tweets were taken down, replaced with an odd volte face: "Do you actually believe this is real twitter site for the GM?" Er, yes? In large part because it was linked from your official website:

As it stands, McKeith is trending alongside Raoul Moat and Thierry Henry. As with everything on the internet, trending topics can't be deleted – so how do you solve a PR problem like McKeith?