From the moment she booked her flight Nadia Idle must have known that what she was doing was neither logical nor sensible. Why else tell only one friend? Why else e-mail her boss at War on Want only a few hours before take-off, unless she worried that the cool analysis of others might take the certainty out of the situation?

After two weeks of watching live television images from Tahrir Square, Idle, an Egyptian living in London, could view events from a distance no more. She had to be there. And so, on the night of February 7, she booked her flight and went, leaving only cursory crumbs to guide those who might wonder where.

Meanwhile, Alex Nunns, a writer, musician and political correspondent for Red Pepper magazine, watched in London. It wasn’t the live television footage from cameras stationed on top of buildings overlooking the square that transfixed him. It wasn’t the news reporters and network anchors who had flown from around the world, to set up camp on hotel balconies and describe events that, even then, seemed hardly credible.

What he found compelling were the words coming directly from the people in the square via Twitter. Their tweets offered an instant, emotional and personal connection.

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