World's oldest blogger dead at 97

Madrid (Spain), May 22 (ANI): A Spanish great-grandmother who billed herself as the "world's oldest blogger" has died at the age of 97.

Maria Amelia Lopez began blogging two and a half years ago when her grandson introduced her to the Internet on her 95th birthday.

"Today it's my birthday and my grandson, who is very stingy, gave me a blog," she wrote on her first post on amis95.blogspot.com on December 23, 2006.

Her musings on life in old age, Spanish politics and even international relations quickly earned her followers from across the world and she clocked up more than 1.5 million visitors to her blog, reports The Telegraph.

Born in 1911, she wrote from her seaside home on the Galician coast, touching on personal health problems, from trips to the doctor to bouts of dizziness, to her opinion on current events and modern day life. Using a mix of humour and nostalgia she shared her experiences of getting old and enlightened readers about life during the long dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

She blogged sporadically, sometimes once a week, sometimes daily with the aid of her grandson because cataracts impaired her vision and in recent months posted video messages on her blog instead of written texts.

After discovering Facebook earlier this year she enthused: "The internet amazes me more and more" and promptly set up a group on the social networking site to defend old people's rights. (ANI)