Wrong PJ Harvey starts trending, goes into hiding

It started at 10.25pm last night. Just minutes after Jools Holland announced PJ Harvey had won the Mercury Music Prize, Twitter went into overdrive, with thousands of congratulatory tweets sent to the handle @pjharvey. It promised to be an unforgettable night.

Unfortunately, @pjharvey is a software developer in Newcastle Upon Tyne.

"Oh here we go," he tweeted. "I've not won a bloody mercury prize stop tweeting me!" Three minutes later, he followed it with, "Well this is awkward." And three minutes after that, "I'm a trending topic. I just switched my phone off. What I terrible mix up" [sic].

But he couldn't stop the torrent of tweets, with the topic @pjharvey trending worldwide. "I shall return all your letters to the sender," he tweeted. "Wrong person."

He continued: "I was just minding my own business and my feed went mental. My name is Phil Harvey, and I was here first!"

It doesn't seem to be the first time he's been mistaken either. Not judging from this tweet: "Dearest Polly has a fanatic South American fanbase. They drive me bloody crazy, but I refuse to give up my name!"

Or this: "Crikey. I had enough bother when she went on Jools Holland with a silly hat on."

Countering accusations of whinging from fellow Twitter users, he tweeted, "Oi! My name is Philip John Harvey and I have a right to use my given name on Twitter!"

Polly Jean Harvey won the Mercury last night for the second time, for her album Let England Shake. She first won on 11 September 2001, but couldn't collect the prize as she was on tour in Washington, something she mentioned in her speech. She said she wanted to make a record that was "meaningful, not just for myself but for other people."

Philip John Harvey was last seen tweeting that he'd better keep his "potty mouth shut for the night."