coming to blows, behind the scenes

[nikki akinjinmi]

you would know - you've shouted the loudest often enough.

[nikki akinjinmi]

Threats not to post obituaries, and other items - all because I dare voice an opinion which does not concur with yours - (questioning why you made those comments about another member of the forum in the Jerry Wexler obit strand). You are not going to intimidate me. You picked the wrong target.

Yes, I had a disagreement with Des, but I everytime I post, and whenever he has posted something I don't constantly refer to him in a derogatory or negative way (like you do with Adam by referring to him as Stalker Blake) - I leave and have left Des to get on with his postings without bad mouthing him, or mentioning our previous disagreement. That's maturity. I have no interest in getting others on side against those with whom I have had unplesant disagreements on the forum.

I typed in bold because you don't seem to grasp what I write, and seem to have a distorted memory of events. Just so that's clear for you.

[ritchie]

That boy took my love away
Oh, he'll regret it some day
But this boy wants you back again

That boy isn't good for you
Though he may want you too
This boy wants you back again

Oh, and this boy would be happy
Just to love you, but oh, my, oh
That boy won't be happy
till he's seen you cry

This boy wouldn't mind the pain
Would always feel the same
If this boy gets you back again

This boy, this boy...

[Jonathan E.]

It wasn't John Lennon who said, "Life is what happens to you when you're busy posting on the forum." But he said something similar.

A general question to no one in particular: Is this how you want to live your life? And, if it isn't, how are you going to make your life better?

Hint: No one ever improves their own life by ruining that of someone else.

I absolutely do not understand what's going on here. I wasn't around when shit happened and reading postings afterwards just added to the confusion. I am strictly neutral and independent on this one. But, if I may sound Californian and offer to share my experience, when we had the last big blowout with Brown Sugar, the fuckwit remark, the BNP response, the sock puppets, and all the rest of it, Des and I fought ourselves to a draw. I suspect a few others were in about the same state. Afterwards Des and I had a PM or two and agreed that we'd have a truce and expressed hope that it would eventually become a peace. The air was cleared, we had a breather, and things got back to being OK between us. I really don't have a problem with the occasional spat — they happen, they can even be "amusing," but I am of the opinion that they can become excessively drawn out. I'm also of the opinion that this forum doesn't work very well for anyone if people loudly say they won't talk to other people and if people continually make snide remarks about others. It's supposed to be a forum, not a bloody arena.

I'm away for a few days again; a friend's wedding on the coast in Oregon for those sufficiently interested. In my absence, why don't those spoiling for a fight have the big fight and get it over with? Just get exhausted! It will then be much easier to decide that you have to tolerate each other whether you agree with each other or not. Or you could decide to at least confine your animosity to someplace else. Or to just ignore each other. Or you might decide to take a break. It's not such a bad thing — after an initial period of cold turkey, I quite enjoyed my post-sock-puppet month off. What is a bad thing right now is this pointless sniping at each other. Nobody's convincing anybody of their point of view any longer; you might as well clear the air and accept that it's a waste of time and energy.

John Lennon did say, "Imagine." It's worth a try.

[ritchie]

John Lennon did say, "Imagine." It's worth a try.

and the bloke who shot him was reported last week .... regretting it.

Strange is n't it, probably people who knew Lennon, who had argued with him and fell out with him probably felt sometimes like shooting him but would never have done so ... and yet some stranger .... who did n't know him.

Beware the ides of march (so still about seven months to go, unless of course they've 'idden themselves very well)

The King is dead ..... long live the King.

[Nigel w]

Three posts in ten minutes? Posts edited four times ? Typing in bold (which was described by Davd Hepworth in the current issue of Word magazine as the Internet equivalent of green ink on purple notepaper) ? Scary !!!

Methinks you doth protest too much and could do with a little more persepective and a little less red mist. I was about to post obits of Johnny Moore of the Skatalites and Pervis Jackson of the Detroit Spinners last week while making it clear I was not going to return to the discussion forum, when I saw your provocative attack on me for posting Jerry Wexler's personal top twenty. So I mesaged you to say it really wasn't worth posting them if it was going to provoke that kind of antagonistic personal response. At the same time I messaged the forum's resident reggae expert to tip him off about Johnny Moore's death and suggested he posted something instead of me, which he duly did, and messaged the site administrator to tell him about the death of Pervis Jackson.

As you tell me that I don't understand (although actually I see what is going on here all too well) , I repeat my promise to stick to looking at the pictures from now on !

[ritchie]

here is a photo of me and Keith larking about .... it's canny when you don't take things too seriously at 'our age' ... especially falling out with people ...life can be too short sometimes.

Did I tell you that Keith has Bukka White's old guitar .... he left it to him before he died .... but that's another story ... stick around and i might tell it someday ... he's got some great pics and letters etc and he is the best slide uke player I have ever heard .... so there!

ahh well off to 'run some sealer around the shower'

[nikki akinjinmi]

Three posts in ten minutes? Posts edited four times ? Typing in bold (which was described by Davd Hepworth in the current issue of Word magazine as the Internet equivalent of green ink on purple notepaper) ? Scary !!!

Methinks you doth protest too much and could do with a little more persepective and a little less red mist. I was about to post obits of Johnny Moore of the Skatalites and Pervis Jackson of the Detroit Spinners last week while making it clear I was not going to return to the discussion forum, when I saw your provocative attack on me for posting Jerry Wexler's personal top twenty. So I mesaged you to say it really wasn't worth posting them if it was going to provoke that kind of antagonistic personal response. At the same time I messaged the forum's resident reggae expert to tip him off about Johnny Moore's death and suggested he posted something instead of me, which he duly did, and messaged the site administrator to tell him about the death of Pervis Jackson.

As you tell me that I don't understand (although actually I see what is going on here all too well) , I repeat my promise to stick to looking at the pictures from now on !

Get your facts straight - and stop re-writing the events. Your Rupert Murdoch- like tactics will not work with me. Anyway, I thought that you were going to do one of your "theatrical flounces" - the type that you have accused others of doing in the past.

It seems to me that you behave like a bully. I am sure that you would not continue to refer to Adam as Stalker Blake in your print work because of the legal implications. Yet, you feel that you can continue to it on this forum, and when challenged you don't like it - a remark I made that you even had to say on it Jerry Wexler's obit strand, and then will engage in distorting what has really gone on. What was the word you used in your first message to me - "extraordinary"? How would you feel if I continued to refer to you as a pervert (that man, the pervert) in almost every single posting. I understand that you have been a journalist for a long time. Why are you behaving in this way? Because, I dare to express something that you do not like - so you want to silence any criticism of what you write. It seems to me that you want everybody to agree with everything you write. There are thinking human-beings on this forum who are entitled like everyone else to have opinions which may or may not concur with yours. Yet, you seem to behave like one of those Neo Con Republicans, or Soviet Commissars, or Chinese Government spokesperson.

Perhaps, I should run this posting by David Hepworth - that font of all knowledge, the Oracle, or whatever he is. Oh yes, like you, he gets paid to express his opinions, among other things - and is another falible human being like us all, who expresses opinions that are sometimes interesting. But I am fairly sure that even he, would have the good sense not continue to write Stalker Blake, constantly, for fear of the libel laws.

[Nigel w]

why don't you go and read The Sun...or look at the pictures...

Your Rupert Murdoch- like tactics will not work with me.

So is that the reason for the green ink on purple notepaper - because I spent several years on the staff of News International?

if you had ever been stalked - whether in real life or in cyberspace - you would take a rather different view , one suspects. But enough ! I 'flounced' away from this forum to escape both stalkers and green inkers and here you are goading me back in !!!

[nikki akinjinmi]

why don't you go and read The Sun...or look at the pictures...

Your Rupert Murdoch- like tactics will not work with me.

So is that the reason for the green ink on purple notepaper - because I spent several years on the staff of News International?

if you had ever been stalked - whether in real life or in cyberspace - you would take a rather different view , one suspects. But enough ! I 'flounced' away from this forum to escape both stalkers and green inkers and here you are goading me back in !!!

I am expressing an opinion. I didn't know I had the power to goad you.

And whether I have been stalked or not is irrelevant, - I have an awareness of the libel laws of the UK, or maybe you are not subject to the same laws - or don't they apply to those who work or have worked at News International? Perhaps I need to check with David Hepworth on this one.

[Nigel w]

From Word magazine's article Dialogue of The Deaf:

the internet and email is facilitating a trade in abuse even among people who on the face of it know better. Part of that is just because they can. Answering back once involved paper, an envelope, a stamp, a trip to the postbox, ample time to reflect or grow discouraged. That has all changed and nowadays people reach for the snappy rejoinder often before they've actually thought of one. Such is the traffic in smart-arse one-liners that I'm genuinely amazed that nobody has come up with an email package including a cooling-off function - some sort of electronic departure lounge into which it decants all your outgoing communications for, say, half an hour, long enough to give them a second thought, and in some cases, call them back.

Instant email response is the non-violent person's equivalent of the glassing. People talk of "firing off" emails as if they were shots from the hip that didn't actually hurt but simply made the whistling sound of a harmless ricochet. But people are bruised. Anything that can be taken the wrong way will be taken the wrong way. People don't read emails carefully. Except among friends, nuances are lost. People respond to what they think is said rather than what actually is said. What they think is said is very often the thing that sets up their pat response.
Add to that the fact that media no longer believes you're there unless you're responding and you have an exponential growth in cab driver's opinions - predictable, accusing and unleavened by personal experience. The rich range of human experience is narrowed to a yes-no interlude. Are we ruder as a society? Text this number for yes and this number for no.

The sense of pent-up anger that appears to lurk behind the postings on the Guardian site as much as the Daily Mail's is increasingly straining for the definitive statement that will achieve the impossible, which is to SHUT EVERYBODY UP. It's no longer an engagement; it's a dialogue of the deaf in which everybody's looking for the conversational topper, the James Bond-style exit line.

This does not only apply to the majority who have been unheard too long. It comes to something when someone as well situated as Giles Coren feels the need, as he did recently, to settle a score with another food critic by sending an email that climaxed in the expression "take your head out of your arse, you fucking twat". Had he scrawled this in green ink on Basildon Bond, the recipient could have comforted themselves with the idea that they were the victim of a stray nutter. But once the thing appeared online, the sentiment is in the public domain and appears to be somehow widely held.

[nikki akinjinmi]

I think you really need to take a look in the mirror, Nigel.

I had seen the article - and much of it seems to really illustrate the behaviour you have displayed in this forum.

[Nigel w]

Nigel ? Who he ? Don't you mean That Man ??

That was a weak attempt at defusing the situation/declaring a truce with a joke, by the way...

[nikki akinjinmi]

Nigel ? Who he ? Don't you mean That Man ??

That was a weak attempt at defusing the situation/declaring a truce with a joke, by the way...

Ok, truce drawn. Situation defused.

[joel]

I have an awareness of the libel laws of the UK

"Success" in libel requires very deep pockets...
In the meantime here is a picture of a frog looking at guano taken near Taiyo's Dad's chateau.