Links for 2005-05-17

Tom, in all seriousness, I am not an infant, I’m 50 years old (earlier this month, btw) and also honestly, I swear to god, I was not making fun of British accents. Some of my best friends are British. My sister-in-law is British. I have been practicing. I can provide references.
I apologize since apparently this bit hurt your feelings, and I can understand why, and I want you to know that was not my intention. There’s an interesting story behind it. Ben H has indeed been an asshole to me, he probably would even admit it. But the picture was taken by Doc Searls, who was a friend of mine, and I still admire him and like him enormously, but he kept hanging out with people who mean me harm, like Ben H, for example (there are many others),. I was telling my British friend, Kosso about this, he wondered why Doc, my apparent friend, was hanging with a person who had overtly tried to do me so much harm,.
I told Kosso the story, using British accents (he’s British and like you works for the Beeb). They were using Ben as a mouthpiece for their back end, and I had told Kosso that as long as that was happening, I wouldn’t be developing on it. My bet was that if I came up with a good idea, Hammersley would be claiming it as his within nanoseconds. There was no upside for me to look there, and so I wouldn’t be doing it.
It was frustrating, how do we get the message through to the BBC that if they want me to work on this stuff, they need to not use Ben H as the mouthpiece. Then I had a flash, I posted that very brief note, thinking people who work at the BBC might notice and register this much: “Dave and Ben don’t get along” — which is totally true, and again, I doubt if Ben would deny it.
I also hoped Doc Searls would notice it, because someday I would like to be friends again, but it’s hard when he consorts with people who mean me harm.
And I did it finally, as a release for YEARS of frustration, having him use his journalistic cred to keep me in my place more than once, perhaps you can give me a little slack, and a little enjoyment that perhaps I can express my disdain for this Hammersley chap, without bringing on the aninumus of people such as yourself.
Anyway, cheerio, hope you actually read this,
Sincerely

I thought that’s what British people said when they say good bye. Cherio old chap. Or something like that.
Sincerely,

To be fair, I do say Cheerio, but that’s only because my father’s quite old-fashioned and I used to imitate him for fun and eventually it stuck and I can’t stop doing it now.

Okay so I’m an American, as we Americans are wont to say — Sue me! ;->

I’m Scottish – so I don’t consider myself ‘British’ – but the salutation ‘cheerio’ is ubiquitous in Scotland. I use it all the time.
However, Scots don’t say it in the stereotypical ‘British’ way described here by Dave (as in a toffee ‘cheerie-aow’) – Scots say it more like ‘chirrie-oh’.

I’m really sorry Dave, things have kind of got a bit out of control over at my end and as a result some other stuff has had to go on the back burner. It wasn’t my intention to ignore you and I apologise for giving that impression.
Having said that, I’m a bit surprised by the strength of your response. I don’t think it’s fair to call my characterisation of your post “whining”. This wasn’t long and protracted noise-making or a childish unworldly sentiment – it was a simple and clear concise objection to what seemed to me to be an out-of-proportion ad hominem attack.
By now making the thing about the BBC, you’ve put me in a bit of an awkward position. It’s not up to me what decisions the organisation makes in these areas and I can’t speak for them. All I can really say is that if your intent was to try and persuade the British Broadcasting Corporation to change their working so you could collaborate, then perhaps taking the piss out of the British wasn’t the best way to start.

I didn’t think Dave’s “accent” was really an issue…
To paraphrase Tom and mangle it a little, I thought if your intent was to try and persuade the British Broadcasting Corporation to change their working so you could collaborate… then you should probably stop calling people arseholes.
i’ve got no real interest in your beef with ben, but that kind of thing just isn’t very professional, is it?