Dragon and unremitting self publicist on twitter (books, gyms, good works etc) @Duncanbannatyne (aka known as Duncan Genocide by Harry & Paul) has managed to piss off a lot of people on twitter by arguing with a young woman who offended him. The whole thing got out of hand…. just follow the #duncanbannatyne or similar to get the story.
Duncan Genocide has 182,000 followers – I am not one of them… in fact… I am BLOCKED from following him…. he doesn’t like me, obviously. Bovvered? Nope.
I am not going to cover it – because it is now @DavidAllenGreen story -*Genocide* was *HARD* on twitter..and tweeted this… to lawyer David Allen Green… not a terribly clever thing to do…. since David Allen Green is a rather sensible and good lawyer. (See tweet capture below)
This is the Duncan Bannatyne Tweet to lawyer David Allen Green…captured from the public timeline!
I do despair of celebrities who think they can own and manipulate twitter… fair enough pimping the odd book etc… but bullying is most unattractive. The original tweet complained of was clearly a joke. I did see it. Perhaps not a great joke… but anyone with even half a mind… would see it as a Dragon’s Den joke! Now the joke – in my opinion – is the Dragon…. and for that reason… *I’m OUT* and will never take Bannatyne seriously again unless he apologises to the original tweeter and twitter for his… to coin a phrase… *Ridiculous* behaviour.
Life is just too short…..
This is a personal opinion, sanctioned by English Law (and a raportage of events which are within my personal experience in terms of being blocked!), and is NOT a libel or any form of intrusion into the life of a heroic celebrity. I believe we are still allowed to express personal opinions in our green and pleasant land even if a Twitter Cleb doesn’t like it?
This is Duncan Genocide’s tweet to @sharongooner (who I think has been very ‘cool’ about the whole thing – and even deleted her tweet as she did not intend to offend. She made me smile when she tweeted… *going to the naughty step* – full marks to SG!)
Duncan, your spelling, grammar and sentence construction is appalling, and for that reason…. I’m out!
A different perspective on this story:
A silly woman posted a direct statement on twitter about Duncan Bannatyne’s wife. In the same tweet she made a play on words which playfully insinuated that Bannatyne was having an affair with another Dragon’s Den celebrity and compared him to William Wallace: “You can take my wife, but you can never take my Meadon”.
That this second part of the tweet was obviously a joke (though not funny imho) did not change the fact that the first part was a direct, offensive and highly personal allegation about Bannatyne’s wife.
Perhaps foolishly (but someone had just made an outrageous personal slur against his wife) Bannatyne responded with a threat to “sue” the woman who wrote the tweet. She immediately responded with an apology, and later took the tweet down.
A third party then decided to join the fray, namely the hero of many a free speech case @DavidAllenGreen. For some reason he decided to play the hard man on twitter, and sent the woman a tweet offering to represent her, while promulgating the story to his own followers. Bannatyne again responded precipitously and criticised Green for this offer. So Green upped the stakes and threatened to sue Bannatyne.
Nobody comes out of this looking good. The original woman was foolish, Bannatyne was rash, and Green was childishly provocative. It is in every sense an unnecessary and pointless argument.
If advocates of free speech want to win public support for libel reform, Green’s actions are emphatically NOT the way to do it. I’m a fan of his work, but he went down in my estimation today.
Duncan Hothersall
Get over yourself. The “direct, offensive and highly personal allegation about Bannatyne’s wife” was obviously the set up to the joke, and no more than that. Anyone who isn’t a self-obsessed twit could see that. Which is why Bannatyne didn’t.
David Allen Green was not playing the hard man. He was doing what he does, namely offering to support a smaller person against someone who clearly was trying to play the hard man.
Bannatyne also rather pathetically tried to make this about his children. If they are on Twitter, they’ll see a lot worse than a poor joke about their dad.
It was a continuation of Bannatyne’s attitude that led to Green saying “so sue me”.
Bannatyne is a bully, who wouldn’t even acknowledge the apology, and Green was dealing with it.
David Allen Green lent his support because he does not like rich individuals using the threat of legal action to bully people into silence. It’s not, as far as I know, illegal to make a jpke about somebody, even one in bad taste (although we have the Paul Chambers trial to tell us if a joke made about an airport might be a criminal offence). As it is, Duncan Bannatyne’s justification that he was protecting his eight year old is pretty laughable. Hiding behind a small child isn’t the actions of an adult. He’d be better off explaining that people can be a bit mean and worry more about those kids who are under real threat.
As it is, I suspect neither the original joke or the response from Duncan Bannatyne is remotely likely to be enough to lead to a successful claim in court although I guess it could waste a lot of money.
Just another minor tempest in a sea of twitters and all will be forgotten in a day or two.
What was Bannatyne’s tweet to the woman about “Adele” and bringing up her daughter a reference to? That looked at least as libelous as her initial joke/statement.
I have to say I have some sympathy for Bannatyne over all this (I’m not a particular fan of the guy generally, by the way). That it is completely clear to everyone that the entire tweet was a joke is highly debatable, in my mind. The original “affair” statement is so bald that it’s really not clear whether it is just part of the joke, or the repetition of a fact already alleged elsewhere and merely included to put the punchline in context for those not already aware of it. As we have seen before, Twitter’s character limit forces us into unnatural use of language that further removes the subtleties of communication that are already very limited in text-only media.
If it is such a foregone conclusion that nobody will genuinely misuderstand it then, as his original response made clear, there would be no further consequences. Yes, it was a heavy-handed response (but see my previous remark about the character limit for some perspective on this point). However, nobody criticising Bannatyne for this seems ready to acknowledge that Sharon Gooner really needs to exercise more care when tweeting than she did in that case.
IainMonty, your interpretation differs from mine, that’s fine. But to correct a point of fact, Green did not tell Bannatyne “so sue me”. He threatened to sue Bannatyne, asking for an address to which to send a letter before action, claiming Bannatyne had made “a serious and false allegation”.
As I say, the joke was unfunny and stupid, Bannatyne’s response was silly, and Green’s interjection was childish and pointless. Nobody wins.
Re-reading the tweets, I’m now wondering whether @DavidAllenGreen’s post was ALSO a joke, and I am just getting all het up about fluff? Communication in a text-only medium is perilous.
Duncan, your facts may be correct, but you should not assume the request for an address was any sort of “threat”, the inverted commas implying that the action would not actually take place.
I haven’t seen the complete timeline, but have inferred that Bannatyne, in a pathetic attempt to justify himself, is alleging that anyone who defends the original joker is somehow guilty of a form of child abuse.
Green cites his work with NSPCC, presumably as evidence of this being a “a serious and false allegation”.
Green defending others against an obvious bully, as he is currently doing for a friend of mine, and standing up for himself against a self regarding so-called celebrity, is hardly childish and pointless.
The phrase “so sue me big boy” appears to be a better fit for that description.
Actually, I’d like to retract my earlier statement that the nature of the Twitter medium had anything to do with Bannatyne’s seemingly over-harsh response. Nevertheless, I do still think he would have been perfectly justified in asking for a clarification and deletion of the original tweet, as a courtesy.
Agreed anybody is entitled to ask for the deletion of a comment they feel offended by or in bad taste, but you don’t do it by a threat of legal action.
As for David Allen Green threats to sue, he has a history of trying to provoke those being pompous into rash responses. I think it was the GMP yesterday.
Steve – You are right! David Allen Green does have a perfectly respectable history of provoking pompous people into rash responses – it is a reasonable way of trying to oppose bullying.
A personal allegation…
Really?
Just no.
One point being missed here. The original tweet was not addressed to Bannatyne. A subtlety of Twitter is that if you do not use the persons “@” name, you are implying that you are not specifically tweeting this person.
This underlines – to me – that Ms. Hooner did not intend Bannatyne to see the tweet, and therefore did not intend to cause offence.
DAG never threatened to sue anyone. He asked for a link to the address and made a statement of fact (that Bannatyne had made a serious and false allegation). That is NOT A threat to sue. Check the timeline.
“…Bannatyne, in a pathetic attempt to justify himself, is alleging that anyone who defends the original joker is somehow guilty of a form of child abuse.”
There seems to be a long, long list of ‘things that are a form of child abuse’ in Bannatyne’s mind. Smoking in a car with a child in it was so defined by him the other day. What next?
Actually, I’m inclined to agree with Duncan Hothersall in some respects. This type of joke works best when the setup is rooted in the truth. Therefore, I might be inclined to believe that Bannatyne’s wife really had been having an affair after reading the joke. It is an unfortunately poorly executed joke. I don’t think it amounts to libel, but I can understand why he was so upset about it. It’s obvious that the second part is a joke, but it’s not obvious that the first part is also untrue.
The point about it not being addressed to Bannatyne is irrelevant. He was not complaining about offence being caused. Indeed, he claims just the opposite. It’s about the slurring of his wife’s reputation and the potential fallout for his school age child.
So, to make it clear to people who may not fully understand (i.e. the red top media)
– Lady makes a (crap) joke – will be seen by maybe a few hundred people, if that.
– Somehow the “celeb” mentioned gets wind of it and starts badmouthing lady
– Now tens of thousands of people become aware and start looking for the “joke”
– All day long, “celeb” is made to look a fool and Retweets idiotic statements of support from his loyal followers.
– “Celeb” will more than likely be on a news channel (Sky, I am looking at you) over the weekend.
I find it hard to believe that whoever the “celeb” pays to do their twitter would be that stupid (and also can’t spell for toffee!!)
To be fair to Duncan Bannatyne. His spelling is poor mainly because he has dyslexia. I suspect he does his own tweeting.
Julia M – If I had a child of 8… I certainly would not let them look at twitter and some of the excellent people (some of whom are a bit *ripe*) I follow! That is for sure
What is an 8 year old child doing following adults on twitter…? they should be out enjoying themselves and playing games etc etc etc?
SpursSimon – Yep… that’s about it 🙂
Matt – Probably a typo – one thing about DB – he is articulate and intelligent… and a lot of people suffer from dyslexia….
I don’t, fortunately… but I do make some horrific typos when tweeting and blogging late at night under the influence!
@charonqc – His concern was not that his son would see the tweet and believe it. He thought maybe his school mates would see it and believe the first part. Then they might pick on him and he wouldn’t know what to think. It’s understandable. As I’ve said, I don’t think this amounts to libel. Frankly, I believe they are even.
Matt – Would these school mates not be having to be following @Sharongooner… I don’t think the chances are high.. but see your point…. I suspect the 8 year old school mates would probably have got the joke?
I understand the point… all got out of hand, I fear!
Julia M – If I had a child of 8… I certainly would not let them look at twitter and some of the excellent people (some of whom are a bit *ripe*) I follow! That is for sure
charon old chap if anyone left you in charge of an 8 yr old they would deserve all they got! probably a very happy but slightly pissed 8yr old.
SW – Curiously, children seem to like me… because I wind them up to hysterical levels, make them laugh and smile as I say to their parents – over to you
My nieces used to like coming round to see *Captain Blackheart* as my brother called me in those days (My real brother) His girls thought I was in TinTin… may still think that!
@charonqc – The hypothetical school mates would not need to be following @Sharongooner. I saw the tweet and I was not. Someone I follow retweeted it. If enough people retweet then we get into that whole six degrees of separation phenomenon. Would the 8 year old school mates have gotten the joke? Probably. But the punchline is not the first sentence. The first sentence is the setup to the joke and is a statement that sounds like an allegation and has the ring of truth to it. I never imagined that Bannatyne made that statement to the press or that he was in fact having an affair with his co-star. That part was clearly a put on. The first sentence could have been true though. I’ve talked to several people (sensible adults) who had simply assumed it was true.
Oh my, what a tizzy:) I have read the comment stream and think there is very little I can add to this one….
LesleyAlmost
I now see that @Sharongooner had been doing a string of punning prior (thought not immediately leading up) to the offending tweet. It makes a lot more sense now. Wouldn’t you know it? I didn’t have the full context. This is something I’ve practically lectured on. Dearie me.
Matt – I wouldn’t worry – but this episode does show the dangers of 140 characters and timelines…. and, frankly, DB should have made his point more sensibly and not kept digging – he seemed to revel in the ‘support’ he got from his fanboy/girls!! 🙂
Charon – You have been banned by D. Bannatyne? That’s nothing, I’ve been suspended by Team Christine (as in O’Donnell).
Top that!!! 😀
White Rabbit – We must do our duty…. I shall use my best endeavours 🙂
I was indeed being ironic. I simply wanted to see how DB would respond to facing a potential threat, instead of being the person making them.
Some earnest sorts may have missed the irony and so misread my intentions, but I am very glad Charon QC and Steve and others saw what I was really up to 🙂
I may write about all this at more length.
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[…] No one could accuse Duncan Bannatyne on Burn’s Night (or, indeed, any other night of being a ‘wee sleekit cowrin tim’rous beastie’… in his business dealings, although some may take the view that can be a beastie on Twitter: here and here. […]