It has been an unusual week. A Dragon and twitter self publicist made a bit of a fool of himself on twitter and despite fanboys and girls rushing to his rescue to praise the heroic twitterer without stopping to thoroughly consider what was being said, Duncan Genocide (Copyright Harry & Paul) managed to issue a rather sinister tweet on twitter to @sharongooner…and I quote: “Just so you know. If anyone believes your silly tweet & if it hurts my family I will sue you for as much as I can.” I covered the ‘incident’ on my blog yesterday [Duncan Genocide doesn’t seem to understand Twitter that well – a personal opinion…not a LIBEL! ].
I find it curious that a man who is reputedly 167th in Britain’s Rich list, worth over £370 million and who has a Titanium Amex card, apparently, could wish to sue someone who is not rich for as ‘much as he can’. This smacks of bullying. The likelihood of Bannatyne actually winning a libel case in that context was remote – and it would have been a foolish thing to do because the British don’t like bullies and, I suspect, there would have been a Streisand Effect on twitter and on the net.
To be fair to Bannatyne – even though he has blocked me (Presumably because I parodied the Dragons? ) he does do a lot of good work for charity and it is right that he should protect his family. For a man whose judgment in business is obviously extremely good – this was not apparent on twitter yesterday. Having reflected on the matter overnight, and learning from Sharon Gooner’s tweets that there will be no litigation against her, I think it probably not unreasonable to put this incident down to a “bad day on twitter“. I won’t, however, be following his ‘tweets’ (a) because I am blocked from doing so and (b) because I can’t be arsed to follow anything Bannatyne does from now on. Lord Sugar is far more amusing, far more interesting and… I understand… far richer! I shall make him a few more quid by buying his new book. I enjoy autobiography and, I hear, it is rather good. Apparently, Private Eye thinks so!
Talking of bullying… I am not too keen on the handling of an important law student issue recently by RollonFriday. I think it was a bit cruel. To be fair…RollonFriday did ask for observations from twitter users and I responded by saying they would get a bit of flack. Judge for yourselves. The original story by Carly Moore-Martin in The Law Society Gazette is here…
The training contract lottery
And RollonFriday’s treatment (uncharacteristically brutish?) is here.
I think that RoF would be better sticking to ‘sticking it to Law firms and Law Schools’ – which they do well. RoF – again being fair – is usually on the side of students, so I am a bit baffled as to why they went for Carly Moore-Martin in the way they did. Perhaps they will make it up to her? (Hint!) They suggested it was because they wanted to encourage debate in their tweet. I hope Carly Moore-Martin is thick skinned – she certainly seems to have the nouse to write an article on her predicament in The Law Society Gazette – and that takes a bit of nerve – and full marks to the Gazette for running the story.
I wish Carly Moore-Martin well..and, for the record, I take my hat off to all students who fund their own law studies, provided they know the facts about the profession, and wish them well. It is a hard profession, particularly in these difficult times – and I would never discourage anyone with a reasonable prospect of getting a 2.1 from a reasonable university (as here) from having a go – if they are absolutely certain they understand the risks.
WEST LONDON MAN….LIVES and RETURNS!!
Right… just to let you know… that George, WEST LONDON MAN, was released from custody at La Guardia airport New York through the excellent representation given by experienced New York Defense lawyer, Scott Greenfield (who writes the excellent Simple Justice blog) and will soon return to this blog… writing away now!
If you have never read West London Man – a social satire – and wish to do so here are the first 25 episodes. There are even podcasts and I play the part of George. My ex-wife plays the part of Caroline and Scott Greenfield plays himself in episode 25 and Colin Samuels US lawyer from California and writer of one of my favourite blogs Infamy or Praise, and a good friend, who helped me write the last three episodes, plays…. Hank, the US lawyer and La Guarda guards!.
Read / Listen to Episodes 1-25 of WEST LONDON MAN!
Season II Episodes 1-12 coming soon……
Have a good weekend
Best, as always
Charon
***
STOP PRESS – MARR AGAIN… taken from my Comments section from Pragmatist…
Great stuff, though surely Mr Marr’s little effort from last Sunday rates a mention in the Bananaskins edition? It’s still doing well on Twitter… https://twitter.com/#!/search/andrew%20marr
***
STOP PRESS: Saturday night 22.50 pm
DRAGON LEAVES TWITTER IN A PUFF
Oh dear… DB may be gorn! He didn’t like the ‘haters’…so for that reason he is *OUT*… ah well….. there we are…. That’s twitter….. sometimes it can backfire…..
Sharon Gooner retaliated on twitter this evening – which, while not the sort of thing a lawyer would have advised – is totally understandable. She was slagged off by many of Bannatyne’s twitter followers. She is not a celebrity. She is a woman who works and tweets. Below you will see an example of the unpleasantness she has had to endure on twitter. This, even without knowing Bannatyne personally, is not something I would imagine he would have any truck with. His *Supporters* need to think carefully about this – because, as sure as eggs are eggs, mainstream media will pick this up – and that won’t be a pleasant experience. They also need to think about whether it is fair to tweet so unpleasantly about someone else? Time to apologise, make up and stop the nonsense? It takes a BIG man to apologise or resolve and make up. Bannatyne is a big man… he does a great deal for charities but will he be here ?
A Bannatyne supporter doing his bit for BIG Society and The National Interest on Twitter tonight… why do we bother? I am fairly certain that Bannatyne would be horrified by this…
This rather unpleasant man lives in *Shittie Swindon* – his words on his own profile when I looked tonight. @s1monsays
And while you are at it.. do look at this….. Matt commented on my earlier post.. this post is worth reading
A Brave Heart in the Dragon’s Den
Further update…
I very much doubt that this man would have the nerve to say this to Sharon Gooner’s face…and that is the problem with people like him. I notice that he is perfectly charming to Dragon Peter Jones and Duncan Bannatyne.. so he is clearly not orf his head on booze as far as one can ascertain looking at his time line.
Does Bannatyne really want PR supporters and *Google juice* like this…..? I don’t think so….
I am publishing this – unpleasant though it is – because I feel very strongly that twitter and Google and decent manners and humanity is rather more important than the vanity of a Dragon and his absurd followers* (Those who indulge in the above).
Enough is enough Mr Bannatyne. Tweeting to those who follow you to say *don’t stoop to the level of the haters* is just not good enough. You called lawyer David Allen Green *Big Boy* yesterday (See post of yesterday) ..are you a *big enough man to sort this amicably with Sharon Gooner*? I do hope so.
AND THIS WONDERFUL PARODY IS FIRST CLASS… FROM THE UGLY TRUTH…..
Great stuff, though surely Mr Marr’s little effort from last Sunday rates a mention in the Bananaskins edition? It’s still doing well on Twitter… https://twitter.com/#!/search/andrew%20marr
Pragmatist… I shall add you comment into the main text… excellent..thanks!
Mike – Apologies as off topic but could you e-mail me your e-mail addy and moby number, Can’t communicate on either as per my records. A
WR – done!
I said the same thing a few minutes ago about the vile Simon being rational in his tweets to Bannatyne and Jones, that it shows he’s clearly not drunk or drugged. Which leaves us with sycophancy – which is almost worse.
That s1says is keeping it classy! Do these people have jobs?
btw, re the LPC student in the Gazette looking for a training contract-
everyone talks about making students *understand* the realities of life, and then when the realities smack them in the face, we’re worried about the message being a bit mean.
She’s absolutely right – you can have a 2.1 from a respectable university and have lots of work experience and get nothing. Fact.
Our telling kids “it’s tough” is not enough. “It’s tough” is a challenge to rise to. What people need to be told is this is not the profession of your childhood or of TV. Unless you want to sell your soul to the City, even qualified jobs don’t generally pay a living wage.
The legal profession is becoming high and arguably over regulated. This means you will constantly have to pay further fees and take further exams just to maintain your qualification and keep your job.
Honestly, Carly – I understand “in for a penny” – but people need to understand when to cut their losses and move on to something where your qualifications will be valued.
People think becoming a qualified solicitor or barrister is the gateway to a glamorous life where they will be respected and remunerated. Those days are gone.
Nothing to see here, move along.
I think you have been very fair, indeed generous to Mr Bannatyne. Since a prominent theme in the comments on your first blog, and on Twitter, is that everybody involved needs to calm down and get over themselves, I feel moved to say that in my opinion (and I am not a lawyer) Mr. Bannatyne has exaggerated the whole incident, and I feel that his exaggeration has contributed a lot to the severity of the attacks his followers have unleashed over the last two days. .
Mr Bannatyne’s very first tweet said “if (sic) it hurts my family I will sue you for as much as I can “. When David Allen Green offered to help @Sharongooner, Mr Bannatyne dropped the ‘If’ and described Mr Green as “the sort of lawyer that would take money from someone who damages children I see.”
As Mr Green said that the time, that was a serious and untrue allegation, made about a lawyer who has worked for the NSPCC. Mr Green asked his own Twitter followers their opinion, and concluded that the allegation need not be taken seriously. I myself thought Mr Bannatyne had used intemperate language in the heat of the moment, and it would pass,
However, it did not pass. Mr Bannatyne persisted with his theme of hurting and damaging long after @Sharongooner had deleted the original joke, through Friday and all of Saturday.
He tweeted, at different times:
“I live to protect my children”
“you cleary have no respect for your family” (to someone who disagreed with him)
“I was & always will protect my children”
“if you do not protect your children you are not a man”
He also retweeted similar sentiments from his 184,000 followers and he repeated his allegation that @Sharongooner and Mr Green were “putting childrens welfare in danger”.
I do not generally regard anyone as responsible for what their friends say on their behalf, and I know that people have also been rude to Mr. Bannatyne, but as far as I can discern from looking back over the stream, Mr. Bannatyne is the only protagonist who has exaggerated the issue, and his exaggeration has a lot to do with the vitriol and abuse that has been hurled at @sharongooner.
Mr. Bannatyne may, for all I know, be quite sincere in the belief that people are trying to harm his children, but his allegations strikes me as utterly disproportionate to what actually happened (somebody told a crap joke, and deleted it when asked), and neither rational nor responsible.
“For they say, ‘His tweets are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.”
– St Paul’s Second Letter to the Social Networkers, chapter 10 verse 10.
What the Bannatyne spat (esp. @S1monsays’ invaluable contribution to public discourse) and the RollOnFriday ruckus have in common: the sheer, nasty, mean-spirited and vindictive tone of so much online discussion. Really gets me down.
I got a 2:2 (crivens!) in a non-law degree from a “respectable university”, self-funded my way through two years of CPE (as it then was) and LPC, only got a training contract in March of my LPC year. So I have complete sympathy with Ms Moore-Martin.
But then, I was obviously another whinging, naive tit with a juvenile sense of entitlement that led me to the foolish decision to self-fund my legal studies rather than following the One True Path of getting my Magic Circle training contract sorted out beforehand. Though perhaps by now I’m allowed to parlay that into a right to talk down to people about how “the world doesn’t owe you a living” and so on…?
my boiler is on the blink and i need a fitter not a quitter – could he help?
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