Sunday 18 December 2011

Who is Smudger, the Isle of Thanet Gazette Columnist?


Is it Rebecca Smith the Editor of The Isle of Thanet Gazette? This seems to be a forgone conclusion on Thanet Life, see http://birchington.blogspot.com/2011/12/first-casualty-of-circulation.html and is Smudger after Simon’s colon, wife or even child?

Do we have a News of the World situation here, see Tony Bignews http://bignewsmargate.blogspot.com/2011/12/time-on-my-side.html who is missing his Sunday morning paper.      

More elusive posting on Worrows World, see http://worrowsworld.blogspot.com/2011/12/in-run-up-to-2012-local-council.html probably best not a quick sketch for this one.


Meanwhile on Will Scobie’s blog Chris Wells and Peter Checksfield are trying to identify an anonymous commentator who says they are an ex Conservative Councillor, see http://williamscobie.blogspot.com/2011/12/more-time-for-politics.html probably best not a sketch for this one either. 


Of course Simon Moores, Chris Wells, Peter Checksfield, Will Scobie, John Worrow, Tony Flaig all have something in common with me, which is they engage in open internet forums under their real names. You may not agree with what they say, but at least you know who they are. 



Obviously vague imaginary sketches of anonymous newspaper columnists are fair game as are artists, the prime minister, with local councillors I have been very restrained so far with what you could call rather tasteful drawings.

A question though, with a new administration which I hope will be a little more lightharted, are councillors fair game for the odd cartoon sketch?

I may ramble on this Sunday morning as I try to follow the other Thanet blogs.

8 comments:

  1. The alias of 'Smudger' isn't even appropriate for a column of poorly written text in a local paper. When I was a magazine editor a 'smudger' was a slang term for a photographer. As far as I know, it still is!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Peter I think that Retired has developed some sort of personal grudge against me having a peaceful day off, and while not wishing to risk litigation for libel himself, he seems to wait for Sunday when I am out with my children and trying to administer this blog with a mobile phone.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Peter, just to put your mind at rest. When Retired first made his allegations about the links to the Deal bombing they were thoroughly investigated by Kent Police and found to be without substance.
    Result, he simply added Mike Fuller, the then chief constable to his list of plotters.

    Next he wrote to the home secretary with his suspicions which, once again, on investigation were found to be groundless. He then added Jack Straw to his list of conspirators.

    Yes, he can sound very plausible up to a point, but he most definitely isn't. That is, of course, unless a whole host of councillors, Royal Marine Officers, the Chief Constable of Kent and the Home Secretary were all in the plot together. You might then ask, for what purpose,

    The guy is a nutter, live with it and move on.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Smudger is a common nickname in the services for someone with surname Smith. Probably predates magazines

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tim, Peter I think the point here is that the law is very uncertain about the situation with libel and comment, there is a sense that by allowing comment on my blog I am in some ways endorsing that comment.

    The problem is where I stand in terms of litigation for libel when one commentator says something defamatory about a named person, and the truth is I just don’t know.

    Whatever Rick is or isn’t, he is most definitely plausible and intelligent and his comments, in the case of the ones I deleted, appeared to contain allegations which I could neither prove or disprove and therefore do not wish to be seen as endorsing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. support thanet artists
    go join jottify (only takes 30secs)
    & like this...
    http://jottify.com/works/trafficking-and-sexual-december/
    thank you
    spread the word

    also check these...
    http://graffthanet.blogspot.com
    http://thanetisfuckingdead.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  7. I just signed up to follow two of those blogs hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I wonder why? and I dont care who they are run by

    ReplyDelete
  8. Michael, I think the really important point is that Rick cannot prove his allegations either and you are, therefore, quite right to delete them when he engages in naming people.

    ReplyDelete

Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.