In summary a
group of people have been after me for years and have completed a 12-year
investigation into the history of FR in an attempt to discredit me. They allege
that we copied the idea from them through contact with a developer that they
had engaged to write their website, and that we lied about our launch and have
been doing so ever since. They have been contacting us on and off for 7 years.
For background to this story read:
In this section I
am going to talk about how we’ve managed to get into this sorry mess. These
people have completely invented a conspiracy, apparently based on our inability
to remember every little detail of what we did or said 12 years ago.
And in looking at
some of these areas, I’ll show how all of these things are a bit catching – in
the fact that our pursuers seem to have suffered memory loss, and made unforced
errors themselves, on quite a few occasions.
Lets just face it
– we all make mistakes, and we are all forgetful. However I don’t think I have
ever been so analysed, taken apart and picked up on every little detail like
this before.
The Mistakes
As I have
mentioned before, a huge part of what this is all about is that Julie and I are
liars. And this allegation all comes about from a simple error. Once again I
will explain for their benefit, as it never gets through.
We were sent a
letter in 2005 from these people asking a number of apparently innocent
questions about the early stages of FR. The letter from memory (and don’t
forget I am apparently awful at that) said they were doing a research project.
One question asked was who our first hosting company was. In fact, we initially
used a small outfit called Aflex and moved about 6 months later to one called
Densitron. [Julie was not involved in any of the technical side or server
setup. And this was years after the event when we had been with Densitron for
some 5 years by then.] So she answered Densitron. SHE GOT IT WRONG. Big deal.
Or so you would think.
And then, soon
afterwards when asked by one of these people about the hosting I also mistakenly
said Densitron (incorrectly) and he corrected me. Again, what a crime. This of
course was all very suspicious and obviously indicated that we were lying and
trying to cover something up.
Now I have only
actually read their document from cover to cover about 3 times. I made loads of
notes on the second read. And blimey do they make mistakes. Let me go briefly
down to their level and be pedantic.
So here’s a bit
of proof reading on their investigation document – and these are just a few.
You would have thought after 12 years they would have put a bit more effort
into this.
- On page 7, a
fraud squad officer somehow claims to have seen some invoices from the hosting
company Chorver in January 2001:
“We can confirm that Chorver sent their first
invoice to Happy Group in January 2001. This will not doubt be recorded in
Chorver’s official documentation and would be impossible to change”
No, I have no idea how they got hold of
these invoices either- but don’t worry I will discuss the legal ramifications
of that later. However, Chorver as a company did not even exist until 2003.
Yes, he probably meant Densitron. A mistake! Hang on though. So he has written
down the wrong hosting company then. Didn’t Julie do exactly just that which
caused this whole conspiracy and for us to be branded liars. What a bunch of
hypocrites this lot are!
- On page 15 – they
get my name wrong and call me by their developer’s name.
- On a number of
pages they call our company the Happy Party Group for some reason, whereas
Happy Party was the name of one of our sites – but Happy Group Limited was our
company name.
- They visited a
friend of ours on page 12 (this is a shocking section that I will discuss at
another time). They describe her as a director from the original FR team. No
idea where they got that from: she worked with us from about 2002 on FR and was
never a director.
- On page 16, there is a
section which describes events when we met the main pursuer and the Private
Investigator who accompanied him. In one sentence the PI is called Chris, and
by the next he is called Alex. Split personality? No – just a simple mistake of
course.
As you can see
some seriously bad, indeed embarrassing, errors. They do, however, expose the
slap-dash and shoddy nature of their investigation. You would have thought
people trying to do something like this would have checked basic facts about
company names and directors, let alone proof-read their document to get peoples’
names correct.
But enough of the
mistakes. I think I’ve made my point.
The Memory
Think back to
what you were doing back in the summer of 2000. I struggle to remember what I
was doing last weekend, let alone 12 years ago. However, in their document we
are constantly picked up on everything we say where we are either vague or not
able to remember details. And every single hesitation, indication of uncertainty
or mistake is interpreted as hinting at the conspiracy that we have so
assiduously put together.
Well, I apologise
for my crap memory. Unfortunately, we didn’t take the time to document every
part of our lives so that we could relate conversations back to people when
they enquired about them years later.
Amazingly,
however, as far back as 2000 our pursuers were taking a different tack:
“Immediately after the
meeting while parked outside in their car, both xxxxxxxxxxxxx minuted & then discussed xxxxx’s comments in detail”
Wow
– they really did document everything, even before a problem happened. Perhaps
if they just got on with building their idea, rather than documenting every
meeting, they might have got further.
But let’s again
just look at their own memory. I suggest it’s very selective. Don’t forget: much
of the basis for the conspiracy they impute is our failure immediately to
recall a trivial detail from 12 years
ago. But in their document, concerning a meeting with their developer on 24th
May 2005, they state about a fact he remembers from 5 years previously that
“it is totally & utterly inconceivable that he could have possibly
remembered this brief & casual remark at all”.
The irony of this
statement. I love it.
And whilst on the
memory front. When trying to jog that awful memory of mine this year I managed
to boot up an old laptop (btw – rusting is a figure of speech, you stupid
people). I found an email from these people from 2002. It was in a pile (oh
dear – another metaphor) of emails to do with FR received in 2002. We got
thousands of emails a day – many like their, so it had just been passed onto me
for information only. It was an email from them asking us if we wanted to
purchase their website ! When I met him and asked about it, unbelievably he
seemed to have forgotten about it. So they contacted us to try and sell us
their business, and they can’t remember that fact. A little careless, wouldn’t
you say ?
And also in 2005,
after we were told by our chief pursuer that he would go away and leave us
alone, we were contacted by a Times journalist who had received a dossier on
how we stole the idea from him. Nothing was printed in the Times, of course,
but when I questioned him, he apparently knew nothing about it. So he sends a
dossier to one of our leading broadsheet newspapers (who rebuff him), but doesn’t
recall anything of it. Funny old thing
that memory, isn’t it ?
The Analysis
The whole 21-page
summary document that our chief pursuer sent us is a chronological time-line of
meetings and communications. Everything is then analysed and given the full
conspiracy treatment. Having just gone back to it for the first time in ages,
it no longer annoys me – in fact I’m now seeing it as a work of paranoid comedy.
Here are a few classic entries:
“ It was quite clear that he was aware of the name
all along but was trying in some way to pretend that he did not remember it”
and another
“It looks like she was primed and ready for a different approach by our
Private Detective, and made the “wrong” phone call”
and there’s an
amount of
“Steve,
trying very hard to sound casual”
So – before going
any further, you people should take a long look in the mirror and examine your
own errors, your own memory, and perhaps do a bit of self-analysis. And be very
careful about branding people as liars.
Coming Very Soon – The
FriendsReunited Conspiracy (?) – Part 9 – The Latest Developments
@spankyhurst
