Backhanders

One of the problems of putting yourself up on the web is that you open yourself up to all sorts of “incoming”; good, bad and indifferent.

I guess I like praise as much as the next person, and I put a few of the emails I get up on here and share them.

But in a spirit of balance, I also think it’s reasonable to put up some of the negative stuff. Sometimes the writer has a point, sometimes I’m not really sure what provokes the reaction.

One recent comment was on one of the CBR600 articles I’ve written – there are two, as it happens. I’ve removed them from the current version of the site but they’re still out there on the server, and get indexed. I suppose I ought to pull them or re-index them. However;

“Just read the article on the cbr 600, What a load of old tosh.”

I asked for a bit of clarification. Back came;

“You must be joking, why don’t you get a proper job?.”

To say I was slightly puzzled by this response would be an understatement! Onto round three of the correspondence;

“Your article on the CBR was reasonable, if ,you had made clear that it was your personal opinion. I expect you tell the learners to buy all the best gear,as you can’t put a price on safety. Arai helmets £500, full leathers with knee sliders, with as many colours as possibly,£800, boots with toe sliders £250.Then say ” you can now do wheelies past the high street chip shop safely”.And as a final parting you tell them to buy biker mags where they will learn so much from the “honest writings” of the journos.”

I really don’t know where he got all this from, it certainly wasn’t from my site as any reader will know, so I asked if he’d found the page “orphaned” via a search engine, and passed on some of the rationale for the site in general, the road tests in particular and pointed him at the “personal opinion” disclaimer found on the road tests index page. Back came the next answer;

“Hi. I believe I read your article in the Riders Digest. When I recieve parts from Wemoto, they include one. I’ve asked them not to send me any as they are a dreary read, but they still keep sending them.I don’t understand journos disliking bikes, they are like women, big, fat,slim, curvy, shapeless but they are all lovely.”

Now I was seriously surprised! He seems to think I’m a journo, and as I haven’t given the Rider’s Digest permission to republish anything, I’d be a bit surprised if anything had appeared in there, so I questioned that;

“Hi, You are right. I was talking to the editor and he said you haven’t written anything of note that he would include in his rag. It must have been in some obscure link I saw your article.

Kind Regards.”

Miaow… thanks to A Stanfield for the fun!