On Wed, 16 May 2001, Jenny Kaye wrote:

Don't split hairs with me Iain, and stop bloody sulking.

No one on this list, or off it, is obliged to spend one iota of their time and energy engaging with you. In our recent exchanges you had managed to achieve a more-or-less civilised email message. Before I could reply, though, I witnessed the latest in your contemptible little spat with Steve K. As it happens, Steve is (in no particular order): a good guy, my friend, and right. Socialized ground-ape that I am, I tend to be dissuaded from friendly conversation with someone when they deal shabbily with my friends.

In your brief and sorry history on this mailing list, you have shown yourself to be deeply ill-informed about crucial issues in performance, analysis, literature and epistemology. You have also demonstrated an absolute unwillingness to learn, an imperviousness to any suggestions that your interpretations might be questionable or open to improvement, and a deeply unpleasant personal manner. The result of this is that people are increasingly unwilling to spend any time in discussion with you. For example, I read your analysis of 'Spacefall' with interest, finding things I agreed with, and things I would question. If anyone else had written that piece, I would have replied and perhaps we could have fruitfully dicussed the issues. As it was you, however, there didn't seem to be much point.

It's a shame. When one strips away the arrogance, condescension and wilful stupidity, your analyses of Gan's character and of the first two episodes are interesting, thought-provoking and could be valuable contributions. As it is, though, your words will increasingly fall on deaf ears, as people give up on you in disgust. When this happens, you will doubtless interpret it as the cowardly untermenschen, beaten down by the force of your logic, retreating into a cosy hive -- rather than the natural human reaction to a person who is self-righteous, nasty, and unable to admit to ever being wrong.

Anyway, I doubt I'll bother replying to you again. Carry on the way you're going, and soon you'll have the comfort of being left all alone in your little corner, free to declaim to yourself without fear that the echoes might challenge you. Forever.

Iain