Thursday, August 25, 2005

A reader writes...

A number of emails have been received at Natwatch2 since its inception. But a slightly more out of the ordinary message recently arrived. Perhaps not within the scope of this blog, but Natwatch2 thought it apt to include here. The message sent by a reader to Natwatch2, who is worried about threats made by the lovely Price4President.

To quote verbatim:
I was curious who was behind natwatch, so I sent a few emails to them saying I found their website entertaining (I do!) then I said I had a few juicy stories I'd like to send them (a lie!) but that I didn't like sending anything to people who did not identify themselves. So I had a few email exchanges, a bit of banter really, nothing too serious.

The person refused to identify himself/herself and became increasingly rude. I made the schoolboy error of replying to the natwatch person during my lunch break at work (I work for a local authority). The natwatch person must have been able to receive my IP address as he emailed me saying that someone in my job should be spending my time doing work. I replied saying I was on my lunchbreak. Then the Natwatch person emailed back demanding I tell them the story otherwise they would contact my line manager and and grass me up. I wrote an email back asking them not to threaten me and discuss the issue like adults. I pointed out to natwatch, to clear things up, that I didn't actually have any inside stories about the going on at my workplace at all, and that my story involved things I have heard outside work.

Then the natwatch person said I had one hour to respond with a decent story otherwise he would (i) contact my line manager and chief executive of the council about my emails (ii) take me down like Aled cottle (the guy who found himself on the front page of the Daily Post for sending an anti-British email to natwatch). Then natwatch kept on sending me emails saying things like still waiting, the clock is ticking to put pressure on me to deliver a story, a story I didn't have as it was playing a prank. After I got home I wrote a few emails to natwatch asking him/her to uphold decent British values and apologise for the threatening behaviour. I have not received a reply from natwatch since.

It seems whoever behind natwatch is a complete coward, totally unwilling to reveal his/her identity and political allegiance. This person is all too willing to attack the behaviour of nationalists in Wales, yet this person is not exactly upholding good decent British standards of personal conduct himself/herself with the cowardly behaviour of threatening to cause personal harm to the character of an individual like me who had done nothing wrong except pretend to have a story as bait to get this person to reveal himself/herself.

We were shocked to hear the threat to "take [him] down like Aled Cottle". P4P is very sure of himself and his contacts!

Natwatch2 is astounded that P4P can stoop to such depths. Perhaps a devious intern at Natwatch Towers is behind it?

5 Comments:

Blogger Nic said...

I was hoping this story would come out. I know of at least one other person who has been similarly threatened by "price4president". I doubt whether any of these emails will find themselves on the front page of any newspapers, given that we still don't know who it is that's sending them, but given that someone at Natwatch Central Office has just deleted two months' worth of posts from the front page (Google cache), it looks like someone is having second thoughts about the long term consequences of using an anonymous blog to attack political opponents.

Or maybe it's just another "technical hitch". Natwatch does seem especially prone to those.

4:20 AM  
Blogger Banksy said...

They haven't been deleted.

For some reason the July archive comes up as its main page.

All the Augusts post are there under the August archive.

4:26 AM  
Blogger Nic said...

Ah right. It's not obvious, from the weird way the archive shows posts. July 6, 5, 4, 2, 1 and then back to July 30, 29, and so on. I only saw the first few posts and assumed the rest had been deleted from the blog. I knew the individual posts were still there, because I've been busy making a back-up ;-)

I don't know what blog software NW is using (blogware?) but I know with Moveable Type, say, deleting posts from the blog doesn't automatically remove them from the web - you have to go in via FTP and delete the files manually. I assumed that's what was happening here. My mistake.

5:56 AM  
Blogger Bratiaith said...

They may not have been deleted but I believe they have been edited. I was going to point out the ethnic slurs levelled at welsh speakers in a post about the eisteddfod.The usual stuff - stone age wode painted poetry recitations around fires before the saxons came.

I can't find it now - so they are obviously scared that some one will find out who they are.

11:54 AM  
Blogger Bratiaith said...

further developments?

after spending some time going through his archives and flitting back an forth between Natwatch Natwatchwatch and Morfablog. My anti virus software kicked in automatically, scanned my computer and found a threat.

WHAT A COINCIDENCE!

12:30 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home