The Fry débacle, Addendum: #envioushomo and Alan Davies

I have two things to say which are effectively replies to comments on my last entry but I feel are significant enough to highlight, and not lose them in what is effectively a stream of footnotes.

Firstly, several people have picked up on a hashtag which appeared very early on in the day and caused some to shower me and others in outrage. I understand that it has been the cause of a certain amount of bad blood during the day (there was just FAR too much going on for me to get a handle on it), and a topic for at least three comments on my blog.

I am talking about #envioushomo

This was a term of fondness not addressed to Stephen Fry and it wasn't even addressed to me! As anyone who can use the Twitter search function (i.e. every-bloody-one) can see (check out the link I have provided above), it originated with a tweet from my friend @w00dRabbit who is gay, and called himself... an envious homo!

Here's his tweet:

@brumplum oh my! you got a reply from @stephenfry! #envioushomo

I replied to him and because Tweetdeck, my Twitter application of choice, automatically appends any hashtags when replying, it showed up in my timeline. I thought it was fairly amusing and didn't consider for an instant that anyone could misconstrue it - after all, it's there for anyone to get the original context, isn't it?

EDIT: A comment has just made me realise that @woodRabbit's tweets are protected, which means he needs to approve his followers and this tweets don't show up in the general timeline. (I've always found the concept of protected tweets a bit odd, between you and me.) Because we already follow each other, I see his tweets normally and thus made nothing of it.

It was therefore unfair of me to have a go at anyone in the previous version of this blog for not knowing the source of the hashtag. My bad as the youngsters say. My turn to eat crow. Nevertheless, I hope the above has now cleared it all up.


So folks, please get off my back, or anyone else's, for being homophobic or anything else of that ilk, cos you're jumping to ENTIRELY the wrong conclusions!

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The second item I would like to address is on a different level. I've honestly not had time to read through my twitter feed of the day. I've just picked up a few pits and pieces I've had pointed to me, mainly positive. I have no desire to see just how much vitriol people from around the planet could hurl in my direction.

A few friends, however, have pointed me in the direction of specific comments they felt were particularly egregious and in most cases I've laughed them off. One person, however, is in a very different category.

I am talking of Alan Davies, known in Twitter circles as @alandavies1. For the benefit of full disclosure, I should say that Alan Davies was probably the fourth or fifth person I followed on joining Twitter and I have, on and off, enjoyed what he's had to say. I've even replied to some of his stuff with positive noises.

He's Stephen Fry's friend, and along with Stephen, makes QI work as a concept and a show. I don't blame him for a moment for coming to Stephen Fry's defence. Several of my real-life friends came to mine, and that's only right. I fully expect they called each other tossers and wankers and twats.

But to my knowledge nobody who supported me has over a hundred thousand followers and called anyone else a c*nt. Yet Alan Davies considers this normal and acceptable behaviour, and it seems to me without having a clue about the background to the story or feeling the need to find out.

Much more important though is the tweet (which he has since deleted) in which he invited people to physically gang up on me, in "the Essex way".

Frankly, I expected just a little more class frrom the guy.

I have said that I expect no apology from Stephen Fry. But, BOY do I expect one from Alan Davies. Preferably to my face. That, or call me a wanker to my face, which is also, according to him, the Essex way. (He already called me a moron and a wanker on Twitter, so he'd just be following up on his own standards.)

Because I am more than wiling to call him an irresponsible idiot to his face, should anyone accord me the opportunity.

I really, HONESTLY, have no desire to drag this unfortunate misunderstanding out any more, but Alan Davies' part in all this leaves me with a particularly nasty taste in my mouth, and he's the only one who can take it away.

Similarly to my other blog entry which I ended with thanks to my friends, I would like to thank @lachance680 for being particularly tenaciously on Alan Davies's back and for saving some of his more ill-judged comments for me to see.

EDIT: After a few comments on the subject, I would like to explain that it's not because Alan Davies said something slightly foolish that I demand an apology from him. It's specificially because he has MANY more followers than anyone else in this argument and was agreeing with the idea of working up the internet mob to become a real-world one :

@Alandavies1 Anyone has a pop at your mates you stick up for them.Twittr needs to be more like Essex.If you wouldn't say it to their face then do shut up

Firequacker @alandavies1 followed by smashing their windows slashing their tyres and sending dogs muck through the leter box.. Grays Stylee ??

@Alandavies1 @Firequacker if needs be

(anyone who really wanted to could identify me from my online existence and work out where I live). This is bad enough coming from anyone, but for someone with a public face it is simply irresponsible. Recent events should have taught him that he has sway over people and this kind of talk is really not on.