I still need to know who the “Thigger” statue will feature, there are bets riding on this down at the day centre. When should I expect it’s arrival?

“Firstly (and hopefully this will put an end to this issue for once and for all) to sbalb.” – I hope not, this whole episode has kept me amused for the full 5 minutes that my tiny brain can handle. More please.

Firstly (and hopefully this will put an end to this issue for once and for all) to sbalb.

I think you probably need to calm down a bit.

I’m perfectly calm. I used the adjective “fucking” for emphasis, not as an indication of my emotional state.

The notion that I ought to have left a comment on your blog a few days’ back is frankly news to me, and I imagine it’d be news to a good many other people too. If anyone had suggested I should have done that in advance, then I’d have argued in precisely the opposite direction: commenting here, I’d have said, would be akin to spraypainting on walls you owned, and hence ruder than keeping quiet. I certainly received no equivalent notification about the rather extreme, off-topic and frankly extramural ripostes you’ve made here, but let’s be realistic: your blog; your rules.

I find this bizarre. You personally insulted me in public (on your blog). I’m not suggesting there are “rules” about this, nor am I talking about some “blogging code of conduct” (which seems all the rage at the moment). I’m simply suggesting that making fun of people behind their backs is rude and ignorant behaviour. If I have something nasty to say about someone, then I’ll say it to their face. To claim that this “is news to [you]” suggests that nobody ever taught you manners.

Also, isn’t it obvious why blogs have a comment facility? The idea that commenting on someone’s blog is like “spray-painting on their walls” is just about the most ridiculous comment anyone’s ever made here (and that’s saying something). The whole point of the comment facility is to encourage people to respond to the site content. What the hell did you think it was for?

And the idea that — once you’ve posted a comment — I should notify you when I respond on the same forum is frankly idiotic. If you post something here (as you did) then I will respond here. If you post something elsewhere, then I won’t know about it. This isn’t a case of “your blog; your rules”, it’s just common sense.

As I’ve made clear; if someone responds to a post on their own blog then that’s one thing. But if that person makes snide personal comments about the author of that post, and fails to offer a right-to-reply, then that’s just plain rude. The idea that you should find that surprising or confusing says a lot about you.

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To Avian Mooch… with respect, I believe you completely misinterpreted my comment (for those wondering “what comment?”, just follow the link in Comment 16). It’s true that I don’t view human beings as “mere” animals. But I wouldn’t use the phrase “mere animals” about cows or orang-utans or eagles or bears either. Tell me… do you use the phrase “mere animals” about any of those creatures? If so, then I’m afraid I don’t share your bio-determinist view of the world. To me, anything with life (and indeed, many things without life) possesses qualities beyond the “mere” physical chemistry that defines them as plant or animal (or mineral).

I’m currently reading Patrick Harpur’s excellent book, The Philosophers’ Secret Fire: A History of The Imagination, which I highly recommend. Early in the book Harpur discusses Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. Gynt is captured by trolls and taken to their mountain lair. While there, he is offered the chance to be given “troll vision”. This — says the king of trolls — will allow him to “see a beautiful maiden where once you saw only a cow”. He refuses, for — as Harpur points out –

Peer refuses to give up the double vision of the poet. For to see cows always as beautiful maidens is like [as with William Blake] being able to see only the heavenly host and not the sun. In both cases we are as much victims of single vision, of literalism, as we are when we see cows only as cows — devoid of meaning and metaphorical possibilities.

To describe human beings as “mere animals” is a literalism I reject entirely.

I would like to thank sbalb (a.k.a Barnacle), for his undying support and for being one of the few truly clever people who is prepared to tolerate a thicko-freak like I. I would like to thank Jim Bliss. Who would have thought that someone could be so benevolent so as to create an award for we thickos? What could be more encouraging for a thicko like I than to be awarded by someone of Jim’s intellect? He is truly an enlightened chap; it must be down to the audiences with the Dalai Lama. Thanks also go out to Larry Teabag for loving the Thigger and Merrick for his analysis of my thickness. Of course I would like to thank my parents, especially my several stepfathers. Without them I doubt that I would be as thick as I am now.

Before I receive the award, you said that it was a bronze statuette can I ask whom of?

But the idea that they are “mere animals” strikes me as being a deeply impoverished view of our species.

This strikes me of being a deeply impoverished, and moreover, bigoted view of our fellow Earthlings.

I had to comment because your remark just seemed so.. ignorant.

Please, watch Earthlings sometime. You may just break your human-supremecist mindset.

Don’t you fucking dolts get it?

I think you probably need to calm down a bit. Hopefully Easter’s done that for you, depending on what was in your eggs.

The notion that I ought to have left a comment on your blog a few days’ back is frankly news to me, and I imagine it’d be news to a good many other people too. If anyone had suggested I should have done that in advance, then I’d have argued in precisely the opposite direction: commenting here, I’d have said, would be akin to spraypainting on walls you owned, and hence ruder than keeping quiet. I certainly received no equivalent notification about the rather extreme, off-topic and frankly extramural ripostes you’ve made here, but let’s be realistic: your blog; your rules.

At any rate, this has certainly all been a new experience for me. I can’t say it’s one I’ll repeat any time soon, for which I’m sure you’ll be very glad. I might write a stiff, harrumphing post on my own weblog about this, of course, and can’t guarantee I’ll leave another comment on here in notification of the event: I dare say it won’t be welcome even if I did.

But I promise not to insult you directly, even after all of the above. For the quality of mercy is not strained, but slithers as the gentle frogs from heaven. I blame climate change.

I could flatter myself that I’m oh so clever to have got the point of the post first time, no problem. But I have to concede it’s not the case. It’s clear, it stacks up its points and walks the reader through.

GiantWeazle, how can you wonder why you’re being called thick and getting insulted when you’ve failed to understand plain statements and responded with aggression? What else would anyone do to that?

Love the Thigger Award – in fact I’m tempted to offer you a Fugger Award on the strength of it. It’s a yellow rosette which squirts water in your eye.

I don’t recall calling you thick or even implying that you were

GiantWeazle, you asked me… “Do you think that the Iranian jails are full of people dressed in new suits and playing chess?”

That’s the sort of question you’d ask a fricking idiot. So please don’t ask me it and then claim innocently that you weren’t implying something by it.

I cannot see in the original post where you acknowledge that either Iran or China are brutal regimes

Because I’m not writing this blog for people who need to be told the bleeding obvious.

but why the insults?

Because I found your tone, and your assumption that I was either unaware of Iran/China’s brutality or didn’t care about it, to be insulting.

So I got a fact wrong surrounding the embassy, I will admit a mistake and I don’t need to be offensive about it. Your intentions have been cleared up by your recent post, but you should consider that maybe your point got lost in your original post. To assume that the reader is thick for not realising that you were not supporting a brutal regime, even though you failed to criticise that regime in your original post, yet criticised others, is for want of a another expression, a little arrogant. I cannot see in the original post where you acknowledge that either Iran or China are brutal regimes. If I misunderstood your original post, then fine just say so, but why the insults?