In the early 1990's my wife 'encouraged' me to grow stubble ('feels like someone else'  ) and it developed into a proper moustache and beard trimmed to 5mm. After a couple of years the beard had to go as it was turning white while the rest of my hair was still brownish/grey.

About two years later I was with my wife and kids in a Woolworth's and I was accosted by a bloke who thought I was John Major. I thought he was having a laugh, well maybe HE was, but having a stranger shouting John Major at you (repeatedly) in a Woolworth's was not funny after about 20 seconds. My kids were rolling about in a corner in fits of laughter, my wife ran out of the shop!

Yeah go on laugh! I had the biggish spectacles at the time, ok, but the thing that I couldn't understand at the time was that John Major did NOT have a moustache! But if you look, he did had a good 5 o'clock shadow on his lip, and I have to admit this is a good likeness of me circa. 1993



Today I'm more towards Uncle Fester, though I do have hair but it's ALL 5mm and now almost white 

I use a pseudonym because:

1. I’ve been stalked on the internet by a manic;

2. Identify theft is rife, e.g. numerous examples on Facebook; and

3. I agree broadly with the EFF:


There have been two recent cases of message board owners sued to make them divulge the identity (email and IP address) of anonymous posters: Sheffield Wednesday FC v. Owlstalk, and AutoAdmit, so they, the posters, can be served with libel writs. Court officers can’t serve on fluffybunny392 of address unknown. To hit someone for libel you need their real name and address.

In each case the MB owner fought the action (AutoAdmit is ongoing) and I'd expect the owners/managers of this site to do likewise. Message board bureaucrats who roll over and p*ss on members’ privacy at the first sniff of a writ are some of the lowest forms of internet life.

And it could happen here. If a financial scandal blew up, say on R3, or if race discrimination allegations emerged, leveled against a leading London orchestra - how many black faces are there on London concert platforms? - this would be the ideal place for a whistle-blower, protected by a pseudonym, backed by muscular forum management, to broadcast the allegations.

MB anonymity throws a major spanner in the works when rich and powerful people try to stop the less rich and powerful telling the truth about their behaviour. They hate it. That’s a good enough reason for me to support MB anonymity. It’s a tradition going back to the anonymous pamphleteers of the 18th century, and it’s Ron Dough’s job,* backed by the site rules and the solidarity of the community, to defend my moniker.


* Tsk... been a member for five minutes and already telling the management how to do their job... 

Well, at least potentially, anyone could make such an allegation, without it being verifiable/contestable. The moderators may be able privately to verify the identity of the poster, but is a messageboard really the place for this? I would have thought that such an anonymous poster should be speaking to a newspaper or music periodical. Certainly I'd be much more sceptical about such claims if made solely in this type of forum rather than elsewhere.

I do take your point about stalking, though, Philidor, and also the protection of anonymous speech (people have that right, for sure, but I don't see why that precludes criticism of some of them for the way they exercise it) - my comments are addressed at posters (primarily musicians) rather than moderators. When one poster, for example, uses a cross-gender pseudonym, in part to be able to promote their own work (to advocate certain works of music would come across very differently if one knew that the poster actually wrote them), or others are able to post negative comments about other musicians, without it being apparent to those not in the 'inner circle' who they are, and thus what sort of vested interests they might have, then there's a lot to wonder about.

Rich and powerful people certainly try to stop the less rich and powerful telling the truth, but the free-for-all that is the internet, where all types of allegations can be made without verifiability, doesn't seem much of an improvement. To take one example, whilst I do believe there are still questions to be asked about 9/11, in terms of whether the US government had any advance knowledge, whether they really did all they could to stop the planes after the first had hit (possibly as much to do with questions of competence as anything else - if this was in good faith, then the weakness of air defences seem pretty pitiful - why have no heads rolled over this?), it becomes almost impossible to sift through some of the manic, irrational conspiracy theories that occupy tens of thousands of internet pages, in order to see if there might be sensible answers to these questions (which may back up the official explanation - just the questions need to be answered).

You're a darling. It's still a bit cheeky though. Your typical Nazi mod would have got all huffy and retreated to the mod bunker to IP sniff.

If an unverifiable libelous claim is made a mod would remove it, or face the ISP pulling the site and a possible writ. But if it's backed by evidence which satisfies board management - it's their call - and they can keep the ISP happy, then imo it should stay up. What's the problem? The same principle applies in all walks of life: if you say something controversial be prepared to back it up. If the evidence is good, the claim survives. The whole of modern science is based on that idea: claim + verifiable evidence.


Much harder to publish in a newspaper or music periodical. On condition I obey the law, the posting rules and basic decency, I can say what I want here. I've no such access to 'Early Music Quarterly'. They're probably receiving advertising revenue from the person I want to attack!*




* I don't actually want to attack anyone.

I think it is reasonable that we call ourselves what we wish. We actually have no proof that the people who are so "courageous" as to call themselves a real name are who they say they are. I could say I was anyone, anyone at all .. would that be better than just keeping my own identity private?

I think people like to post their thoughts not their so called amazing musical qualifications as a reason that people should accept what they say.

If a person is called Joe Bloggs is their opinion worse than that of someone who tells us what a wonderful reputation he has?

I think not.

A