As an example, they probably could have called it ‘Exploited Children’s Online Protection’. Or something.

Mind you, it just goes to show how little thought went into CEOP in the first place, doesn’t it?

Surprisingly, it’s not being mentioned or promoted by CEOP, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection bunch of muppets Centre. Not a thing.

Wouldn’t you think that – if CEOP were actually any fucking use at all – they’d support and cross-promote this Safer Internet Day? Or even have created the concept themselves.

I do find myself somewhat bemused though by today’s news that John Terry has been stripped of his captaincy of England (again) – this time because he’s been accused of racially abusing another footballer.

Now note, he’s been accused of it, has pleaded ‘not guilty’, and the case is going to court in July. (conveniently just after this year’s Euro 2012 football) So at the moment he’s not been found guilty (or, of course, not guilty) of the offence. Yet he’s already been punished.

And just what kind of message does that send out to the courts, jury, fans and everyone else? Are they punishing him because they think he is guilty? (and so are acting as judge and jury before it goes to court)  Or just because “it’s safer” ?

Personally, I don’t understand the need for HS2 between London and Birmingham. There’s already several ways to do that journey.

To my mind, what’s *really* needed is a cross-country route, rather than another up/down-country route.  For example, at the moment I’m travelling between Bury St Edmunds and Bedford on a daily basis. It takes about 65-75 minutes door-to-door, which is OK.  However, if I were going by train, I would have to go Bury St Edmunds -> Cambridge -> London -> Bedford – around five hours of travelling time. And that’s ridiculous.

We simply don’t (to my understanding) need another ‘length of the country’ high-speed route. We do need one that goes across the country – from Cambridge across to Oxford and on to Bath/Bristol. That would have allowed for far more useful routes and better links, and would probably be better used.

As Blue Witch suggested in her comment on the previous post, 2011 wasn’t really a great deal of fun for D4D™ – plus I’ve been busy with other odds and sods.

Being ‘Corbetted’ (as I understand it’s now known) wasn’t any fun at all. Basically, this involves being threatened with legal action because you’ve made comments regarding your personal opinion about someone’s stupidity in light of a very stupid error – and that person then doesn’t have the sense to either contact me (whether by phone, email, or comment on the posts in question) but instead waits two fucking years before complaining through solicitors. We’ll just ignore the fact that Article 11 of the EU’s Human Rights Charter specifically says …

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression.  This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.  The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.

After all, Gore Grimes conveniently ignored it, so I might as well do the same.

So that might explain some of why things went a bit quite here.

The other major change for me was that I stopped wanting to write about some of the more personal stuff that’s been going on. Writing that kind of thing bit me hard at the end of 2010, and the effects of that rumbled through into 2011.

D4D™ used to be a place where I could write, and dump my brain when I needed to. In 2011, it stopped feeling like I could do so.   It affected my desire to write at all, to be honest – well, that and the stupid levels of commuting, but that’s no decent excuse either.

I don’t know what will happen to D4D™ this year. It may be that it’s coming to a natural end. After all, it’ll be ten years in August – maybe that’s a good closing point. I don’t know yet.

I don’t know that I want D4D™ to end. I don’t know that I want to keep it going.  So it’s all a bit up in the air, and I guess only time will tell.

Over the intervening two years, that Marketing Manager has been in touch once – yes, once – to ask (not tell – ask) me to temper my comments. As it was, I felt perfectly justified in my personal opinion of him, so I didn’t change the content. I did write another post, to show how much nastier I could be, but other readers prevailed upon my common sense, so the post was removed.

Yet this wasn’t enough for our Marketing Manager.

Oh, don’t forget, the post was always open for him to put his own point of view in the comments, or to apologise, or to contact me. In 2 and a half years, this man couldn’t be bothered to put fingers to keyboard and explain or comment. Indeed, he never even bothered responding to my email explaining my position, and that it was all a personal opinion.

Then about three weeks ago, I got a letter by email from Gore Grimes solicitors in Ireland – don’t be mean to them about their website – insisting I retract my comments about the Marketing Manager, because they were untrue, (no, the categorisation of this man as someone who didn’t know what he was doing was utterly true) defamatory, (not really – they were in response to his own error) and malicious. (also not true – although I wish now that they had been)

And so I offered a version of a retraction, which wasn’t accepted. So I’ve put up their version instead, and deleted the posts in question.

I’m not allowed to mention the name of this Marketing Manager. I’m not allowed to identify him – so I’m only describing him by his role. I can’t identify him on any site I control, or any social media I use.

Everything I’ve written on D4D™ is a personal opinion. In nine years, only one person has  complained about what I’ve said about them. Personally I think it’s bizarre for someone to go running to lawyers instead of dealing with an issue themselves. I think that people who work this way should be named and shamed, but I’m not allowed to do so.

Following a request from his legal advisers, I am retracting these comments forthwith, and have deleted the original post(s) to reflect this. I apologise for any harm caused.

(This retraction has been approved by Gore Grimes Solicitors. My personal view hasn’t changed, but legal stuff prevails over personal opinion, it seems. Maybe next time he’ll remember about BCC)