Well, it’s a sad day when what begins as a mutual fan club degenerates into insults, threats, and challenges, but it has happened. I know this will come as a shock, but not only am I a witness, I’m a participant. An innocent one, of course, as the transcript below will prove. As for James of Blackpitts and his blog— I will spit on his blog, I will. Blackhearted James, they call him, or Blackguard James, and now I know why.
I believe the transcript speaks for itself, but perhaps some background is necessary after all.
The document below was compiled by selecting the messages from the relevent "plots" at Blotanical. (If you don’t yet know about Blotanical, get with the program. Or just click on the link.) You can view James’ plot, with my messages to him, and my plot, with his to me, if you wish to view the originals. I think you will agree that the transcription is accurate.
(After much reflection, I have decided that Blotanical is blameless in this matter–and no doubt Blotanical’s creator
Stuart is now heaving a sigh of relief, for blood on the site, while no doubt something of a novelty, would be unlikely to attract the right sort of people.)
The crude neologism "favouritising" employed by James (which I, in a misguided gesture of comraderie, repeated) refers, of course, to the practice at Blotanical of selecting another’s blog as a favorite, or "faving" it. And to think that this exchange began with something as positive as adding a blog to a list of favorites, and as innocuous as the weather! It’s a dangerous world out there.
I have put all of James’ messages into italics, in part for clarity, in part because these slanted letters seem so aptly to indicate his nature, which is anything but upright.
7 Jun 2008 04:33:18 AM
Hey Kate. Thank you for favouritising my blog. I hope all is jolly in Montana.
7 Jun 2008 04:59:11 PM
Favoritizing, eh? Can I add that to my Grt. Britain glossary? Anyway, you’re welcome. I enjoy your blog. –Kate
14 Jun 2008 11:53:36 PM
Hi, James. Thanks for the returning the favoritizing, blog-wise. We’re quite jolly in Montana, snow having given way quite abruptly to sunshine. And you? Kate
17 Jun 2008 01:53:24 PM
Perfect June days: warm (but not sweltering), light breezes and everything flowering its socks off. Can’t last of course!
23 Jun 2008 10:40:40 AM
"everything flowering its socks off," eh? How about a picture? I never knew flowers wore socks. Around here, it’s hats and mittens, but somehow "flowering its mittens off" doesn’t have the same umph. We’ve also finally got June weather. Lovely.
25 Jun 2008 02:00:26 PM
As they are all busy flowering their socks off then, obviously, it would be impossible to photograph them with socks! Quite apart from the fact that most plants are a little embarrassed about their sock wearing proclivities. Enjoy the sunshine.
2 Jul 2008 12:02:38 AM
Okay, so they can’t be photographed with socks on, point taken; but how about the socks flying through the air, the socks littering the flower gardens, etc, etc, etc? Huh? How about all of that? I await your response. K.
2 Jul 2008 05:55:33 AM
I think you have the wrong impression of my plants. They are all impeccably brought up so the idea of socks littering the joint would be an anathema to them all. They pride themselves on their tidiness so everything is put away when not in use.
2 Jul 2008 08:49:48 PM
Impeccably brought up? YOUR plants? Please. The mind boggles.
3 Jul 2008 05:57:56 AM
Are you questioning the bloodlines of my plants? Madam, I am stricken to the marrow. I have fought duels for less.
3 Jul 2008 02:32:42 PM
Their bloodlines? Who said anything about their bloodlines? It was their upbringing I called into doubt. And we know who was responsible for that. As for the duel–ha. Show up at my front door with a brace of pistols and you’re on. –Kate
Well, what more need be said. When my bloodied body is found by my front door–for, despite my brave talk, I have no skill with firearms–you at least will know what happened, and whom to blame.
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Thanks for the laugh. That was so funny.
Oh no, the sock situation has gotten out of control on blotanical again. You must have missed it there was a great sock debate and an actual election. ofb was out voted and got his feelings hurt. However, there was never any threat of violence.
I haven’t signed on to Blotanical for awhile, but now I am curious to see if people are taking sides! I half expect to see socks strewn about, along with a mitten here or there, perhaps pulled off and thrown down in a challenge!
I am shocked, shocked, that you found this sad tale amusing, Ms. Gould.
Deb–this has happened before?
Well, Carol, we do try to clean up when we expect company. So glad you stopped by.
–Kate
Kate – this is so funny! I like Deb’s idea of wet noodles. However, if you’ve ever seen Monty Python you may remember the duel with the wet fish?
All I can say is you’d better hang onto your hat!
Coincidentally, I’ve posted today and quite innocently said my Houdini Plants ‘flower their socks off’, totally unaware the phrase was so inflamatory. Can I expect you or James here for duel #2 once two have finished?
Yours quaking in her boots,
VP
Wasn’t it George Bernard Shaw who described England and America as two countries divided by a common language? He’d obviously met Kate and James.
Here on my corner of Katy, the plants bloom themselves silly. In keeping with their behavior, the Head Gardener is laughing herself silly over the epic transcontinental duel detailed in the participants’ blogs. She awaits further developments with worms on her breath.
VP–Quake away. I think it’s Dr. Cox in Scrubs (do you get Scrubs there in GB? One of the few US TV shows worth exporting, and the only sitcom I know of without a laugh track) who informs his therapist at some point that a life in which his mere appearance doesn’t strike terror into everyone in a room is, well, not worth living. Hear hear.
You’ll note that James still hasn’t commented here. Maybe he’s quaking too.
Victoria, that’s one of my favorite lines, partly because I’m always forgetting it, so hearing it is a new pleasure every time.
Cindy, if the Head Gardener is laughing herself silly, there’s no telling what the under-gardeners are up to.
–Kate
Ah-ha. So this is where the dastardly Kate (may the pigeons poop upon her laundry) hangs out.
Doubtless you will have noticed that I alone among the participants in this epic have maintained both dignity and sang froid. I am only making an appearance in this comment layer in order to dispell any rumours of cowardice and quakery. It is scandalous that a chap can be so slandered.
I will now turn on my heel and walk off leaving nothing behind me but an aura of disdain and a faint smell of expensive cologne.
Well, it’s tempting to simply ignore such a paltry effort as this from Blackguard James, but I can hardly let him have the last word, can I? Especially here on my blog.
I merely want to point out that, far from pursuing his earlier offer to do battle, he has now decided to “walk off” (his words, mind you), leaving behind him, as he himself admits, nothing even as substantial as a memory–merely an aura and a whiff.
Or so he’d have us believe. Meanwhile, on his blog, he’s upping the ante, accelerating the arms race, and collecting a veritable army of bloggers. My peaceful heart lies bruised on the path of life.
–Kate
I’m pretty much on James’s side seeing as he did treat me to a morning in the garden the other week. On the other hand, I am now very curious about these flowering plants. Could we set up some sort of Truth and Reconciliation Commission to get you to make up, but also possibly get hold of a picture or two of those elusive socks?
too funny
Karen
I’m with Emma. From war of independence to special relationship in one swift post. Kate, I apologise if my Yorktown story over on James’s blog seemed mean, and I salute you as a representative of most of the Americans I’ve met: generous of spirit, inquiring of mind and altogether a delight to know.
I too have asked for caution before action over at Veg Plotting today. The consequences are too awful to contemplate – let the special relationship continue lest piles of transatlantic gardeners’ bodies are strewn on the compost heap of fate and destiny ;)
Your socks are in good hands. The monkeys are on the roof with water ballons ready to defend the defend them.
Is this a chum of yours?
http://www.break.com/index/america-rules-england-sucks.html
So, the gardening gloves are off. I say “bah” to the reconciliation commission. I’m here to see some sap oozing. (but maybe that’s just the pugilist in me.)
Well really, I am all of a twitter here; I rarely get to host such a distinguished, or at least large, crowd. Interesting, what emerges from the woodwork when the blood starts to flow.
Emma–You say you’re on James’ side as he did treat you to a morning in the garden recently. If I thought I could buy your allegiance that easily, I’d invite you to my garden too. Of course, there’s the small matter of an ocean to consider.
Enjoy yourself, Karen, go ahead and laugh. Just bear in mind my favorite line from Peter Pan, and I sure hope I’m remembering this correctly: “Then again, there were the dead bodies.”
VP–‘Twaren’t mean atall; I got a kick out of it. Get another one whenever I remember it. Thank you for your kind words, though I have to say, I’ve never met ANY nationalitiy of which all that could be said. I wish I had!
Wow, VP–That’s quite the imagery there, your “piles of transatlantic gardeners’ bodies … strewn on the compost heap of fate and destiny.” No wonder you’re the poet of the bunch. You seem not to have convinced everyone, though:
Deb–thank you, and stand by: your services may yet be needed.
As for you, James A-S: I’ll deal with you and your “chum” tomorrow. I hope your night is sleepless.
And last, my friend Michãel (pronounced Michelle, folks)–off to Australia for the better part of a year, and weighing in here for the first time–a person uninvolved in this gardening madness, a person I thought I could count on for support, a person over whose car I slaved for hours the day before she left–and what do you contribute when at last you deign to pay a visit to my lowly blog? What words of comfort do you bring from afar? Ah yes–you want to see some sap oozing. More imagery, but I can see through it; I know what you really mean. Well, the pugilist in you had better be thankful that you’re safely parked in Australia, that’s all I can say. Hmph.
–Kate
I have to admire anyone who uses anathema in a sentence.
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Thanks, mss. But don’t get too impressed; Carol over at May Dreams Gardens used “umbrage” in a post title. (I can use it but not spell it; I hope she can, cause her post is the source for my version.) (You can be really impressed when I pull off “adumbrate,” which I can spell (I think) but not define.) I also can’t create a link in a comment, dang it, but here’s the URL to Carol’s post: http://maydreamsgardens.blogspot.com/2008/07/pretties-i-take-umbrage.html
–Kate