A Question of Trust

Against a backdrop of accusations of self-promotion, J K Rowling has made a statement that she is “very angry” at her lawyers after the disclosure of her authorship of The Cuckoo’s Calling under the pseudonym Robert Gilbraith.

She has every right to be. This was a gross breach of confidentiality.  Just as there are no degrees of pregnancy, either you are or you are not, so there are no degrees of confidentiality. The law firm involved issued the following statement:

We, Russells Solicitors, apologise unreservedly for the disclosure caused by one of our partners, Chris Gossage, in revealing to his wife's best friend, Judith Callegari, during a private conversation that the true identity of Robert Galbraith was in fact JK Rowling. Whilst accepting his own culpability, the disclosure was made in confidence to someone he trusted implicitly.

Chris Gossage knows better than to do this. He knows that he shouldn’t tell his wife, let alone his wife’s best friend. He knows that he shouldn’t even tell his cat (if he has one) on the off-chance that it should suddenly become articulate and acquire a Twitter account. He should never have entrusted someone else with a secret he was incapable of keeping himself.

Everyone in a law firm from the lowliest employee up has the concept of confidentiality drilled into them constantly.  Working in a lowly position in a law firm, I have seen people being escorted off the premises through the rear exit down the rickety fire escape never to be seen again for less high-profile breaches.

By attempting to excuse his own behaviour by stating “Whilst accepting [my] own culpability,[…]” and then blaming someone else, Chris Gossage is adopting what I shall call, for reasons of topicality and exactitude, the Charles Saatchi Defence. Quite why either of these men think that they can get away with saying “Yeah, I know I did it but…” is beyond me and would be beyond the credulity of a magistrate or a judge were the person saying it an “oik”.

More than anything, my sympathy lies with J K Rowling for the abrupt end to her  anonymity in this matter and her enjoyment of the unbiased critical reviews of her work. This is sad indeed.

…and Helen Mirren too!

 

I had a really good day on Sunday. The main reason was a totally splendid time at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park tweetup in celebration of @little_mavis and @wombat37’s wedding anniversary.  I got to see people I had met before, and some people I have tweeted with but never met before, and some people I didn’t know from Adam but was very pleased to meet, nonetheless.  Here I am especially thinking of @vanishedhippo’s parents-in-law.

The secondary reason was that I serendipitously discovered that “The Audience” was playing at the Wakefield Cineworld as an encore performance i.e. not broadcast live but a live recording.  It meant leaving the tweetup early but really, could you blame me?

I am a great admirer of Helen Mirren; I could sit watching her watching paint dry.  To see her in a London production would ordinarily be beyond my reach.  Or if not quite beyond my reach, then at least a little difficult and costly.  Instead of which thanks to ntlive.com I had, due to the filmed quality of the performance, a better seat than I would ever have been able to afford for myself for a tenner. That’s £10. 10 GBP. 10 Pound Sterling.

I think this is a marvellous thing.  Of course, it’s not the same as theatre.  (There are no exorbitantly-priced interval drinks for a start.)  It doesn’t smell the same as theatre. (I’ve yet to go to a theatre that sells popcorn.)  

But…I am planning on seeing Macbeth, Othello and Coriolanus in the same way.  Why would any sane person not?

“Not waving but drowning”

or How I Accidentally Left Twitter

I have started a lot of texts and emails recently with the words “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch” or the much, much worse “I’m sorry I have been avoiding contact with you”.
I am not proud of myself.

Twitter was always for me the antidote to something, whether that something can be diagnosed as loneliness, shyness or just general social ineptitude. Were the world to operate with its proper proportions Twitter should always have been the place of last resort, after real friends and acquaintances.  The trouble was when it became the place of first resort for me.  It was easier when waking in the middle of the night to find someone to tweet with than it was to face why it was I was waking in the middle of the night.

And then there was the over-sharing. You know it’s bad when kindly souls ask whether you should really be telling such things to virtual (in every sense of the word) strangers. I am grateful to them.

In danger of having a very public meltdown, I suspended my twitter account for the allowed 30 days.  After 30 days I went back in and backed-up my tweets on the basis that they are the closest thing to a journal I have had for the last few years and I didn’t want to lose that.  I then suspended my account for another 30 days, or so I thought.

Long story short: after 30 days I tried to log back in to reactivate my account and it had gone. Taking this as a “sign” I took the time to try to get my head in order.

This is a short explanation for the people asking where I’ve been.  It is also my opportunity to say thank you to the people who have kept faith with me by extending their friendship into real life, or by playing Words with Friends with me.  The latter is an underestimated way of keeping if not a whole foot in the virtual world, then at least a little toe.

That is all. Thank you.






From the poem by Stevie Smith.