SYKES' TAKE ON - SHOOTING ONESELF IN THE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE WORLD

Well, well, well, what a morning!   I wasn't expecting to comment further on one of the subject of my last Take, but this morning an article appeared in a well-known tabloid, a dissection of online trolls and interviews with some of the worse ones.   I glanced down the page, past the fat slob claiming he was the worst of them, and my eye caught a picture of a woman.   Hmmm, I thought, I wonder who this is, started reading and nearly dropped my coffee.   There she was, our money-demanding abused writer, so I read on.   My mouth dropped open as I saw her admit she was indeed a troll, a harasser of the parents of a missing child, that she got off on being nasty, when it got down and dirty she was in her element.    In the article she claimed she was alone and when she found these people online she became part of a huge circle of friends.    We learn that she wants to carry on in the footsteps of the troll who killed herself last year after being outed.    And then there's the story of what she was doing when the missing child story hit the headlines - version 1 in the newspaper, depression from losing best friend, mother and dad, version 2, nursing a terminally ill mother and trying to run two homes and a job 100 miles apart.  Out of interest I went onto other forums to see the reaction of her 'friends' to all this and was rather amused to see how many of them were denouncing her in no uncertain terms.   I then had a look at her blog where she was moaning away about being misrepresented and that the points she made re the missing child were ignored - well, of course they would be as the article was about trolls, not theories and conspiracies.   I see it has been posited that maybe she was set up by the 'celebrity international journo' who promised it would be a safe thing to do, while the non-admin of an anti forum, with whom she has been waging a non-stop war of attrition, has accused her of being in the pocket of the owner of the tabloid paper, an accusation he has also levelled at the celeb journo.    Interesting that she brings up a telephone call where she claims she was intimidated which could only have been made years ago, or we would have heard about it long before now as she enjoys flapping her lips.   I see there is quite a negative reaction to all this, so I expect the forums, FB and twitter to be ablaze with insults and recriminations - it is after all the weekend and people are at home, most likely beavering away on their laptops.   I have ordered some Kentucky Fried Chicken and French Fries as things might get hairy later on - if they don't then we will still have a good nosh.