Trolling a troll

The letter to the editor tradition once formed an important part of one’s newspaper reading, more so after newspapers made correspondents put their name to their missives.  I’ve written a few myself to wind up the ever-present winduppable and, invariably, they bite.

One such in the old Dominion was my protest at the Dom’s report that the police were looking for a man who had indecently exposed himself to a woman walking a dog.  I condemned the Police’s presumption, pointing out that the man may have exposed himself to the dog, inadvertently being walked by a woman, and that is not an offence.  An avalanche of correspondence followed, mostly witty to brighten everyone’s day but, predictably also, the ever present humourless madwomen whose sustained bleak outlook despoil contemporary society.

Nowadays, however, letters to the editor have been superseded by the internet, meaning no editorial control but instead open slather.  This has given a voice to anonymous cowardly trolls whose sheer venom, particularly against politicians, is a blight on modern life.  Well here’s a story which says it all about these cowering craven types hurling anonymous abuse.

In England a promising footballer called Curtis Woodhouse made the national under-21 side and was transferred for a million pounds.  This proved optimistic as his early promise failed to come to much and his career wallowed.  Fed up, he switched to boxing and ran up a reasonable record against hohum opponents.  Looking for an easy defence a couple of years back, the British champion gave him a crack at the title and to everyone’s amazement, Curtis sneaked a decision.  Subsequently to no-one’s surprise, he lost the title in his first defence and then retired.  Now to the point.

Throughout his career Curtis was plagued by vicious abuse from a troll hiding behind the pseudonym Jimmyob88-The Master.  Fed up with this, Curtis had a computer whiz trace this coward, who turned out to be no master but instead a flea in South Yorkshire called James O’Brien.  What then followed delighted the British media and Curtis’s 50,000 Twitter followers

For, accompanied by reporters, Curtis set out in his car to visit O’Brien, periodically stopping to text him, saying he was on his way.  Initially the O’Brien garbage was all bravado but this changed sharply as Curtis closed in, particularly when he texted that he was now in his street and enclosed a photo of the street sign.  Now the coward began bleating apologies.  Curtis duly knocked on his door and O’Brien answered and collapsed into a grovelling heap.

The national press had a fieldday at O’Brien’s expense while Curtis was inundated with congratulatory messages from politicians, celebrities and the like who doubtless had all suffered from gutless nobody anonymous trolls.

It’s time for something similar here to expose these cowards.  What fun!