Way back in 2005 Sir Terry Pratchett observed the following in a letter concerning a BBC interview with Rowling which he considered suspect;

“And then there’s my question. Why didn’t the interviewer ask it? Here’s the world’s best-selling fantasy writer who has just said she hadn’t thought she was writing fantasy and also that she doesn’t really like the stuff. She goes on to say that she didn’t finish TLOTR or the Narnia series and has issues with Lewis. No problem there, but all this revelatory stuff just floated past, apparently unexamined. I’d like to know how an author can write in a genre she doesn’t like– really. I’d like to know what she thinks she *is* writing. “ (Terry Pratchett Published August 2, 2005.)  Sir Terence Pratchett is an extremely successful fantasy fiction writer.

NB; Without having heard of Pratchett we ourselves made exactly the same observation that you will find in one or several posts on this blog.

Pratchett who suffers from Alzheimer’s was royally pilloried for his intelligence. Pilloried let it be said from two sources – Rowling’s Private Army of bloggers and the establishment that, representing bourgeois interests in the publishing and media industries protect their ‘golden cow’ with a viciousness that would put the three-headed Cerberus to shame. Nobody of any note, to our knowledge, came out in Pratchett’s defense. (http://www.sfsignal.com). They attacked the man and ignored what he had said by means of what we have christened the “BLOGASMEAR”. (The blogasmear is a blog comment whose singular purpose is to discredit the commentator and his usually rational argument by discrediting him as a person. The devil’s work in other words.)  He was ‘jealous’. It was a case of “sour grapes”. And so on. Some of these were pitched in by the usual congregation of the Potter-Gullible who figure success is the only criterion of worth; and, of course, by the juvenile fantasists who have been told by Rowling-Little in so many words - “All you need my child is a good idea to come into your head, a pen and a jotter, and abracadabra! off you go to the land of wealth unimaginable.”  You have to pity parents who have to talk their kids out of this nonsense as much as you have to pity anyone who has bought into it.

Sadly, Pratchett like so many others has accepted much of the other drivel put out by Rowling’s PR men or he would have taken his observation to its logical conclusion viz; reason has clearly established that this woman Rowling is telling lies. Why would she do that? If she has told lies about her ignorance of what genre she was writing in, a lie that insults anyone with an IQ of three or under, just how many other lies has she told? Did she even write the stuff all by herself? And finally; …. where the hell did she steal it all from? Or how about…. Who is in it with her? Her pet hate is bigotry she informs us, to give one little instance, but that devoutly held principle clearly did not stop her insisting that nobody who was not a Brit was to work on her films. Indeed contradictions abound in Rowling’s remarks even those she scripted all by herself that make Pratchett’s sane remark wilt like a rose in methane by comparison. There are answers to all of these questions in existence if you are brave enough to step out of the ranks of the iconolaters to find them… and many of them are answered right here. Fans of Pratchett should at least give that author the respect of listening to him because his question remains hanging in the clouds for all to see.

Pratchett seems to have had about as much affect on the sane wing of British journalism as Moses had on the revelers cavorting around the Golden Calf. What deliberately obscures the whole issue of course is the belated doctrine of precedents that has been used by Rowling’s army to smokescreen the real issue – Plagiarism. “Belated’ is the key word in that sentence. Why prattle about precedents now? Why not way back then, say around book Two? Might it have something to do with the Willy The Wizard case that currently seeks a hearing in the High Court? 

Those who support plagiarism on principle would find it intolerable in practice if it happened to them that is; that’s if any of them was even capable of producing something good enough to be filched. None of them are although most of them we may assume believe they are. Or are they really so magnanimous in their views that they would happily send a congratulatory note to the burglar who ransacked their house commending him on his skill and knowledge of locks and praising his profound knowledge of lock precedents? Incredibly, among their ranks you will find respected journalists to whose deluded brains both Pratchett’s comments and our own have failed to gain admittance. Meanwhile, the great authoress who wrote diddly-squat prior to her magical visitation by an ‘idea’ if you please (indeed the first volume of Potter is a blatant attempt to present the hero as a mere ‘idea”), has her private army of bloggers to keep her safe from all menacing scrutiny. They have their lairs all over the net where they invite comments in order to filter out the enemies of Rowling-Little. Interpol has become Interpotter whose mission it is to hoodwink the public and protect Rowling from scrutiny by the use of fallacious argument, misinformation and downright lies. These manipulated idiots, paid and unpaid, have no problem coming out to bat for Rowling,… for Queen and Country? or have they simply sold their souls? Place your bets.

The Bogside Artists in any case will go on telling it as it is as we have been doing in paint and word for many years in dedicated protection of the one right that alone matters to any artist worth his or her salt…..FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Long may it be kept safe from the likes of Rowling-Little-Blair-Schillings et al.

Bewitchment in the Service of Power and Deceit.

We have not forgotten the humiliation dished out to us by Rowling’s lawyers in 2008. It damaged us and was meant to do so. As a small charity constantly in need of help just to survive we find the attempt by Schillings to discredit us beneath contempt. What we said we know to be true and the Derry News, although it is free to apologize all it wants, is certainly not speaking for us with this ‘apology’ and most certainly not on our behalf.

First of all The Bogside Artists have not and will not apologize to Rowling for what they have said. The Derry News had to, and did, much to their eternal shame. To understand the following “apology” to appease J.K. Rowling’s lawyers you have to accept that the Derry News believed they were facing ruin if they did not comply. Shocking! The text of the actual apology is here reproduced in full (in italics) as it was printed in Dec/2008 and possibly dictated to them by Schillings.  

Text in red is our commentary on the text of the ‘apology’ to “put the record straight”.

“Last Monday’s front and third page article, ‘Harry Potter and the Bogside Artists’ suggested that author JK Rowling’s lawyers had complained to the Bogside Artists about a book called ‘Travels with Li Po’. We accept that this is not true.

Well, wasn’t exactly Rowling’s lawyers per se. It was Neil Blair lawyer to Rowling’s literary agency known as Christopher Little’s (‘discoverer’ of Rowling) who was clearly acting on Rowling’s behalf.

We have been asked to point out by Ms Rowling’s lawyers that William Kelly of the Bogside Artists had alleged in a letter that this book had been plagiarised by Ms Rowling in her Harry Potter novels.

These we hold to be indubitably true…. on both counts! The letter referred too was a private letter to a third party not mentioned by Schillings and which was obviously delivered to them, directly or indirectly, by her.

Ms Rowling’s literary agency wrote to Mr. Kelly refuting his claims and warning him that alleging that Ms Rowling had copied his work was defamatory and potentially actionable, and that he should desist from making such allegations. 

What they mean by “Ms Rowling’s literary agency” (how clever!)  is Neil Blair a lawyer and partner of the agency who was referred to in the Lexicon trial by Rowling herself as “MY LAWYER”. He wrote to us. We have Mr. Blair’s letter in front of us marked Private and Confidential with a suggestion that a copy be given to our lawyer as if that would somehow legitimize the nonsense it contained. Mr. Kelly has not desisted and will not be gagged by Mr. Blair or a legion of the same. Is Blair like his partner Little also avoiding scrutiny? Why didn’t Schillings name him as the one who contacted us?

Ms Rowling’s lawyers say that no complaint has been made about his book and Ms Rowling has never read Mr. Kelly’s work, let alone plagiarised it.

 A complete lie of course as William knows full well she read his ‘work’ and so does she. And he has made this statement in no uncertain terms on a blog for all to see. www.travelswithlipo.com and it has been there for many months!

In addition we accept that no-one on behalf of Ms Rowling has claimed that the term ‘philosopher’s stone’ is owned by Warner Bros.

 Really? Anybody reading Blair’s letter would come to the same conclusion. A lawyer indeed whom we showed it to came to same conclusion as we viz; Warner Bros had copyright of the phrase “the philosopher’s stone”. We have written on several occasions to Warner Bros asking if they considered themselves to have copyright on the phrase “the philosopher’s stone” and have received no reply.

We apologize for publishing false allegations and for not contacting Ms Rowling beforehand so that we might inform us of the true position.

Why should the Derry News have contacted Rowling? Why should Rowling’s word take automatic precedence over William Kelly’s or anybody else’s for that matter? What is the “true position”? That’s easy… the ‘true’ position is what Schillings and/or Rowling together with Blair and Little tell you, the gullible and deluded public, what the ‘true’ position is. A position that we have here confidently proved to be chicanery, sophistry or whatever other word you prefer to allude to willful deception.

We are happy to set the record straight.”

No. Schillings can set whatever record they want. We, The Bogside Artists, are happy to have set the record straight.

To summarize:

If we may digress for a moment into the philosophical consideration of words and their usages the above article is a classic example of “bewitching” or befuddlement and the diabolical use of language to achieve a spurious goal viz; to protect the interests of an author who feels it is not incumbent on her to prove any claim she has made or intends to make about ‘her’ alleged work. Their attitude can be summed up;

What was actually meant by the statements we made in the Derry News article is clearly secondary to whatever self-serving ‘meaning’ Schillings decided to attribute to the words we used. In   other words, the position they take and a clearly deceptive one at that, is quite simply;

“Our interpretation of what you might have said is more acceptable, more true and right than what you really meant. Indeed, we know full well what you meant but we find it quite irrelevant to our purposes; so we take leave by ignoring your own words, to decide what could be construed from what you meant as that better serves our purpose to discredit you. We fully expect you, the editor of The Derry News to agree with what we have decided The Bogside Artists meant by their statements and to bend to our will to discredit them at home and abroad in deference to our client Ms Rowling’s reputation.”

On the Immorality of Plagiarism

First of all, there is a simple point to be cleared up before any reasonable discussion on the topic can take place. The culprit, when he/she is not citing ‘precedents’ for their crime, try to exonerate themselves by pleading that they didn’t steal, merely ‘borrowed’. “I didn’t steal m’lud, I only borrowed,” is the sort of statement that gets you laughed out of court and into jail which is why no thief with an IQ of more than three would offer it in his defence. Incredibly though, you will find respected journalists offering it up in defence of the plagiarist. The more highly regarded the thief the more they rally to their defence, pleading that ‘borrowing’ is not theft.

In literature people do borrow, often unconsciously, and cannot help themselves. But if the writer catches himself on in time he is usually quite happy to acknowledge his source or he will surrender his project instantly if the borrowing has any significance and he has enough integrity not to want to put his name to something that wasn’t his in the first place . In any case, he is likely to be honest with himself, and with you.

The plagiarist however is a different animal. He steals consciously. And because he steals consciously he will never acknowledge his source. That is the difference and it is an important one.

The plagiarist will do anything rather than acknowledge his source because he knows, once he does so, he is instantly unmasked as a thief, a liar and a fraud. He spends his days therefore ducking and diving, hiding away, in order to avoid scrutiny. When he speaks in public he recites from pre-prepared answers. If he must be asked questions he demands to know what they are beforehand and the same applies to any footage shot of him for general distribution. He never confesses his crime either. He has ALWAYS to be found out and the more people he has to help him remain under cover the more difficult that is.

In days of yore many English dungeons could boast what they proudly called an “oubliette”. It comes from the French word “oublier” meaning “to forget”. Robin Hood was supposedly held in one before he was freed by his comrades. This contraption - sprung fully formed no doubt from the inventor’s brain – was basically a hole in the ground. The pit was shaped like a bottle with just room enough for the wretched victim to stand up in. You were lowered into the hole via the neck and the lid fixed on. Your captors then pissed off and forgot that you ever existed. There you remained, in cold endless night, until you went mad with grief and terror and eventually died of starvation. People who didn’t like you would say you “deserved” it.

A ‘successful’ plagiarist does something like this to his fellow man. The differences are that the victim gets to eat and walk around, and to lead what passes for a normal life; indeed you cannot ever tell he is in a pit at all,  if you do not hear his moans, because the oubliette he has been flung into and in which he dwells is his own soul, the soul that he once believed was his and now belongs to his tormentors. Now you know. And when next you hear the word ‘plagiarism’ you may move away fromt the conception of it as a game on a par with scrabble and think of it as it really is – a crime against all of us, because it is essentially a very serious crime against human rights and human freedom.