nonentities from Wolverhampton have never had agents. It's just silly. And embarrassing. Still, it was clear that the Stuff Happening was too large for my brain, so, an agent it had to be. Purely by asking the only two people I vaguely knew who had any contact with agents, I got in touch with Hannah.
I was still quite, quite ashamed to be getting an agent, so meeting her for the first time was an exhaling relief. Hannah isn't how you imagine an agent will be. She is what you'd get if you asked a mad scientist to construct an agent in his castle-top laboratory. Her hair, alone, not only defies convention, but several UN conventions. She also, delightfully, works for Curtis Brown. Minorly, Curtis Brown are a major London agency, far more importantly it means I can say 'Yeah, I'm with Curtis Brown' in the pretty secure knowledge that people will imagine I play bass guitar for a Detroit soul singer and am thus hugely groovy and someone they really should go to bed with. Thus, I had no hesitation in signing a bit of paper saying that Ms Hannah Griffiths and Curtis
Meanwhile, back at the narrative…
I caught a coach to Germany (Margret and kids were flying out later) and Hannah set about calling the MoS to ask them for Ј2 billion and a waiver that said that I could, at any time, go round and throw bags of soot at the editorial staff.
I was staying at Margret's folks' place in a town just outside Stuttgart. Hannah could phone me there (Marget's father can't speak a word of English and was reduced to paralysing laughter by Hannah's German, but it was possible to talk). Even better, I could go to a local internet cafe and answer emails. There were quite a few.
The Panel was doing everything from spreading the word among the press and contemplating the legal possibilities to drawing up a programme of civil unrest. I had FTP access, so I added a bit to the Things page explaining the situation and crystallising my feelings about it. In response, I got a terrifying deluge of mail from people, well, just
Hannah called to say Jim Gillespie (the MoS's Review editor and the person who had made the decision to go ahead and print against my wishes) had offered compensation and pointed out that, if I wished to pursue the matter, then the MoS had in-house lawyers, but it would be very costly for me. She asked what I wanted to do; she was sure I had a case, but it'd be tiring and lengthy to pursue it. I nestled the phone comfortingly against my ear and replied
'It's not the money I'm bothered about, it's the principle.',
I glanced down at the stitching coming away from the pocket of my trousers,
'And the money.'
Hannah agreed to continue asking the MoS for the shirts off their backs. We didn't think they were going to give at all, it was just so they couldn't pull a bit of cash from their back pocket and walk off without giving the matter another thought. As I say, 'principle'.
I now had to leave for the southern tip of Germany for the next bit of our holiday, to a village called Oberstaufen where the internet has not yet penetrated. Lord help me – I was going offline.
Before I left I gave J Nash the password for my NTL account, so he could confer with Hannah and do anything necessary while I was marooned away from cyberspace.
Next, an email arrives from the MoS's lawyers threatening to sue me for the explanation I've put on the Things page and how it allegedly defames Jim Gillespie (purely as shorthand, by the way, throughout this he was referred to as Copyright Jim).
Tragically, this email arrives while I'm in a place in the Austrian Alps with no net access and no phone. Thus, knowing nothing whatsoever about it, my response is a series of flowing parallel turns on a ski run at Balderschwang. I am deft.
The MoS's lawyers also got in touch with Hannah (I found out all these things, by the way, when I returned to the German cybercafe and logged on to 'You have 1,101 new emails'). She called J Nash. J Nash is the most utterly unthreatenable person who's ever been. (He's also even more dumbly stubborn about principles than I am – this is a man who walked out of his job as editor of a magazine over a point of principle so esoteric that there are still only four people in the world who claim to understand it.) His reaction to the MoS's legal threat was, in Hannah's words 'very cool'.
Being a splendid chap, however, and mindful of the absent me, what he did was to remove anything from what I'd written that could in any possible way be used for ammunition by the MoS and, further, move the remainder onto his server stating at its new home that it had nothing to do with either Hannah or me.
The MoS's throbbing legal mind didn't think this sufficient and contacted Hannah again suggesting she ought to tell her client and his friend J Nash to grow up (
I don't even want to get into the details of what went on then, as they're horribly messy, or at least appeared to be so to me when I returned from skiing (skiing quite brilliantly, it's important to add) to read the whole thing in flashback in a German cybercafe at the rate of 2DM per 15 minutes. The upshot was that the final email from Hannah I collected in Germany said that she'd received a cheque for ?1,600 from the MoS and (more importantly) a letter apologising for their unauthorised use of my work. They said they hoped that would be the end of this matter, and it, as far as I'm concerned, mercifully and conclusively is.
Immediately I returned home, I took the money from the MoS to the offices of a local charity, outside which I'd arranged a meeting with a man from whom I bought a bin liner full of crack and four prostitutes. Hurrah!
There are several things about this whole unpleasant business I'd like to rub over in conclusion.
Obviously, there's the whole issue of copyright of stuff on the Net. Or rather how it's viewed in some areas. But I'm not going to labour that; you're all intelligent people with strong teeth, bright eyes and shiny coats – you've already grasped those yourself.
Next, I'd like to hope George Thwaites is OK. Mr Thwaites is Deputy Editor of the review section at the MoS and the person who originally emailed me. I have had no contact whatsoever with him since, but word on the street has it that he was (a) off with flu when it was decided to ignore my refusal to print and (b) is 'a nice bloke'. I hope, then, that he didn't get harangued by any morally arid, self-inflated weasels over making the initial (and perfectly decent) offer, as it clearly put the MoS in a far worse position, legally. Partly due to the flagrancy thang, but also because they'd offered money. J Nash and Stuart Campbell (with contributions from others – Panellists among them, in fact.) had a website they had done stolen, wholesale, and stuck on the cover CD of a magazine. One of the two arguments the magazine's publisher's made was that, as the site was just funny and well-written rather than selling anything or requiring money be paid to view it, it was 'worthless'. George Thwaites's offer of Ј800 would have prevented the MoS from ever using this argument, of course. I hope his simple good manners didn't mean his getting asked 'Why didn't you just steal the stuff without asking, you moron?' while being shaken by the lapels by some slavering, urine-soaked figure from some part of the Associated Newspapers Ltd organisation.
I'd like officially to thank all the people who helped out. J Nash and Nice Girl Hannah, of course. The Internet's very own The A Team, The Panel. All those in the media – The Independent, The Guardian, The Register and so on who selflessly and in a spirit of true malicious glee spread news of the story (the good people at The Register were especially gleeful, for obvious reasons).
Finally, a smashing 'Cheers' to everyone who wrote offering support, advice, good wishes or, best of all, simply a stream of foul-mouthed abuse directed at the MoS. The response was unexpected and punch-in-the- face staggering. Not only can I not hope to reply to everyone personally, but it'll be some time before I've even
