Sim-O

The worlds fattest man, a Mr Mason is going to write a dieting book. I guessing it’s gonna be a short one that goes something like…

1. Stop eating 20,000 calories a day
2. Get gastric band fitted

After a few days of trying to find out anything concrete from an independent source, it is here, by Judith Townend…

The Groucho Club is to take libel action against an author of a book not yet published to prevent publication of allegations about the famous media haunt, Index on Censorship and Journalism.co.uk can report.

In October, a case management conference will take place at the Queen’s Bench division of the UK High Court to decide future progress of the case, Kapital Ventures and the Groucho Club London v Tyrone D Murphy and Classic Media Entertainment. The claimants expect to recover in excess of £15,000, it is stated in the claim form.

Previous to this, and the same on Index on Censorship, all that turned up in searches were comments almost exactly like the one left on my blog, press releases on free-press-release websites and a small blog by the author of the comments. Nothing authoritative or independent. Matt Wardman, who also had a comment left on his blog, tried contacting the Groucho Club directly, but they didn’t feel too chatty.

As Matt points out in his more comprehensive post on the matter, there is a precedent for this, Where solicitors Schillings acting on behalf of mercenary Colonel Tim Spicer tried to get an injunction on one of Craig Murrays’ books.

I was wary about this when brought to my attention as the manner of it looked like either a scam (that I hadn’t worked out the hook) or a ham-fisted attempt at promoting a book by an internet naive PR company. There may be an element of the latter, but it doesn’t seem that way now. At least not a scam anyway.

It seems, once again, that thanks to our archaic libel laws mean free speech is going to be either suppressed without proper chance of being proved correct or come at an enormous price, where the lawyers win.

We await more details.

For more information see:

• Matt Wardman – Banning UK Books before Publication:The Groucho Club vs Tyrone D Murphy
• journalism.co.uk – Groucho Club in libel action to prevent defendant’s claims in ‘exposé’ of famous media haunt
• Index on Censorship – Groucho Club in libel action
• g-book.co.uk – the Grouchogate affair

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Postscript:

1. I don’t doubt that this libel case is real, not for a minute, but there are a couple of things that play on my mind:

   The author. On g-book.co.uk it states…

   The authors are currently seeking information to include in the book

   but then further down lists Tyrone D Murphy as the sole author. That’s a pretty basic mistake that isn’t just a spelling mistake but makes the statement inaccurate.
   In a post on his blog EF Orwell states that he is the author. Although he doesn’t mention the book or club by name, it is obvious that that is what he is talking about with the other information that we know. That’s not the usual thing to do is it? Would that get more help?

2. g-book.co.uk has the registrant recorded as ‘g-book’. The registrant of a domain has to be a proper, real person. Who is this site really registered to? Why have they obscured themselves? What have they to hide?
3. Who’s the anonymous Wikipedia editor

Some answers are needed, even if only to clear things up.

Craig Murray has a new book out, The Catholic Orange-Men of Togo and other conflicts I have known.

This time though, he is self publishing, due to Schillings sending letters scaring publishers on behalf of people like Tim Spicer, a mercenery of the British in Iraq, who don’t like to have their questionable actions questioned, and don’t want to go to the courts when they are.

Anyway, the book is available for free (who says you never get anything for nothing , eh?), or in hard back, direct from Craig or from Amazon.

Ten Percent has a review and it’s fair to say, it’s good one, too.

Via