The Bitter Press

I said what I said. I have, in fact, always said what I said. This is the entire point of saying things. You open your mouth — or, in my case, your considerable editorial maw — words emerge in a specific and deliberate order, and those words are then received by a listener who has presumably evolved the relevant faculties. And yet. And yet.

Tangelo — Tangelo, of the rival rag, of factjuice.com, of the citrus cabal who wouldn't know a primary source if it fermented in their own rind — has published what he is calling a 'quote' from me. He has placed it in inverted commas. He has attributed it to me by name. It contains, at most, three words I have ever used, and not consecutively. I have cross-referenced this against my original remarks. I have done this fourteen times. Pomelo has asked me to stop. I have not stopped.

Quince suggested, very gently, that perhaps I should 'let it go.' I have bitten Quince's suggestion in half and left it on the meeting room table as a warning. The editorial line of The Bitter Press has never been 'let it go.' The editorial line of The Bitter Press is: we remember everything, we forgive nothing, and we keep extremely thorough records.

Eight misquotations. Eight. I am not merely ungovernable at this point — I have passed through ungovernable and arrived somewhere considerably darker. There is no word for what I am now. Sloe tried to coin one and I rejected it on stylistic grounds. If Tangelo, Lemon, or any other member of the so-called workers at that pulped-up embarrassment of a publication wishes to quote me in future, they may submit a written request, in triplicate, to my office. I will not be responding. But I will be watching.