The Final Words Of Anna Raccoon

I received an email from Anna Raccoon this morning asking me to publish her reply to the eulogy that I posted yesterday, which attracted so many well deserved comments from supporters of her now deleted blog. This, of course, I have done with pleasure .....

I am humbled, truly.

Reading through these comments I am reminded of the many exceptional people that exist on the internet. Good people, talented writers – yes, you Gildas – don’t you dare give up! – and big hearts.

Unfortunately, there are also a myriad of talentless, embittered souls, the pimply faced youths of Andrew Marr’s comment, spewing bile and negativity, metaphorically pulling the legs off any spider they happen to pass – just because they can. Because it’s free. Because it is a lawless area. As it should be – and that very freedom that they abuse will be at risk one day because of them.

I am not speaking of the obsessive adolescent ramblings of John Demetriou and his imaginary friend - ‘only I can see you Kevin’. They are pussy cats compared to the truly deranged that are out there in the blogosphere – I understand they are claiming credit for the demise of my blog – unfortunately I never read them, it was only after I had closed the blog that they wrote their latest poison missive and someone pointed me in that direction thinking that they had punctured my hide terminally. No such luck Demetriuzela.

No, out there in the ether, there are some seriously dangerous people, who targeted me many months ago for daring to hold a different opinion from them. They didn’t just ‘out’ me, they have continued to dig obsessively into my life, fantasising where they were unable to obtain information. They imagine, I suppose, that they were hurting me, punishing me for not agreeing with them. In fact the damage is far wider than that. They also cause intense pain amongst those I am related to. For although I have not known my family, they are out there, and had started the long journey of truth seeking which is a search for far flung members of your family.

They too, were Googling, and reading that I was a paedophile, a government agent, a ‘sleeper’ planted in the blogosphere to prevent the truth emerging (Jesus!) – faux psychiatric reports on me emerged, discussing the severe mental illness that apparently occasioned my adopting ‘different disguises’ – the allegedly ‘eminent psychiatrist’ responsible for that one had obviously never come across a woman who had been married three times and changed her name each time in accordance with British law! My National Health records were accessed - I know there are laws against this sort of thing, but the people concerned are mentally ill. Laws won't stop them.

My unknown family learnt that everything I did was in shallow pursuit of ‘hits’, that nobody ever linked to my work because they liked it, only because I had ‘brown nosed’ them. They learnt that I only ‘claimed’ to be a Quaker.

I could go on but I shan’t. Suffice it to say, that nervous as they were about making contact anyway, they have decided that it would be better not to have contact with such a patently despicable creature as me. That pains me for myself and them. I, in turn, realised that much of what has been written about me is because I had become better known. Others have had dissenting voices, but not the thousands of readers, so I became a particular target – and that could only get worse as time went on.

It has been like a lead weight on my shoulders, knowing that every day as I tried to write, amongst you good people there were also these utter snakes who visited the blog only to see what they could purloin, twist, plagiarise, take out of context, cause mischief with, denigrate. Last week-end I was plagued with e-mails demanding this and demanding that as the price of not writing any more about me. It completely overshadowed my delight at the Sheila Martin result. I stared at the screen for hours, feeling very, very alone in my battle with these people, and finally decided to just 'pull the plug'.

There is an intensely negative side to the Blogosphere; confrontational, aggressive. I had hoped to establish a political blog that was not so testosterone driven, where women – 50% of the public – were welcome. Some will say I should have stood up to the bullies, that letting them win is, well, letting them win – but the personal price I was paying was too high for me.

I have stood up to them for a long time, my illness started at the end of last year; there have been many days when the only thing I have done is write the blog, only to read from Demetriou that there was nothing wrong with me, my ‘alleged illness’ was merely a ‘drive for hits’, and then creep back to bed, pausing only to throw breakfast up on the way as I struggled to live through the treatment. Hashimoto Disease for your information you pathetic little dolt Demetriou.

I didn’t make any closing statement for precisely that reason – I knew that anything I said would be quoted and misquoted, pilloried by the likes of Demetriou. It wouldn’t have been my choice and was not with my permission that Obnoxio made the statement he did; but now that he has done and it has engendered this gracious response from Gildas and the many kind comments, it is only fair to say farewell. I shan’t be back, there is no cache of my work, no record, nothing for anyone to tease apart and take another meaning from, no more fun to be had baiting Anna Raccoon, she no longer exists. Nor will I be writing under any other name or on any other web site as some have suggested.

The air is fresher in the real world, it is full of real people (here in France anyway!) that wish you nothing but well. They seek to heal, not hurt, to help not hinder. They are honest and truthful, not furtive and secretive. When they do have feuds it is over something important like the menu for the Rugby Club dinner.

So if you’ll excuse me folks, I’m back off to gulp great lungfuls of fresh air.

Fare thee well folks ....
you were some of the best commentators to appear on any blog.

+++ UPDATE+++

Gotty says : Former contributors of her blog have just launched an "open home for all the fans of Anna Raccoon, hopefully to allow the continuation of the spirit of her blog".  Why not pop over and take a look to see what would have happened if the Chilean miners had been trapped in a British mine ;-)




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