Online troll chose the wrong restaurant to write lies about
A Blackpool restaurant belonging to Steve Hoddy.
I think the proper word for it is “schadenfreude”, that is, deriving pleasure from the misfortunes of others.
Not a very Christian attitude, I admit, but when you consider the behaviour of some of those involved, a spot of gloating can surely be justified.
Among the nastiest people in our society today are those known as trolls – in internet slang people who post untrue, inflammatory or manipulative messages intended to hurt, damage or anger their victims, often people they do not know.
Martin Potts is a troll. He posted 10 fake reviews under eight different names on the Tripadvisor website attacking a Blackpool restaurant belonging to Steve Hoddy.
His messages claimed that the restaurant’s chips were fried in burnt oil, that the fish named as haddock was actually catfish and that his wife and children fell ill after eating there.
What the fake reviewer did not know was that Mr Hoddy, as well as owning a fish and chip shop, was also a qualified lawyer with a first-class degree from Cambridge University.
Applying his legal expertise to check multiple online posts, the lawyer-restaurateur found hundreds of reviews of other businesses with similar spelling errors.
Financial losses
“It was obviously the same person,” he said, and proceeded to track Potts down and identify him.
When the case came to court, Mr Hoddy produced bills proving his fish were indeed haddock, charts to demonstrate his financial losses and even proved the defendant did not have a wife or children.
Judge Craig Stephen ordered Potts to pay £7,455 in damages and costs.
Tripadvisor took down the negative comments and Mr Hoddy said, “Online trolling is a scourge of modern society, it is rife and it wrecks businesses.”
I think a little schadenfreude over the nasty Mr Potts’ comeuppance is well in order, don’t you?
* * *
A bunch of people who must also be feeling aggrieved by the wrongdoing of others are hundreds of postmasters and postmistresses who went through hell because of a faulty computer system.
A total of 736 men and women who run the Post Office system, which pays out pensions, provides postage stamps and receives and delivers mail, were prosecuted, fined and sometimes jailed for theft, fraud and false accounting.
They were all innocent. The problem was the Post Office’s Horizon computer system, which was finally admitted by bosses to be faulty.
The government has agreed to make restitution and the first 50 postmasters have received sums up to £100,000 in interim payments ahead of full compensation talks.
Many say no amount of money will make up for what they endured at the hands of an uncaring state machinery.
* * *
One thing Brits can be certain about in this uncertain world is that sometime over Christmas, on one or another TV channel, or at the local cinema, they would be able to watch Frank Capra’s feel-good movie, It’s a Wonderful Life.
Made in 1946 and starring James Stewart, the Hollywood classic has just been voted best Christmas film of all time by Radio Times readers, edging The Muppets’ Christmas Carol and Elf into second and third spots. The action flick Die Hard, which takes place at Christmas, came in fourth.
* * *
And so it’s goodbye and good riddance to wretched 2021. It will be remembered mostly for the pandemic, but it’s what came from the heavens that scared me most. Just a day or two ago, hundreds of people were killed in the Philippines by the worst typhoon in its history.
Earlier in 2021, China’s Henan province saw more than a year’s worth of rainfall in three days, resulting in 300 deaths and nearly 200 died when floods destroyed villages in Holland, Belgium and Germany.
The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season notched up 21 serious storms against an average of 14, and in supposedly temperate Britain, the 100 mph winds of Storm Arwen were described by a government minister as “the sort of weather we haven’t seen for 60 years”.
Can planet earth be turning on the people who live on it? Is it saying, “See what I can do when you treat me badly?”
* * *
A health-conscious patient asks his doctor, “Do you think I will live to be eighty?”
“Do you drink alcohol?” asked the doctor.
“No,” said the patient.”
“Take drugs?”
“No.”
“Have affairs with loose women?”
“No.”
“Eat delicious but unhealthy foods?”
“No.”
“So why,” asked the doctor, “would you want to live to be eighty?”
* * *
Now a few thoughts from those who did live that long:
“Not in jail, not in a mental hospital, not in a grave – I’m having a good day.”
“I can remember the phone number we had when I was a child, but I cannot remember the password I created yesterday.”
“There is nothing scarier than that split second when you lose your balance in the shower and you think, ‘They are going to find me naked.’”
