PUTTING OFF THE MOFF

“Was it me?” I ask myself.

Was I the final straw that broke the camel’s back?

Well, I kind of imagine that it wasn’t, but when someone who has been happily twittering away with his fanbase for a couple of years suddenly decides to stop doing so and only a couple of days after I’d Tweeted him directly about a thought which I found particularly jocular (even if, as usual, nobody else seemed to), well, you do kind of find yourself wondering…

I mean, I know it wasn’t me. I know that I’m not that significant for one thing and, having spent more than my fair share of time trawling around the various websites that are available to someone with a more than slightly keen interest in such matters, I know that I seriously am not the maddest, saddest person out there in the world.

I am, in fact, comparatively sane.

In fact, I would go as far as to point out that if you really want to find yourself a barometer for quite how sane you actually are, probably the best way to gauge it is to spend a few moments exploring a “fan” site for just about any subject.

Within seconds you will discover the most extreme and petty arguments being exchanged about the most trivial of things and the amount of venom and bile being spouted about topics that might seem to be so minor and irrelevant is, quite frankly, unbelievable.

I kid you not…

And these are places where people who supposedly like whatever it is are hanging out.

God alone knows what the sites where people hate whatever it is are like.

Actually, I do know…

I once ventured briefly into a footballing website because I had been inadvertently drawn there by an enticing headline thanks to the macinations of a certain a certain Mr Yahoo News, and footballing supporters of opposing hues are quite simply the most scary folk to read the rantings, ravings and abuse of. There were whole new avenues of swearing and ridicule and counter-swearing and counter-ridicule that this middle-aged innocent had quite happily been blissfully unaware of until that very moment, and from which I felt that my life gained no real benefit from discovering.

After a few moments of shock and horror, I made my excuses and left…

As to the departure of Mr Steven Moffat (the head writer and show-runner of “Dr Who” and “Sherlock”) from TwitWorld, well, to be honest, I’m not at all surprised. Some of the biggest “fans” of his show can be downright rude and believe (for some inexplicable reason) that they could do the job far better than this award-winning and popular writer of some of the finest television of the modern era, and, if I was getting huge swathes of abuse like he regularly seems from, well, frankly, anyone, I’d be hauling my donkey out of there as fast as I could, too…

I hope it wasn’t me…

Still, when it comes to fans of science-fiction on television, we can be a strange lot, I’ll grant you.

I used to tell people this story which I remember being told a long, long time ago, in the days when the very best a young fan could ever hope for was a videotape release of one of his favourite shows. Once upon a long ago, some very, very old black and white episodes of a very early Dalek story got released as “complete and unedited” by the BBC.

Much joy and excitement and a big positive result for everyone interested in that kind of thing you might have thought, but sadly not.

Somebody, in their infinite wisdom had actually taken the time to actually watch these episodes and noticed that, as was often the case with early TV which was recorded “as live” in a television studio, there were one or two moments when the screen faded to black for far longer than might strictly be expected or necessary.

As these shows were then being released in a more modern age, the publishers decided that perhaps a few seconds of black screen might not be the most exciting thing for their customers to enjoy and so they snipped out those few seconds where the screen was totally blank and absolutely nothing was happening and (to – ironically - edit a long story shorter) somebody attempted to take them to court for a breach of the advertising standards, believing that these videos were no longer “complete and unedited” as described.

Now it’s not for me to say who was in the right there, but sometimes, when it comes to our obsessions, common sense can be flung right out of the window.

And when it comes to the dear old interweb, it does seem that people will use the anonymity and distance to say all manner of things which they would never dream of saying if the person was standing in the room right in front of them. After all, if the charming Mr Moffat were to walk right up to me this very second I know full well that I would stammer and mumble and all of my word power would escape me altogether and I would probably just end up making a total arse of myself just like I did that time when I tried to say something “witty” to Alexei Sayle…

Which is probably why it was so nice just to be able to “engage” with him in some tiny way via TwitWorld, although I never actually said anything that he felt was worthy of commenting upon. Mind you, that’s because most of what I write on TwitWorld isn’t worthy of commenting upon, but it was nice to know that he might have done and now that tiniest insight into the workings of his mind has been closed off to all of us because of the crazy few, which may, or may not, include myself. After all, I do know that I’m not the most offensive person thereon. (Once upon a time I actually convinced myself that I believed that Russell T Davies would be the perfect dinner party guest, too, without ever realising that we would probably have bored the poor man to death, if I’d been able to utter any words at all… We never got around to inviting him, of course, but it was something that I did once seriously consider when I wondered whether I could find a “mentor” for my former writing ambitions…)

So, why did I think that it might have been me that had been that final straw? I only suggested an episode title after all… but the coincidence of the great man vanishing the very next day was troublesome at the very least. “I’m going to spend my Christmas with a Dalek” still seems such an obvious title for a Christmas episode now, (especially after the secrets of the “asylum” were revealed), and I thought that the thought might just tickle him, almost as much as the delicate soufflé of “Eggs, stir. Minute.” (Surely that’s an omelette as served up in competition on Saturday Kitchen…?) tickled me…

Instead, I now find myself writing an essay which I almost titled “The Day I Drove the Moff Away” but, for once, sanity prevailed, even though, when it comes to matters TwitWorld-y, I often consider driving myself away, too.

If you’re a “fan”
And you don't know who rant to
Why don’t you go and piss them off
Puttin’ off the Moff.

Tortured Frowns upon the bevy of
Low lifes from down the levy
Are all ticked off

Puttin’ off the Moff.