Naming and Shaming alert!

Looking at the comments here over the last few days or so will have shown what a tough line my readers take towards lying. The idea that I might once have used an assumed name when writing for newspapers has particularly shocked those of delicate sensibilities. One person said that I;

'has mentioned frequently that he lies if it will benefit his career and thinks everyone else does it.'

This was a reference to the possibility that I might in the past have used a pseudonym. This debate rumbled on for a few days. Unfortunately, those posting rather spoiled their own argument by hiding behind pseudonyms themselves, but we will leave that for now. I am vastly obliged to a reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, for telling me of the existence of the article below;

http://www.theecologist.org/green_green_living/home/268824/how_to_home_educate.html


It is of course written by Mike Fortune-Wood, who runs the HE-UK list. He wrote it under a pseudonym..... What makes this such a breathtaking bit of hypocrisy is that Mike Fortune-Wood, or Fortune-Lee I don't know which is his real name, has been forthright in denouncing me for this very practice, accusing me of lying about my name. I am now informed that he laughingly admits to using false identities to plant stories in the media and elsewhere about home education. This is certainly true. When he wanted to criticise me on the online edition of a national newspaper, he signed the message not with his own name but as Maeske123. Perhaps he couldn't remember that day whether he was called Fortune-Lee or Fortune-Wood; he is a man of many identities and presumably of more than one face!