No I'm Not A Girl

I found folk on PB (politicalbetting.com) discussing my sex.  Yes I am male.  My blogname tapestry is female sounding, I admit.

I used to blog on ft.com in the 1990's.  A bloke called Stephen Saines who lived in Canada awarded the regular contributors to the 'euro' threads names, based on the pieces on a monopoly board.  As I was the eurosceptic pro-UK pound contributor, he called me 'top hat'.  Up til then I'd used my real name 'henry'.

I found that often my posts would not get through.  When I changed my name they suddenly would get through again so I started inventing names that would be recognised by my fellow correspondents ( I don't think we called ourselves bloggers in those days).

'Top Hat' became 'topper' then'tapper' then 'tapestry' then 'teapastry' then 'tapestory' and so on.  So when I started blogging in 2006 due to illhealth and having to stop work, I went back and used one of my old ID's.

Some people say that you should blog in your own name.  One reason I don't do that, is that when I go on search engines to track things I've written on non-political topics in publications, there can be too many 'whacks' of my name from political blogs, making search awfully hard work.  I keep my real name for my business and other non-political writing.

To complete the story, others often replied to me as 'tap' rather than tapestry.  When I started my blog on google, I could use the-tap.blogspot and it sounded OK.  I had a lot of strange events on my google blog after writing against well-known and well-resourced individuals and started a second blog here using Tapestrytalks inspired by Dizzythinks.  By copying around a few, it is harder for any blockers or hackers to make trouble.

Comments

[Tim13]

Yes, thanks for that, Henry, Tapestry, Topper etc. Interested to hear from the other Innocent Abroad on PB that you stood for UKIP. Where?

[Tapestry]

Shrewsbury & Atcham 2001.
Left the party immediately after the election and signed up as an IDS supporter.

I am certain that the UKIP threat was enough to push MPs to back IDS over Portillo.

UKIP seemed a potential threat at that time before they messed up.

I spoke to IDS' campaign manager frequently during the 2001 general election, Owen Paterson now Shadow N.I. who tried to talk me out of it and threatening me with being pushed out of Tories!

I know he was big on the UKIP threat at that time.

Having assisted IDS into the leadership as I saw it, I decided to back him, which led me on to attacking Portillo in 2003.

I wrote 2 million leaflets for UKIP and was not just a Constituency level operator.

[Tim13]

Thanks, Tapestry. I am not sure of the status of the local UKIP here in East Devon - I know that those who stood as Parl Candidate and Agent at the same time as you are still somewhat active, and the exAgent has recently had his day in Court protesting about the EU portion of the Council Tax! Not sure of outcome there!!

[Tim13]

Thanks, Tapestry. I am not sure of the status of the local UKIP here in East Devon - I know that those who stood as Parl Candidate and Agent at the same time as you are still somewhat active, and the exAgent has recently had his day in Court protesting about the EU portion of the Council Tax! Not sure of outcome there!!