‘Who is EC really?’ and other not-very-important questions

Hey all, EC here. I don’t usually write in the first person, as most of the time various commenters and core team members have varying degrees of input into the posts we publish on HR, but today is different. Today I’m writing only as me.

Lately I’ve been getting emails and texts asking me some variation on the following: “I don’t like to ask, but I saw a post from [insert name of troofer here]. What’s going on?”

I think it’s time I answered that question.

For about a year, I’ve had a public Facebook profile in my own name: Karen Irving. It’s never been a secret, and I’m happy to talk to anybody who wishes to contact me there.

For whatever reason, though, various troofers have been digging through the Internet archive in search of dirt which they hope will incriminate me in some way. Good luck on that—I don’t have so much as an unpaid parking fine to my name.

What they’ve probably found so far is a blog I ran from 2008 to 2011, containing exciting iPhone images of two of my hobbies, knitting and spinning yarn. That’s some serious MI5/ MI6/ GCHQ shit right there. Apparently.

They will have also found a blog which I co-wrote with my sister between 2012 and 2015, about the ups and downs of life in the so-called empty nest. After the Kids Leave (tagline: “First, we rent out their rooms”) was a fun project, and is actually the reason I got involved in fighting those who promote the Hampstead hoax.

Here’s how that happened…

I think the best way to describe what happened is to quote from our now-defunct blog, which was tiny and pretty insignificant, but it amused us. We titled this post, dated 6 February 2015, “Thank you, Reptilian Overlords”.

Possibly an unwise move, as you’ll see:

Dear Karen,

Today I’d planned to tell you all about my trip to Denmark.

About how the family fell in love with my grandson, and how he fell in love with them.  About the food.  The cold.  The beauty of that nordic country.

I think I’ll save all that for next week though, because something really odd happened  when I got home on Wednesday.

It was odd.  Seriously odd.

I checked out our stats for the week I was away.

They showed me more or less what I’d expected.  Our top post was the current one, your hexipuffs post was going strong (as always!), and…then I noticed a post from 2 years ago, about an art exhibit I’d attended and written about in London.  For some reason it had been hit 92 times.

Now, that’s just bizarre.  Why the sudden interest in a 2-year old post?

Karen here: “92 times”? Yes, this seemed HUGE for our blog at that time.
Okay, as you were…

I clicked on the referrals to find out more.

My  rudimentary detective work told me that a group of loonies has uncovered a satanic cult in Hampstead, a village about 20 minutes north of my front door.  Co-incidentally, this is where my art friend Roz lives.

Or maybe not so co-incidentally (cue spooky violin here).

You might want to take notes, it’s about to get confusing…

Roz is married to a school trustee in Hampstead.  This particular school is apparently over-run with baby killers and satan worshippers.  Because they’re desperate to make a connection between Roz, her husband and one bit of insane fantasy, the pitchfork-wielding villagers began clicking on our site to drool over Roz’s evil devil-worshipping symbols.

Weird, right?  We thought so.

First, because we didn’t want our comments section flooded with their particular brand of rationale, we closed it.

Next, I notified Roz.  Head cases are head cases and soon they’ll get bored and move on, she said.

Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she?  As a devil-worshipping baby-killer, I mean.

What I find peculiar about all of this, is that it’s not just about baby-killing paedophile cult at a London school.  It’s that the cult is somehow, inexplicably, related to Reptilian Overlords, who use mind control to make humans believe everything is jim-dandy.  I suppose that means that I’m under their control at this very minute, because I happen to think everything they say and write is absolute rubbish.

Oh well.

An example of their impeccable logic can be found on their comments page.  Herewith, I give you the following garbled message, from one Anonymous to another:

I posted the info as Anonymous when I am not Anonymous. I then posted it to Anonymous with a link to Aang. Anonymous made the second comment to acknowledge via Aagn their receipt of it.

You see, it was hidden in plain sight! We can do that, too, especially those who know the workings of the web.

Where would the weaving spiders be without them, eh?

Indeed.  That’s a question I ask myself often.

So, why am I telling you all this?  Well, it’s actually a kind of thank-you note to the Reptilian Ding-Dongs, to say how grateful I am that they want to read my work and look at my pretty pictures.  Plus, they helped make Wednesday the strongest day of our week, by hitting my post over 200 times.  Good going, fellow Lizard-combatants!

As my thank-you for boosting our stats, I’m including some more of Roz’s art, from her second exhibition:

This obviously represents an alien, newly arrived on our planet via the fireplace.

The fine jewels round the wrist denote royalty and wealth, therefore this is the hand of the Queen. Oh my god, they’ve amputated the Queen’s hand!!

Dog exploring bondage, fox exploring bum.  Definite signs of alien activity. [BTW, I believe the ‘dog’ was a broken statue wrapped in a bin liner. No dogs were harmed, etc.]

The Jack-in-the-Box man, in his senior years. He’s in on it, too.

Roz uses found items to make her art, and I think it’s quirky, amusing and thought-provoking.  I doubt it represents anything other than the inner workings of her fertile imagination, though.

Anyway, must run now, the torch-wielding villagers are at my door, chanting.  I hope they’ve brought marshmallows, I’m absolutely starving.

Nanu-Nanu,

Wendy

p.s. Since I wrote this, I’ve noticed the following disclaimer on one of the sites that’s been referring people here: “There is no suggestion that any of these people are involved in anything improper.” [The site in question was the ever-loony Aangirfan, btw—K.]

Oh, phew. Well that’s taken care of, then.

Of course, this doesn’t answer the question of why the link existed in the first place, nor why it’s still there.

And only one of the referring sites has seen fit to offer any cautionary note. Maybe the conspiracy theorists need to work on their inter-blog communication skills.

Some people took this post very badly

We learned a few things from this post, one of which was that troofers are decidedly lacking in the sense of humour department. Keeping things in proportion isn’t their strong suit either.

Comments included gems like this:

‘gordon mcdonald’ wrote:
It states on the group of loonies website that there is no suggestion that any of these people mentioned are involved in anything improper, so why get so defensive wendy???

Because it’s a well known medical fact of science that anyone who objects to being swept up in a loony conspiracy theory must be guilty, guilty, guilty!!!1!1!

‘Shaun’ wrote:
You do realize those conspiracy nutters were talking about these videos that were posted on youtube:

2 kids share their horrible experiences attending Christ Church School in London. They claim to be raped, abused, and had to do satanic rituals.

You seem to not be informed of this or you just enjoy making a mockery out of what these kids are sharing with the world.

By this time I’d given up trying to respond rationally.

‘tomk’ wrote:
You shouldn’t be so flippant about it. If you looked at the video evidence that’s been provided, these allegations are very real and very disturbing. There is an active cult in Hampstead that is abusing children and murdering babies.– FACT The school teachers, police and clergy have all been implicated. This is far from a laughing matter…it’s an atrocity.

To which I responded, ‘Quod erat demonstrandum‘. Because of course I did.

Beryl wrote:
This story is all over the place, and yes, on conspiracy forums too. Journos love those forums. They are littered with a little truth and a lot of lies, but if you sift….

But I digress

Giggle giggle hee haw ha ha ha!

I note your total disregard of how your little site was mentioned, but latched onTO the fact that it was, and you excitedly run with it with sarcasm and misguided wit

Well done lass, you’re almost famous! For loving the attention you’re getting without a concern of the wherefores or the whys.

They’re all just nutters, right?

Wrong.

No pitch fork here. A horrified and concerned reader, yes.

I came to see you dance your dance of silly fools.

After all, its all about YOU.

The obvious response: “Sweet! We love kittens too!”

‘Anastasia Serena’ was a bit less oblique:
I trust you have excellent firewall protection on your computers, right ?BWAAAHAHAAAAAA ………

And ‘Concerned Parent’ was the first of many who would suggest that we go and get our “defining marks, tattoos, and piercings” checked out by police.

Why are you making a mockery of this?

1, if the children are lying or are being coached it is disgusting and needs to be addressed by you.

2, if you are as innocent as you all claim with your mocking blog, why not go to the police and press charges against those making false accusations against you all and prove it is all false by having an examination to see if any of the named abusers have the defining marks, tattoos and piercings as the two children describe in their video statements.

No pitchfork here, just a concerned parent hoping this is all a fabrication but witnessing what appears to be adults mocking children’s reports of ritual abuse.

TheBoss’ space bar seemed to be broken, but his/her message was pretty clear:

You just made it all worse with that post….I feel so sorry for you,and I just can’t believe you are a grown ass woman ! The loonies are just trying to dig the truth,or find more information,based on the videos of those two children and what they say, whatever the outcome is, lying or truth, both are really really bad…. And here you are acting like a five year old,making jokes and turning the tables,or so you think,but then again that’s what I would do in state of panic too when I give it a really good thought… If everything’s gold and honey,why make this post at all,why even bother?! I know the answer…. oh and I saw so much art in my life,light-hearted and deep thoughtful ones that make me write an essay, but that, what you call art….it’s not,it’s disturbing, gross and I can’t find deep meaning or a story,only a code, for ….LIKEMINDED people,it’s all I see,code,secret language,and a disturbing message in that art… Oh and I love karma,think about it,no matter the outcome,lies,truth,WHATEVER,it will come around and I think it won’t bring nothing good to whomever is responsible. Cheers,the person who sleeps FINE at night.

Nastier things were said on a bottom-of-the-barrel site called “Godlike Productions”, where we read about plans to have our blog hacked and our homes burned to the ground and other lovely things.

Granted, these weren’t really credible threats, and certainly not death threats as we’ve come to know them here at HR.

However, to a couple of 50-something sisters whose most controversial material at that point was about the sex life of Queen Victoria, it was all very disturbing stuff.

This short-lived and relatively mild encounter with the troofer ugly side of the internet  taught me one important lesson: if I wanted to help combat what I viewed as a pernicious and growing threat to rational thought, I was going to have to change my online identity. I could not risk having these wackadoos harassing my friends and family, as I knew they were already doing to innocent people in and around Hampstead.

I am a very fortunate person, in that I have a loving family and some wonderful friends, and I didn’t want their lives disrupted just because I’d chosen to go to war with a bunch of gullible nutters. This was not their fight, and I didn’t want them dragged into it. Simple as.

That’s how I became “Snake Logan” on YouTube and Google+, and “El Coyote” on this blog and Twitter.

“Snake” was a private family joke, relating to an episode two decades earlier when I’d been involved in outing an internet scammer on a writers’ forum. (No, HR isn’t my first rodeo). A family member who was helping me chose to call themselves “Snake Logan” then because SL was a) seriously cheesy, and b) the hero of a truly terrible side-scrolling computer game called “Bio-Menace”. (It made sense at the time.)

More prosaically, “El Coyote” was in honour of a half-coyote dog I owned many years ago. She was a great dog and I still miss her.

Rumours and half-truths

The rumour that I once wrote mystery novels? True. I wrote three, the first of which was a Canadian best-seller. They were published between 1999 and 2001, were optioned for a TV movie, and were translated into Italian and Chinese. All are out of print now. (Like most authors, I’m not unhappy about that, as I’d have written them quite differently today.)

The rumour that my daughter is Scarlet Scoop, because a) she once dyed her hair bright red, and b) she likes baking? Let’s just say that her response was, “Sweet! I get all the glory and do none of the work!” The troofers will have to try a bit harder on that one.

The rumour that I have purple hair: completely true. I blame my hairdresser.

As for my alleged work as a “psychological operative” (thanks, Angie!), I will only say that it does not take massive brain-power to out-think most of the Hampstead mobsters. More important in this fight, I have found, is staying power. And as my dear old dad used to say, I am as stubborn as an old army mule.

I believe that the point behind all the recent digging and publishing of my personal details comes down to one thing: it’s a sorry attempt to intimidate me out of running this blog.

All I can say to that is, “Just watch me”.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com