When does many become many?

[Ben]

Mmmm, ītis a pity, is it not? But then again, as long as things need a bit of correction, Iīm happy to oblige! Like this:

You're not correcting anything, Fisherman. You're just looking for excuses for engaging in another round of "cyber ping-pong" with me, such is my seemingly hypnotic ability to command your undivided attention and coerce your prolix persistence, thus rendering pointless your oft-repeated calls to seek out other threads. I'm irresistable to you. Admit it. "Battle mode" doesn't suit you. I've told you. Mike's dropped the hint countless times.

Yup. And anyone but you-know-who can see that the writers age, the function of the pen and the writing spoace afforded all belong under the obvious canopy of things influencing the writing abilities.

Whoops, that's blatent repetition of the order that merits a swift copy and paste I'm afraid: You can describe things as "similar" if you are able to identify both the central theme and "similar things" even in the absence of a specific context, and the natural disasters mentioned in your original example fit the bill perfectly in this regard. Age and "available space" simply do not. They are not similar to eachother, so it makes better sense to say that these explanations might have come into play along with other/different things - not "similar", because they aren't.

If the factors listed have no obvious similarity with eachother then it becomes necessary to specify which factor the "similar things" have a similarity to. If you don't do that, it's impossible to infer "levels of anxiety" as an unnamed example of one of those "similar things" that may account for the handwriting differences. Levels of anxiety is simply not a "similar thing" to either pen function, available space or age, whereas if he had stated that "other things" may account for the differences, a great many other possibilities are encompassed in addition to the sentence starting to make a good deal more sense.

BUT once you find a common factor, you have also found a similarity (they may fall on you), and then you are actually allowed to speak of "hippos, Eiffel Towers and meteors and similar things

No, you're not.

That doesn't make sense.

In order to make sense, you'd need to speak of hippos, Eifel Tower, meteors and lots of other different things. Things that have the same effect despite their dissimilarity with eachother.

In the same way that natural disasters donīt look, smell or feel similar, so donīt they.

But if someone were to provide you with a list of natural disasters, you would know the context without having to be told - it's so obviously a list of natural disasters, whereas if you were given a list of unrelated occurances such as age and "available space", it's almost impossible to guess the context. They are dissimilar things that happen to share a specific influence on something equally specific. That does not make them similar in isolation, as natural disasters most assuredly are.

But gird your loins and keep battling away with the poster you expressed your public intention to have as little to do with as possible.

who may be around some more - who knows?

Me. You will. Watch.

[Fisherman]

Ben tries his old sack of XXXX:

"You're just looking for excuses for engaging in another round of "cyber ping-pong" with me, such is my seemingly hypnotic ability to command your undivided attention and coerce your prolix persistence, thus rendering pointless your oft-repeated calls to seek out other threads. I'm irresistable to you. Admit it."

This was not what the thread was about, was it?

"You can describe things as "similar" if you are able to identify both the central theme and "similar things" even in the absence of a specific context"

You donīt write them rules, Ben - the lady at the University does. Plus - as you would seem to have conveniently forgotten - the context was given in the Leander discussion. There was no reason to believe that he spoke of ANYTHING but signature and handstyle related things. I got it, Sam got it, Vic got it, Mike got it, Lund University got it, in fact EVERYBODY did ... no, wait a minute here....

"That doesn't make sense."

To whom? I got it, Sam got it, Mike got it, Vic got it, Lund University....

"But if someone were to provide you with a list of natural disasters, you would know the context without having to be told"

...and when someone GIVES you the context of signature comparison and speaks of things that may affect the handstyle, you really ought to tag along - or get left behind. I got it, Sam got it ...

"Bit gird your loins and keep battling away with the poster you expressed your public intention to have as little do with as possible."

Ehrm, the battle just went down, Ben. You lost. Didnīt you notice... I bet Sam did, Mike did, Vic did ... perhaps not the University, though.

The very best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Ehrm, the battle just went down, Ben. You lost. Didnīt you notice...

And therein lies the problem with your approach to discussion of historical events. It's all about battles as far as you're concerned. The distinction between winning and losing is one you obviously cherish very deeply, for which you have my sympathy. It didn't work for you on the Stride threads and it isn't working here. It's this point-scoring approach that creates irritation, and listing two or three people who share your Toppy stance is one such fallacious debating strategy. This whole thread only came about because you were insistent upon dredging up a discussion that we had previously elected to agree to disagree over. I don't begrudge you contacting an expert, but I can't accept that it has cast doubt on my "case" and I've explained in detail why.

If you disagree, just let it be known once and move on. Don't use it as an excuse for a cyber-brawl and get all fussy and obstreperous in the process. People have enough nous to decide for themselves without "help" from excessive ponderous narration.

You donīt write them rules, Ben - the lady at the University does.

No she doesn't. What a strange thing to say. I don't disagree with her, but she doesn't write the rules.

[Fisherman]

Ben:

" It's all about battles as far as you're concerned."

That, Ben, is a strange thing to claim for a man that signed off his former post by saying: "gird your loins and keep battling away with the poster you expressed your public intention to have as little to do with as possible", and who time and time again has stated that nobody can compete with his stamina...!

It is not about stamina, and it never was. It is about getting things right, and realizing what they look like when they eventually reach that stage.

The posters I was exchanging with before once again turning to this thread, were Rob House and Sam Flynn. It was in a question concerning the Tabram killing, and Rob and Sam entertained a wiew in a certain issue that was not correct. I posted two quotes that showed this, and was met by a very friendly counterpost by Rob, who simply recognized that he seemingly had been wrong - he added a few more quotes of his own that further elucidated this. Sam chimed in and agreed, and thanked me for having drawn his attention to the fact that he had missed out on vital parts of the issue we were discussing.

If any of these gentlemen ever pondered a tactic of telling me to gird my loins and get ready for battle, they did an admirable job of hiding it. Although there may have been a "smart" way to linguistically challenge what I stated, they obviously refrained from doing such a thing. They did not call me names for having gone against their wiews, and they did not hint at the possibility that I could have made the material up on my own.

Maybe, Ben, this is why people follow you around the boards, "hypnotized" by your presence? Maybe that has something to do with the fact that it is totally unsufficient to present expert corroboration of what is said when debating with you, since you simply shove such things aside. The fact that you question a credible and renowned specialist, point him out as swinging wildly between stances (although a number of other posters tell you that they believe that the expert in question has stayed firm throughout) and as somebody who is willing to throw all ethics overboard to "fob people off" - could that be somehow connected to the fact that people like me wonīt let you get away with it?

Maybe you have not given that any afterthought, maybe you simply cannot bring yourself to do such a thing, I donīt know. But I thoroughly reccomend it.

This thread has been about whether Frank Leander really meant that there could have been many reasons for the changes in handstyle that are revealed by a comparison between the police protocol signatures and the 1898 and 1911 signatures.
We have Leander speaking about age of the writer, writing space afforded, function of the pen "and similar things" - but you wonīt recognize that "similar things" referred to anything but function of the pen. Plus you tell us that very few things could be similar to that phenomenon - in fact, it is so special a function that similarities are not about. Therefore, we know that Leander actually belived that ONLY these three things - age of the writer, writing space afforded and function of the pen - could have had an impact on the handstyle differences. This, according to you, is the most credible intrepretation of what Leander stated. It rules out inherent physical changes within the writer, it rules out writing angles, length of the pen, intoxication, writing position and any other thing that could have had an impact - according to you. Donīt you think, Ben, that such an interpretation would be completely and utterly ridiculous? That three things, and three things only, were tied by Leander to the differences as being possible explanations? That all other explanations were non-starters in his belief?? No?

We of course also have Leander actually saying "many things" - but since he did not use that exact phrase in his first post, you prefer to claim that he is unallowed to do so in a latter one - it eradicates all credibility on his behalf, and only shows us that Leander had grown tired of my questions and wanted to fob me off - according to you.

On the way here, you have also discarded the verdict of Lund University, who adamantly recognized that "similar things" referred to all three variables precedingly listed. It applies universally, but not in this case - according to you.

So where do we go from here, logically? Well, we could - of course - always ask Leander what he was referring to when he wrote "and similar things". But then again, if he was to say "I of course meant ALL things that could have an impact on the handstyle", that would of course mean that you would step in and say that this was something he did not say in his first post on the topic, would you not? And that would of course once again show us that we are dealing with a useless, incompetent expert who reels drunkenly between totally different stances, would it not?

The so called "battle" is over, Ben, whether you like it or not. You are the loneliest man on earth in this question, and thatīs as it should be.

Several decades after the WWII, a Japanese guy was found on a barren island somewhere in the Pacific. When people stepped ashore, he shot at them, defending his island in his emperorsī service, and it took quite some time to convince him that he was the only guy out there still fighting the second world war. It had all slipped by him; he had had very little information, and what little he had heard, he had considered malicious propaganda.

You are not at that kind of loss, Ben - you have been told over and over again by a number of posters that you are wrong, quite simply. The time has come for you to either decide to stay on your very own island - inhabited by nobody else but you, as far as I can see - or take the plunge, and dive in and swim over to the mainland.
It will feel cold in the beginning, but you can always dry up in the sun afterwards.

The best,
Fisherman

[Victor]

I don't disagree with Julien's position that, generally speaking, "similiar things" is used in reference to all aforementioned "things", and not just the last one, but that's because the vast majority of sentences so constructed contain factors, objects and events that are similar to eachother in isolation.

Hi all,
It looks like the argument is over. Ben agrees, if "don't disagree" can be take to mean agree, and you ignore the qualifier which makes the sentence the equivalent of "I don't disagree that black is black, as long as it's black" and that's as pedantic as you can get.

If you say that cancer, a heart attack, a stoke and similar things can result in death, the sentence would make sense, but if you replace cancer with "charging rhino" and heart attack with "enemy" fire, the "and similiar things" is no longer applicable.

"A charging rhino, enemy fire, a stroke and similar things can result in death" does sound slightly strange, but that's because the ability that's affected (death) has been deliberately selected to get so broad that it's obviously going to have that effect.

I cannot think of one instance where that sentence could be used unless you deliberate manipulate the situation to force it. For the other example, the natural disasters one, I can see that croppping up, but rarely and that's getting away from the context, which I think is... '[an ability] can be affected by [factors] and similar things', which neither example come anywhere near to.

I must say that this quote...

If you disagree, just let it be known once and move on. Don't use it as an excuse for a cyber-brawl and get all fussy and obstreperous in the process.

...must be the greatest example of hypocrisy that I've ever seen.

KR,
Vic.

[Ben]

You really have a boner for Ben pretty badly, don't you?

Out spewed the all too predictable verbal diarrhea, proving conclusively that you lied continually when you claimed that you were headed for other threads and intend to have as little to do with me as possible. You resorted to this insipid tactic on the Stride threads, stalking certain people around wherever they post and claiming, with risible futility, that you have somehow proved them wrong. In that instance, the victims concerned showed the good sense to ignore your nonsense, secure in the knowledge that theirs was the stronger argument. The act of ignoring you emboldened you, though, resulting in the delusion that simply attempting to wear the opponent out will result in victory.

It’s proved an unsuccessful strategy against me, though. If you write a long post in an attempt to exhaust me, I’ll just write a longer one. That is, if you didn’t have the sense to recognise that it would be better to agree to disagree. That’s what you need to do, and I’ll gladly oblige on the condition that you revise your failing debating strategy. It’s not that I like engaging in battles or fighting stamina, but they are clearly your preference, and frankly, I’m better at you in that format. If you’re looking for long drawn-out fights, pick on a weaker opponent. Pick on someone who’s likely to get worn out. Or, if it’s me that you’re obsessed with, try a better debating strategy or get someone with more credibility to take me on. Try to be succinct and less ponderous when you post – as a journalist, you really should be more clued up on the pitfalls of prolixity. Even your Toppy mates have dropped the hint time and time again that your “last word” mentality is only hindering the cause, but you never listen.

You’re not very good at the “all guns blazing” approach.

You referred to an incident where you pointed out that someone was wrong, in your view, and they ultimately revised your stance, but I’m curious – can you provide an example of an instance where you were wrong and revised your stance accordingly? You’re forever trying to paint yourself as the barometer of right and wrong, and acting as some self-appointed truth-guide, but when has the shoe been on the other foot? Well, I fondly recall the thread where you disagreed with me, in typically brash and filibustering fashion, that Fleming was a good ripper suspect. After a hefty round of cyber ping-pong, you did a radical about-turn and decided he was a likely ripper after all. I don’t remember any friendly concessions that I may have been right and you have been hastily dismissive of a reasonable suggestion.

“Maybe that has something to do with the fact that it is totally unsufficient to present expert corroboration of what is said when debating with you, since you simply shove such things aside.”

I most assuredly do not shove anything aside. I address “such things” in meticulous detail, and where I have a concern with the nature of the material, I’m more than at liberty to say so, outlining the nature of my concerns in equally meticulous detail. If you don’t like it, tough. Ignore me, put me on ignore, or “battle” with me, and if the last option entails verbosity and repetition then I’ll just riposte with even more verbosity and repetition, not because I covet either of those dubious qualities, but because I’m sick of your delusion that you can simply blitz-post an argument into perceived victory.

It never works for you – even your mates have told you.

Leander did provide radically contrasting stance – a fact on record. He specifically referred to dissimilarities that don’t concern amplitude in his first neutral post, but later stated that there were no differences other than those concerned with amplitude. That’s an irrefutable contradiction, and no amount of Leander-hassling will change that, nor will attempting to google your way out of the problem. Did Leander fob you off? I don’t know. All I know if that a) he contradicted himself, and b) you continued to hassle him many more times after expressing his intention not to elaborate further.

“people like me wonīt let you get away with it?”

This is the pugnacious “battling” spirit than ensures that people like you sustain me, Fisherman. Firstly, just how badly do you want to patronise the intelligent readership of Casebook by insisting they can’t make their minds up for themselves – that they need your bombastic, ponderous narration to guide them through the light. Obviously, I’m immensely flattered by your fears that I can be so persuasive, but the stark reality is that if I wanted to get away with anything dodgy or nefarious, your blitzing and bombast would only help me to do so. You contribute to a pile of posting rubble, and given potentially interested parities a disincentive to get involved. That’s why people got bored of the Leander threads. Don’t you ever ask yourself why your fellow Toppyites keep encouraging you to chill out and go fishing?

Think about it.

“It rules out inherent physical changes within the writer, it rules out writing angles, length of the pen, intoxication, writing position and any other thing that could have had an impact - according to you.”

It rules out anything that could not be considered similar to age, function of the pen, and available space. If he wanted to rule other things in, he could easily have stated that there were other things, different things, but by using the expression similar, he restricts the options to a fairly limited set of “things” that could not, inferentially, be described as many. What happened next is that you came up with your own terminology, wholly absent from Leander’s first post, which mysteriously appeared in some of his later emails – I say mysterious, because once of twice he even appeared to have appropriated your exact phrase. I’m not coming to any conclusion. I’m simply stating what occurred.

“On the way here, you have also discarded the verdict of Lund University, who adamantly recognized that "similar things" referred to all three variables precedingly listed. It applies universally, but not in this case - according to you.”

Nonsense. I’ve stated a number of times now that I agree, in general, with the view of the Lund expert, but no, it doesn’t apply “universally”. It applies it cases where the things being referred to as similar actually possess a similarity with eachother, as borne out by recent examples. Please don’t use silly expressions like “adamantly” when they never applied.

“The so called "battle" is over, Ben, whether you like it or not. You are the loneliest man on earth in this question, and thatīs as it should be”

Has nobody had a quiet word in your ear yet about triumphalist rhetoric, and the extent to which is smacks of desperation? They really should, because it’s right up there with cyber-blitzkrieging and the classic “a number of people agree with me” when it comes to insipid and unsuccessful debating strategies. Comparing me to war criminals from WW2 isn’t particularly helpful to your cause either.

Your arrogant, in-your-face approach is irksome to the people you fixate upon on a disturbing daily basis, and an embarrassing liability to those on your side of the fence. But keep it up, because forever and always, I’m playing.

[Fisherman]

Think Vicīs got it all condensed pretty nicely, Ben - maybe he has a boner for you too...?

Wait a sec! I just noticed that you are now saying that "it rules out anything that could not be considered similar to age, function of the pen, and available space." That is a little bit of progress, since you formerly claimed that "similar things" would only just refer to things similar to the function of the pen (you said before that the other things , age and space, were dissimilar to the function of the pen, and so you would only allow for things that were similar to that last parameter).
A slight change of mindset, I dare say!

...and what would you consider "similar" enough to these three parametres to be useful in this context? Would the leaning of the table do? Would the length of the pen do? And, taken together, would it amount to a verdict of "many" in your judgement??? Just curious here.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

And along comes Victor to fan the flames again.

It looks like the argument is over. Ben agrees, if "don't disagree" can be take to mean agree, and you ignore the qualifier which makes the sentence the equivalent of "I don't disagree that black is black, as long as it's black" and that's as pedantic as you can get.

None of that made any sense whatsoever, I'm afraid. There's obviously some criticism of me in there somewhere, but it was all too ponderously phrased to merit much attention, and probably wasn't really worth Victor's while to make, especially if he's decided that the argument is over.

"A charging rhino, enemy fire, a stroke and similar things can result in death" does sound slightly strange, but that's because the ability that's affected (death) has been deliberately selected to get so broad that it's obviously going to have that effect

It's a simple illustration of the fact that dissimilar things can have the same result, and the fact that the shared result doesn't bestow any more shared similarity amongst those things. The pertinent observation would be that death can be caused by X, Y and Z along with many other different things. Not "similar", because they're not. It's wholly irrelevant whether that specific sentence is likely to be used. I could have used any number of sentences, objects and events to illustrate the point.

For the other example, the natural disasters one, I can see that croppping up, but rarely and that's getting away from the context, which I think is

Exactly. If you list a few natural disasters, the context becomes clear immediately, courtesy of their similarity, which isn't remotely true of age and "available space" which are eminently dissimilar, regardless of the fact that they can have a specific result of a specific entity.

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"can you provide an example of an instance where you were wrong and revised your stance accordingly?"

Yep. Since we are dealing with the GSG on an adjacent thread, thereīs a nice example for you - in an exchange I got it all wrong, number of lines, large and small letters - the works.
In another thread, I made a wrongful deduction about what could be learnt from how Eddowes was found and the blood under her. It was an embarrasing mistake, but it was corrected and I thanked the poster that did it for straightening me out.
There are other things too, but I donīt really think that I need to go over it all.
Oh, and I have made the obvious mistake to believe that you would accept an experts opinion over your own on at least two occasions. You have disproven me efficiently each time.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Think Vicīs got it all condensed pretty nicely, Ben - maybe he has a boner for you too...?

You could learn a great deal from that - condensing, but don't get jealous just because someone else wants to take me on. Must be the aftershave this week.

Wait a sec! I just noticed that you are now saying that "it rules out anything that could not be considered similar to age, function of the pen, and available space.

I said "and" available space, and unfortunately, the three mentioned explanations share no similarity with eachother, so your suggested "levels of anxiety" would be ruled out by the limitations imposed by Leander, who had the opportunity to use the far more encompassing "other things", or "different" things, which would have allowed for many more possibilities. No change of mindset there, Fisherman, but it's refreshing to see the triumphalist rhetoric churned out again for my ceaseless entertainment. Given the dissimilarity of the suggested explanations, I can only assume he meant "similar" to "function of the pen", despite the unconventional phrasology, as pointed out by the expert from Lund.

Form an orderly queue, budding battlers.

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"I said "and" available space, and unfortunately, the three mentioned explanations share no similarity with eachother, so your suggested "levels of anxiety" would be ruled out by the limitations imposed by Leander, who had the opportunity to use the far more encompassing "other things", or "different" things, which would have allowed for many more possibilities. No change of mindset there, Fisherman, but it's refreshing to see the triumphalist rhetoric churned out again for my ceaseless entertainment. Given the dissimilarity of the suggested explanations, I can only assume he meant "similar" to "function of the pen", despite the unconventional phrasology, as pointed out by the expert from Lund."

What you said, Ben, was this: "It rules out anything that could not be considered similar to age, function of the pen, and available space."

Does that mean that the object we are looking for must be similar to all three...? Although they share no similarity - according to you? Or does it mean that it should be similar to age and function of the pen - but not available space?

Itīs a good thing we have you to help out. My bet is that many people would be slightly confused by your slithering here.

The best,
Fisherman
giving you a few hours rest

[Ben]

"It rules out anything that could not be considered similar to age, function of the pen, and available space."

Yes.

I said that, and meant it.

I would also add that anything that may be described as dissimilar to the last mentioned "explanation" ought really to be ruled out, considering that they have no similarity with eachother. If they were similar in isolation from the shared cause, as natural disasters are, it would make sense to add "and similar things". Not so in this case.

giving you a few hours rest

As my perpetual shadow, I'd be surprised if you could hold out for a whole hour.

[Fisherman]

You quote yourself again, Ben, by saying:

"It rules out anything that could not be considered similar to age, function of the pen, and available space."

...but, once more, you are straying. Letīs take a look at the first part of this "new deal" of yours:

""It rules out anything that could not be considered similar to age..."

But that was not what you said before, was it? Earlier, you told us that since age was so distinctly dissimilar to the function of the pen, all things similar to age must be ruled out, since you believed that Leander only allowed for things similar to the function of the pen. Remember? No?

So how could we suddenly accept things similar to age? Or to age, function of the pen, and available space, for that matter - for that was what you suggested.

Or does this odd sentence imply that you only allow for thing similar to ALL THREE bits (since you wrote "and")?

Donīt you think thatīs ... you know, kind of strange? What could be similar to all of these three things (if we disregard the obvious similarity that they affect the writing)?

And why would Leander say that only the three things mentioned, and something that was similar to all three (dissimilar) things would have caused the differences?

You sure you not got something very wrong here, Ben? Wanna go back to your original stance, that Leander only allowed for age, space afforded, function of the pen and things similar to the function of the pen?

Wanna explain to me why, for example, the quality of the paper or the leaning of the surface on which he wrote could not, in Leanders mind, have caused them differences?

Wanna stay on that barren island of yours much longer???

Youīre quite an enigma, Ben, Iīll give you that!

The very best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Nothing like a semantic squabble with my favourite fillibustering Fishmeister.

But that was not what you said before, was it? Earlier, you told us that since age was so distinctly dissimilar to the function of the pen, all things similar to age must be ruled out, since you believed that Leander only allowed for things similar to the function of the pen. Remember?

I do remember.

And it's precisely the same as "what I said before". I observed that the sentence structure would rule out anything that would be considered dissimilar to age. I also observed that the very same sentence structure would also tend to rule out anything that may be regarded as similar too, since the inherent dissimilarity between age, function of the pen and available space would render the "and similar things" observation wholly inapplicable, unless he was speaking only of similar things to the last mentioned, which in this case was the "function of the pen". Unfortunately, there cannot realistically be "many" explanations that fit the bill in that regard.

No change of stance here, Fish, and thus no need for the latest bout triumphalist rhetoric, which is still an unsuccessful debating strategy.

Wanna stay on that barren island of yours much longer???

How can it be a "barren" island when I can command your undivided attention so quickly and easily, pissing on my perfectly good coconuts and starting unnecessary bonfires in an effort to hail passing ships in the night that have long since lost interest? It's really quite a nice island, and no doubt I'll be having fish for breakfast tomorrow.

Enigmatically,

Ben

[Fisherman]

Since you enjoy it so much, Ben, Iīll walk you through that semantic jungle of yours again, explaining things as we go along.

"It rules out anything that could not be considered similar to age, function of the pen, and available space."

That means that it rules out anything that could not be consider similar to age - whereas it rules IN anything that could be considered similar to age. It rules out anything that could not be considered similar to function of the pen - whereas it rules IN anything that could be considered similar to function of the pen, and it rules out anything that could not be considered similar to available space - whereas it rules IN anything that could be considered similar to available space.

The only alternative interpretation of it would be that it rules in ONLY things that are similar to all of the three things listed.

Of course, you have put a comma that does not belong there before the words "and available space", but since it is becoming increasingly clear that you are struggling with linguistic matters, letīs just drop that particular issue.

Have you ever pondered, Ben, how people who are not honest to their true beliefs have a way of tripping over semantical elements?
I have. Often. It is something that detectives use when they break down people they believe are not telling the truth - they rely on their feeling that the guy in front of them will slip up and step in it, sooner or later.
Sigmund Freud had a thing or two to say about such things to, which is why we today speak of Freudian slip-ups.

By the way, you have not yet answered my question about whether you really believe that Leander was of the impression that the only credible explanations to the changes would have lain in either space availabe, age of the writer, the function of the pen or things similar to the function of the pen.

Why do you think that he would have ruled out such a thing as the quality of the paper, that we all KNOW could have an impact on anybodys handstyle? Do you think that would be due to Leanders unability to understand his own game? Or could it be that you may have misinterpreted him? Now, please donīt try to avoid the question by saying that you have no idea how Leander works - let me know how you reason, Ben! How can one defend the stance that for example intoxication could not have been a reason for any of the changes? And is it your own wiew that the type of changes we are speaking about probably could only have been lead on by three or four factors? Do you yourself find it reasonable to suggest that the changes could ONLY have come about as a result of age, space available and function of the pen and things similar to function of the pen?

So, Ben, straightening the semantics out (or, for that matter, admitting that you slipped up, something that would be a lot easier, considering that it was precisely what happened) and answering my question is what lies ahead of you. Maybe some air and a leisurely walk on your beach will do the trick...?

The best,
Fisherman