(QUOTE ED SAPER) “that’s quite a diversionary barrage!”....Morning all...Indeed it is Ed. And I already see this thread has successfully been diverted. Mission accomplished. Or not!!!So what is David Lesniak distracting attention from? Why does he conjure up this spite (above) in response to the innocent stuff you and I wrote yesterday? I mean, do you remember painting W4 traders as “feckless idiots”? I don't.I most certainly don't. Stuff like that is more bitchcraft than witchcraft.David is very clearly looking to twist. But let me, just for a moment, stick.Saturday's two page spread “Cycle Wars” in the Daily Mail is what David is trying to avoid. Yesterday I managed to locate a copy. It's a carefully and craftily re-written piece by experienced hack, Mark Edmonds – obviously picking up from the Mail on-line version which I couldn't read because of my advert blocker.The on-line story included (I think) Julian Pavey's controversial 2019 cartoon about mobikes being blown-up on Chiswick High Road. MOBIKES was far and away the biggest story in town all that year. They were littered on pavements all over town and forum records contain numerous threads and hundreds and hundreds of angry moans from posters. But critically, in mid-2019, cycle lanes and LTN's were NOT on anybody's agenda.So late last week, the question on many W4 lips was how on earth did Julian's mobike cartoon find it's way onto a story 2 years later about “Cycle Wars”. How on earth could anyone make such a connection? I'll tell you something for nothing – there isn't a journalist in the world who could get back through our forum records to discover mobikes, scream “eureka” - and re-plant it into this new Mail story.Anyway (can't be bothered to look back and find) I'm sure I recall David Lesniak late last week informing the forum that Julian's image was “in the public domain” and therefore, how on earth the Mail got hold of it, was a complete mystery.Cut to Saturday's Mail:-A photo of an explosion on a Chiswick pavement is captioned as follows:- “Crude attack: An animated video of a missile destroying a Chiswick bakery whose owner opposes road closures.”Cut back to 2019 and Julian's cartoon video:-As I remember, that video blew up mobikes NOT a bakery. Is my memory wrong? Tell me dear readers. Anyway, I do remember David took huge offence. And I do remember he was told by many of W4's finest that the video was not aimed at either him or Outsider Tart. But he'd have nothing of that and pressed on seeking his own form of justice/revenge.Cut forwards to this Saturday's Daily Mail spread:-And I quote:- “David Lesniak knows better than most how unhinged some pro-cycling campaigners have become.The owner of the Outside Tart Bakery and cafe on Chiswick High Road has been a vocal opponent of the new measures. A crude animated video posted online by one such campaigner shows a heat-seeking missile being launched, flying into the sky above Chiswick and landing on Mr Lesniak's bakery. The business is destroyed, disappearing into a hole in the ground.“This is not engagement in debate, Mr Lesniak told the Mail. It is harassment and bullying. We need to hold these people to account.”OK that's it!I'm sure posters will draw various and different conclusions. For my part, this is hardly a bombshell of a tale. And shouldn't be exaggerated beyond what it is – not very nice. Not at all nice.
Stuart Kerr ● 1989d