It was open stage night in rec.food.drink.tea, when Michael Plant
stepped up to the microphone and muttered:

>> Now if you had wanted to talk about the rather duplicitous way
>> that Rippon was asking questions without informing us that it
>> (apparently) was research for a book, you might actually appear
>> as intelligent as you think you are.
>
>
> Derek,
>
> I think you might be a bit hard ripping into poor Ripon; his
> "research" questions certainly engendered a lot of interest
> among us, and I believe he did tell us about his book. Cut the
> guy some slack. He's a pretty good citizen here in the play pen.
> Just my opinion.

Michael,

I think the questions are good, and I don't intend to be "ripping
hard" into Ripon. This was, after all, the only time I made any
critical comments about him or the book.

Never the less, I do not remember any comment about writing a book
until someone specifically asked about it. Only then did we find
out (and only then did Jim pull out his soapbox).

I'm not "anti-Ripon" or even "anti-Ripon's-book." But it's not like
this was investigative reporting whereby telling us why he was
asking the questions would ruin the final product.

Now we know, and it's no big deal to me that the questions are for
a book. But I would have liked to have known from the beginning.
Not telling us until explicitly asked makes it *look* like there's
something to hide.

And that's the only point I was trying to make.

--
Derek

The only consistent feature of all of your dissatisfying
relationships is you.