Myles Allen and I have exchanged a couple of emails in the last few days. Myles accused me, amongst other things, of trawling through the YouTube video of him to find the least flattering image possible for the still that appears when the video is embedded.
In response, I explained that this was simply the default image that you get when you embed the video and pointed him to the Google search results for "Myles Allen youtube". This returns precisely the same still frame for the Communicate 2011 video as the one embedded on my posting:
;)
I asked whether he thought that Google was also searching for unflattering images of him.
Unfortunately, Myles has now publicly repeated this allegation in the comments thread for the posting about the video.
Andrew Montford then decided to dig up an unflattering image on YouTube and it was rapidly whipped up into a claim I was plotting to overthrow democracy, all without anyone taking the trouble to ask me what I meant.
I don't quite understand why Myles cannot see that his allegations are unfounded.
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Bishop Hill