I am terribly sorry to have caused you such pain and suffering during 2008. Yes, I freely admit that, as you have repeatedly stated, I organised a gang of people on uk.rec.motorcycles to band together and conspire to wreck the eBay auctions of some poor innocent seller. And that this is why he is no longer registered on eBay. I am, believe me, wracked with guilt. In addition, I agree 100% with your other much-trumpeted assertion that I organised another gang of posters on uk.people.consumers.ebay, to attack you on that forum and denigrate your much-respected reputation. And, yes, with my head hanging in contrition, I plead guilty to organising (at rather short notice), a third gang of people on rec.motorcycles, to attack you and impugn you on that forum. With the benefit of hindsight, I so wish that I had not spent so much of my time in organising no fewer than three separate gangs to assault you, and question your reputations for probity, honesty and sanity. I admit that their slightly impolite rejoinders to your postings were entirely due to my brainwashing them, and harnessing them as an instrument of my misdoing, and not at all to their natural (if, I relaise now, entirely misplaced) reactions to your allegations. And, yes, I have to confess that I did not have a dying relative at all, to whose bedside I had to travel on December 27th. You are quite correct in what you stated: I made the whole thing up. My wife's mother did not take a sudden turn for the worse, and I completely invented the story. The death certificates and other paperwork that I spent so much of my Christmas holiday sorting out... well, what can I say? They don't exist. Completely fictitious. She is alive and well and sipping her favourite sherry even as I type this. You were absolutely justified in saying that I lied. The 'confidential' emails that you claim to have in your possession: how could I ever have doubted you? By all means publish them. I am sick with contrition. I do hope that by posting this, in the dying moments of 2008, that I have re-established your reputation for complete honesty, sanity, and fair dealing. I hope that you can forgive me and that, in 2009, we can let bygones be bygones.