Biggus

Biggus has a real talent. He has brilliant, funny ideas for poems. (Sean Playfair version) Biggus is a real toilet. He nicks hackneyed, sixties' stand-up gags for poems. (my version)

What i'm confused about is why MacJoyce feels a need for this alter ego?? Juliet

and why is he talking to himself? jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

Sean, Good effort and everything but Biggus's version of Fruitful Life is better than yours.

This isn't clever, it's patronising. Offering re-writes for poems that are little bits of nothing anyway. It all just seems a bit unnecessary.

http://www.abctales.com/forum/2007/01/27/im-biggus macjoyce and Biggus are alter ego's of Paul Curtis or is there another personality we have yet to meet? Juliet

I don't think Biggus is really an alter ego of Macjoyce. Wasn't that just Macjoyce doing a clever joke? It's difficult to keep up in this world of fast-paced comedy. I sometimes yearn for the days of Hale and Pace when you just laughed because one of them was fat.

"I've always thought rewrites of free verse are patronising, because that just basically says, "I'm a better writer than you" without any firm, solid grounds." Not really. There is solid technique to free verse as well as to metered verse. Poets can also miss a trick pretty easily, and sometimes other people's suggestions really hit the mark. I will sometimes offer a 'rewrite' of a line as an example of the *kind* of thing that I think would work better, but they'd be shooting themselves in the foot to use my actual suggestion, because they're usually naff.

Why would someone on this website pretend to be someone else, when none of us really know who one another is anyway? Yeah, so this is actually rek02's gran posting, pretending to be rek02. Yerp.

Biggus needs to realise many things... firstly, people who don't like his poems aren't 'childish' they are simply expressing an opinion. How that opinion is expressed perhaps dictates how childish they are, true... I saw this gem this morning - a particularly witless play on words in the title - LES GIRLS I have often wondered what it would be like To be a lesbian or do they say dyke? All the advantages of being a man Getting off with girls when you can And drooling over gorgeous gals Without the embarrassing genitals and this, which manages to be offensive whilst making no sense whatsoever, a stunning achievement - BRUISE CRUISE What's black and blue? And floats in the sea? The dirty little bitch Who gave me VD and another thing he needs to realise, is that his writing is just really really shit. Thats my opinion. Ner ner ner ner neerrrrr.

I would worry about it now if I were you.

Maybe if you took the time to actually work on a poem instead of focusing on spitting out four a day you might getone that decent instead of four that are shite as they say.

LES GIRLS I have often wondered what it would be like To be a lesbian or do they say dyke? All the advantages of being a man Getting off with girls when you can And drooling over gorgeous gals Without the embarrassing genitals if this is Mac, then i am straight. please say it is not so :( Biggus, eh? "embarrassing genitals" is your strongest line in this poem i think, regards, littleditty x

No Biggot isn't Mac ... I think I and Juliet were playing along with his (mac's) joke. His 'Biggus' poem is a diamond. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

I thought the same a few months ago when he was first flagged, but Biggus has such grandiose delusions of epic proportions, there is nothing horrible here since he takes no offence and is not going to read this anyway. What I find horrible is the stuff he writes. The poem Les Girls as an example, is extremely offensive. It isn't a one-off. That's why Mac's satirical poem is so funny. I have pointed out to the management several of this writer's pieces which clearly contravene this site's code of conduct but the management is loathe to ban or edit anyone (why bother having a code of conduct I ask). I'd ask that at least this kind of deeply offensive material is not visible in the preview gallery. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

Peaceful aka smiley aka mykle, From the pictures I've seen that you have sent various women on this site (and others) you are, indeed, Lord of the Flies and yes, it is horrible. People with your stalking mentality should, imo, be banned from the internet. As to Biggus - it's farking obvious he isn't Macjoyce in disguise - you only need to look at his website to realise that; let alone click on Mac's link to his. Sheesh, some people are soo naive I'm not surprised they get taken taken advantage of on the internet. Oh, just in case anyone missed it before, Sean Playfair is aka Paul Greco. I've no objection to people writing in disguise in order to objectively test out their writing but when they pretend to be someone 'new' and thank everyone for their kind welcome and so on - I find it rather sickening - it's someone trying to take advantage of the genuine people (and newcomers) on this site. The way Abctales is currently run it deserves Biggus and Sean made-up name Playfair. Biggus may be the highest Wanked Poet on the site but I see Playfair as Incontinentia Buttocks. :-)

Biggus said: "Well you can prattle away bitching and moaning to your hearts content as I wont be looking in again. But I will still be posting my shit or was it shite maybe it’s both. Still at least I don’t write pretentious shite. I would worry about my state of mind then." Biggus, I'd say your attitude shows an all round lack of respect. People try to offer constructive criticism; to you they're 'bitching and moaning'. So you don't want feedback, advice or suggestions it seems. People treat your work as if it's been published, expressing opinions about content, form and purpose. Your response "Still at least I don’t write pretentious shite. I would worry about my state of mind then." So everyone who doesn't write like you is engaged in some kind of falsity of endeavour, pretending to be clever? You post as many poems as you can, suggesting it takes longer to read them than it does to write them. They are badly polished, churned out doggerel. You claim that they are mainly for your personal amusement, yet you continue to put them into the public arena. To present badly polished, rushed, undeveloped and unedited work to a reader is to treat them with disrespect. If you expect people to spend the time and effort reading your work, you damn well better put in the time and effort at your end first. So, contemptuous of your peers, contemptuous of the idea of improving your work and comtemptuous of your audience? I think a dose of humility and rethink of your purposes in writing is in order. Don't treat your readers and peers like dirt. If you don't want to get better and you don't want to satisfy an audience you really should keep your poems in your bottom drawer and spend many an enjoyable evening chortling to yourself as you flick through them. Don't be seduced into thinking that your writing is near the knuckle or 'naughty'. It's just the kind of thing that teenage boys at single sex schools write during boring science lessons to amuse each other. Read some poems, see what's possible and show a bit of respect. Cheers, Mark

I don't want you barred. But I think particular pieces (not all of them) should be removed since... "ABCtales.com will not discriminate on the grounds of age, colour, disability, ethnic origin, gender, marital status, nationality or national origins, race, religious beliefs, responsibility for dependents, sexuality or unrelated criminal conviction. Similarly it will not allow anyone to use the site to discriminate against or abuse individuals or groups of people on these grounds. ABCtales.com supports the principle of freedom of speech and makes every effort to maintain as open a society as possible within its community of users. However, it will not publish written work that contains abuse on the ground listed above and the management will remove from the website any such work it discovers has been published. " As things stand - having this code and not enforcing it despite several complaints from a significant number of people make the management look a bit spineless. A few regulars have complained but how many casual visitors have viewed this kind of dreadful material in the gallery and gone away disgusted, never to return? jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

"He has a point, Mark." Well, he's certainly deftly side-stepped all of Mark's. Great stuff!

"...I find it startling that somebody would have the sheer nerve to pretend to have Biggus as an alter-ego, on the premise of the hilarious joke that someone as lowbrow and useless as Biggus couldn't possibly be the same person as one so talented and brilliant as he." You're reading far too much into it. The joke is more that MacJoyce and Biggus are the only ones on the site (or at least the most prominent) who write work with a strong 'working class' voice. Constructive feedback is not just about telling someone 'here's how I think you can improve your poem'. It can also be 'here's how I think you can improve your approach to poetry'. Biggus says he appreciates your feedback, but it's clear (I would think) that he has no intention of going back to the pieces and reworking them based on the feedback, so what is the use in it? How is it any more constructive than what anyone else has said if it doesn't *lead* to a positive change? In that light, I think the most constructive criticism that can be given to Biggus is to approach writing with a mindset that is more geared towards improving his technique, aiming for quality over quantity and taking serious note of what criticisms and problems readers have with his work. If that isn't advice he's willing to take, then this forum can do nothing for him, and complaints about a lack of constructive criticism are meaningless. Meanwhile, people are well within their right to say how they feel about his work in whatever terms they choose. It isn't childish, and there's no ruling that says comments here have to be positive/neutral. How would Biggus, or anyone feel, if, for example, we weren't allowed to discuss politics and politicians in a public forum without being 'constructive' and 'grown up'?

...I think a ban is only appropriate if a user continues to post discriminatory, abusive material after being asked not to. When you have in the past been given crit you've just said something along the lines of 'don't moan if you don't like my style' However, here are my criticisms, not that I think we are going to see any kind of conversion. - you need to tighten up your spelling and grammar. There are several instances in your writing where you make elementary errors, such as using 'there' instead of 'their'. - If you invert sentences to force a rhyme it sounds odd. Keats could get away with this but today it makes one sound like Jedi Master Yoda. I would try and find rhymes that follow the pattern of natural speech. - The circular emails and old jokes you use are widely known so they have to be your own, original take on the joke if you want any remotely serious recognition. For example this http://www.abctales.com/story/biggus/when-we-were-kids Is taken near verbatim from that circular email and trying to pass it off as your own is in fact plagiarism.

There is such a thing as a 'found poem', of course, but when it's someone else's creative writing, it gets muddier. When all you're doing is echoing their thoughts by quoting them, it is pretty much plagiarism. The worst offence, though, is merely repeating this slew of drivel. "Our cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint/which we chewed and licked/And we did not die." I mean, what is that saying? Lead isn't poisonous? No child has ever died from lead poisoning? If we, personally, didn't die from something, it must have be completely safe? "When we were kids/We didn't have video games or multi channel Telly or Video and DVD's or personal computers/We had friends instead" Wtf? Kids don't have friends these days? That's ridiculous. How would they decide who was on whose side during a vicious knife-frenzy?

"but in the real world we tell and laugh at jokes like this all the time" That may be so - but this site still has a code of conduct are we going to adhere to it? There is a difference between a publishing platform and a private email. You might crack a lesbian joke with friends (gay or straight) because you anticipate their reaction. But its not the kind of thing you'd put into a speech at a 'civil partnership' ceremony or indeed any public address because you'd imagine there is a good proportion of the audience who would take offence. And the gallery as a public arena should not contain material that many people will be offended by. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

"What is the use in your speculation?" It isn't pure speculation. Biggus' rate of uploads and style of writing strongly suggests that he isn't one to go back and edit. "Because suggestions for improvement are always, by nature, more constructive than comments like "really, really shit"." 'By nature'??? Lame argument, and total bollocks. It's not constructive unless it's part of some creative process. If the creative process stops as soon as Biggus uploads, there's nothing constructive to be done. Rokkitnite's joke *was* pretty lame - if it was a joke at all, so much as some kind of inability to resist bad puns - but he has made his views clear in the past in a manner which was not abusive. The impression I get is that a lot of people feel entitled to attack Biggus because his presence on the site is difficult to ignore (the frequent uploads, coupled with the capital lettered titles) and his work is found to be either offensive or offensively poor. It's similar to finding an widespread advertisement irritating to the point of wanting some sort of retribution.

Dyke is defined by dictionary as 'offensive term for a lesbian who is noticeably masculine' 'Getting off with girls when you can' as if all lesbians will snog women at any opportunity? This enforces the stereotype that all homosexuals are promiscuous. This and the 'drooling' line is making female homosexuality out to be something sordid. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

So you are Paul, then, Mr. Playfair? I'm sure I have changed, but not in the way you imagine. I'm not an advocate of bullying, and I haven't found any of the ongoing Biggus debacle very amusing - I just don't think a strong expression of distaste is the same as bullying, particularly when the person on the receiving end is thickskinned enough to see no reason in attempting to explain himself when there are reasonable points among the bombast. Factor in also that there is evidence of casual sexism and racism, and rampant plagiarism on the part of the 'victim', and that Biggus has made no move to offer constructive criticism of anyone else on this site, and I find myself sympathising more with Jude's position on this. "And Hen, constructive means "promoting improvement"." OK, you win on that point. I will maintain, however, that constructive criticism is pointless in this context, and serves about as useful a purpose as all the baiting. I've got to agree too that Macjoyce's pretense is in no way abusive.

"What plagiarism?" Of jokes that are doing or have done the rounds. *Someone* must have originally come up with them. "Why should I have to explain myself?" a) Because people find your posts offensive! You don't think that follows in the slightest? You don't think it's worth saying, "OK, it wasn't my intention to make fun of domestic violence - etc."? You won't win them all over, but you can at least try to alter the impression people have of you as a bigot. b) Because you make no effort to improve your writing, or to justify its technical flaws. No doubt you see it differently, but if you publish work, you are making it public, you *are* asking that people read it and it is a reasonable expectation, on the reader's behalf, that you, the author, make it as good as you can. Obviously, no one's writing is perfect, but you don't even pay attention to scansion, which is just lazy. If a busker (one of means, rather than a homeless person) who you regularly walked past made no effort to tune his guitar or learn the words to songs, wouldn't you feel it was time he either stopped or offered some kind of explanation? Failing that, wouldn't you sympathise if some people *did* demand an explanation? You can ask me to explain my writing if you like, or an aspect of it, and I hope that I would make the effort. You don't have to win everyone's approval on this site, but you evidently find their vocal disapproval unacceptable. My opinion is that their disapproval is acceptable until you explain why they're mistaken or change your approach.

Plagiarism doesn't have to be an exact and complete copy of the plagiarised piece. Take that silly circular email about star-signs (which I laughed at the first time I was sent it 5 years ago) My copy contains this "The majority of Sagittarians are drunks and drug fiends" Your take The majority of Sagittarian's are drunks and drug fiends the only amendment being the insertion of an errant apostrophe. You have made no effort to credit the unknown author. I admit, you've done this in 'when we were children'. Here, you have said your poem is 'based on' a circular email. In fact, you have done nothing other than add in repeated lines 'when we were young' and 'we did not die'. Citation doesn't give you a licence to copy great chunks of stuff that you didn't write. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

That is a strange response when it was you who asked 'What plagiarism?' and "Why should I have to explain myself?" Why ask those questions if you won't listen to the answers? You avoid facing up to them by throwing a glib comment intended to insult but only adds more weight to the comments people have made about you. And since we answered your questions, can you answer BBFs "Why exactly have you posted several hundred pieces on this site?" jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

To quote myself: "So, contemptuous of your peers, contemptuous of the idea of improving your work and contemptuous of your audience?" If it's just a bit of fun, bow to lack of amused faces and stop showering the website with it. If it's something that you're precious about, try to learn, listen to criticism and enjoy the process of stretching yourself so that you can produce the best writing of which you're capable. Make your mind up. Some things are appropriate for some places, others for others. Usually the response you get gives you some indicator of whether you've got it right or not. There's no reason why you can't write better poetry that's also a bit of fun. However, it has to work both as poetry and as fun. Something being fun doesn't mean it doesn't have to be poetry, and something being poetry doesn't mean it can't be fun. If you'd stop the contempt and actually listen, you might give yourself a chance to actually write something that doesn't defeat itself at the first hurdle. Cheers, Mark

I am watching this conversation carefully. I did delete Bruise Cruise because it clearly over-stepped the line. Most of Biggus's poetry doesn't do so. Most of it isn't very good but very occasionally it does raise a chuckle - but who are we to judge? If he likes to post it on here then we may choose to read it or not. The Editors will delete the offensive material and the rest may stay. It's his right to do so. We need to be very careful about setting ourselves up as judge and jury. Lots of people enjoyed the poetry of Pam Ayres. I found it dull in the extreme - but she made a living from it - and a very good one too for a while. I think it's probably time to leave him be!

'I did delete Bruise Cruise because it clearly over-stepped the line.' Thank you. There are a few other Biggus Poems over the line, although perhaps not so clearly and as they are no longer in the recently added list, no unsuspecting innocent is going to read them. I think this was a good move and has restored some of my confidence in the good ship ABC and that it takes its own conduct policy seriously! cheers jude

"Most of it isn't very good but very occasionally it does raise a chuckle - but who are we to judge?" Members of a community of writers? Some people reading some poems. "Lots of people enjoyed the poetry of Pam Ayres. I found it dull in the extreme - but she made a living from it - and a very good one too for a while." Yes but she was very good at what she did. People judged her poetry and bought her books. "Biggus could be a modern-day Pam Ayres, if he learned how to write popular verse, as Pam did. The key word is metre, or scansion as Jack would have it." If I learned how to write bestselling fiction, I could be the new JK Rowling. "I don't blame him for getting narky with those who give an unnecessarily hard time for writing a lot and posting the results on this, a writing site" Yes, it's not as if you'd criticise people for discussing writing from Abctales.com in a forum called Discuss Writing from Abctales.com.

I have to admit, I did regret that - usually I try to keep such thoughts to myself. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

"I don't think Jack is, deep down, an apologist for out-of-order behaviour -- but he's done a bit here (inability to resist puns, indeed ;" When my flatmate calls me a cunt I have a decent idea, most of the time, as to whether or not he is being abusive, rather than just being silly. When Rokkitnite resorts to the word 'toilet' because it sounds a little like 'talent', and utilises it in a sentence that doesn't actually make sense, it's pretty clear that his motive is punnery. ""thick-skinned", ugh, listen to it." If someone rips it out of Tony Blair, I might think they're not putting their energy to positive use, but I'm not going to worry about what TB feels. Similarly, I'm not that worried about what Biggus feels. "So you "get the impression" people want a pop because he's difficult to ignore? Are you okay with that? Are you 'eck, Jack.)" I understand people making angry comments because they're fed up with something. You want this to be a simple case of the majority being wrong because they're the majority. When are things ever that simple?

*Raises head cautiously* http://www.abctales.com/story/biggus/simple-philosophy I've heard most of these before of course but they're still quite amusing - particularly the Rat Race one. *ducks back out of firing line* Enzo.. Buy my book! http://www.amazon.co.uk/o/ASIN/1846855187/

"Any room in your trench?" [insert Carry On style one-liner here] Enzo.. Buy my book! http://www.amazon.co.uk/o/ASIN/1846855187/