T8191

Of course ... and to my amusement he clearly didn't know how to disembark at IAD efficiently! He should have read FT.


However, I digress. Back to an earlier question I posed, how DID the OP's father end up in 1A? Just luck at OLCI, or at the airport?

Can I help you

Gus McLean

orbitmic

Because it leads to a number of famous people having been already gratuitously associated with very unpleasant behaviour whilst they have, by definition, nothing to do with the case since between zero and one of the people named or hinted at will have.

You are absolutely right, we are not a court of law, I said so myself. But I find it utterly indecent and certainly in no way healthy to have a forum where we speculate on people having behaved disgracefully for exactly zero reason. And precisely, it is unfairly hinting that someone "may have been" or "is guessed to have been" guilty of the ugly behaviour the OP report.

Being famous does not mean having to be suspected of random horrors and I find it irresponsible on our collective part to engage in that sort of thing, but also unhelpful on the part of the OP to have caused such speculation because of his hinting. In my view, if he decides, for whatever reason to keep the identity of the person secret, he should do just that, and if he feels that the person ought to be exposed, he should be clear about who he is accusing. Others have already made specific suggestions as to how this can be done easily.

orbitmic

Actually, quite rarely so. With TS, even if no gold has selected it, it will typically be only available to some still fairly frequent flyers, likely silver/sapphire. On US-UK routes, you do not only have BAEC high status passengers but also AA ones to consider. 1A/1K being available to someone without status in F can undoubtedly happen, but would likely be an extremely rare scenario.

orbitmic

Which is why, as suggested, the best thing to do is to write to a newspaper the OP's father trusts. They can do their fact checking and if they find the accusations credible, they can act upon them and name and shame a person behaving in a way that would be deemed unacceptable by most. By contrast, dropping "hints" on a public forum is not a solution.

ArizonaGuy

No. He was no longer the ambassador at that point. he'd resigned a month prior and wasn't still serving in the role. He just wanted 1A. He was prepared to leave his wife behind in 5E too, as I was never directly asked to switch. So, read into that what you will.

Flexible preferences

I think you are conflating two acts to make your point. Act 1 was to bring to the forum's attention another instance, within the last 3 years, in which a political celebrity had also demanded seat 1A be vacated for him, in a very similar high-handed manner. Pointing out this very similar act, on the part of a politician, was entirely relevant and interesting to this matter. Act 2 is how you feel that people will draw conclusions that this person is one and the same as this instance. I am responsible for Act 1, but I do not think I am responsible for Act 2.

I personally made no such hints or guesses. However, the OP's thread title is click-bait - 'Advice: Parent kicked out of seat by "celebrity" ', and people clicking on the thread may understandably be expecting to see who the celebrity was, and be disappointed. As I said before more than once, the OP has every right not to disclose the celebrity's identity, but human nature as it is, people are bound to speculate, privately or on the forum, this is normal, as I said, human beings love a mystery.

When you use strong words like 'indecent' or 'irresponsible' and 'unhelpful' against members like myself, you use language which ironically is likely to cause hurt and negatively impact upon the collective forum that you purport to protect.

orbitmic

Well, that's zero correct guesses out of two What I am referring to in terms of how I think that the OP has incited speculation is this:



And what I am referring to in terms of the forum biting is the various specific names and initials that have been volunteered as a guessed culprit.

I have no problem whatsoever with people highlighting the resemblance between the situation the OP describes and the case reported in the article linked upthread. What I am objecting to is people suggesting that it sounds like [specific person] was probably the person misbehaving.



To be honest, I have absolutely no idea why you feel targeted by my comments. As you rightly point out, you mad no such guesses, and my point was clearly about why I find it unwise to guess. I answered your post because you were the one asking me "why" I was suggesting that one shouldn't made those guesses and I do find it irresponsible and unhelpful to suggest that a specific person (be he/she famous or not) may well been guilty of what the OP described for exactly no reason. In that context, I am not trying to protect the forum but to resist a cycle whereby we end up collectively casting suspicion on innocents. It may not matter to you but it does to me.

For what it's worth, we cannot ignore the fact that Flyertalk is just a social medium in exactly the same way as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. There is plenty of research on the role played by such social media - often unwittingly and unintentionally - in become vectors of fake news through rumour. I cannot imagine anyone familiar with those particular studies not seeing the parallel with the ways some of the discussion on this particular thread has evolved.

In any case, I have said what I had to say on this front and do not plan on contributing to this thread further so you (or anyone else) can comfortably ignore my thoughts on the matter.

SaraJH

Flexible preferences

Fair enough, thsnks for clarifying it wasnt me you were targeting. I do think that given the thread flow, what wasn't said, and our history, it wasnt thst big a stretch for me to think you were including me. Regarding speculation I just disagree with you on that point. Anyway, time to move on perhaps. I never cared for 1A anyway. 2A is better

dddc

If you can't post their name here, maybe throw the story to this little website (the missing part of the url starts with b and ends in h, 5 letters - the American purity filters blocking it out!!) and see if they can have some fun with it.......

HMPS

If he is a celebrity, he will like the publicity !

SQTraveller

David who

nancypants