Dances with Werewolves writes: I read the e-mail from Lieserl with interest and mixed feelings. She really sounds very nice. I had already suspected that she had a sense of humour (even I know that cuckoo clocks aren't Swiss!) and her research work, from the little I understand from her attached papers, looks......actually, I don't think I understand a word of it, but I'm impressed. I'm sure that we have much in common and would get on very well. Except, of course, I can't ever write to her, without her wondering what happened to my old-world charm and my knowledge of Swiss German. I don't even know what was in the e-mail that was sent to her. EtherMail has gobbled it up and I don't think I can retrieve it. I gave James a lecture about internet security and how impersonating other people was very naughty. I also said I wasn't happy that now a complete stranger knows my real name. It would probably have made more of an impression on him if he hadn't been watching The Clangers at the time. "Mmm," he said, his eyes never leaving the TV screen. "Who's that then?" "Well, Lieserl," I said. "The woman you sent the e-mail to. Who else could I mean?" "Oh," he mumbled. "I thought you were talking about the blog post." "The...what?" I went and had a look at our blog. Then I got angry. "You idiotic son of a muppet!" I shouted in a less than controlled manner. "I've spent years hiding behind the name Dances With Werewolves. I've even been telling people it's a Native American Name. It's my secret identity. Now you've gone and blown it. The whole world knows now that Dances with Werewolves is really called Mary Dunwich." "Yeah, whatever," he answered in fluent Neanderthal. "Like you actually have anyone reading it. You've only got, like, three readers and they don't speak English." "I'm up to six now," I retorted with as much dignity as I could manage. It wasn't a great retort and I couldn't leave it there, or he'd think he'd won. "You're grounded for another week for identity theft!" I turned back to the computer.
"OK Mum!" he answered cheerfully. "Oh, and while you're online could you download those technical papers onto my Ipod? I'll ring Stanley and get him to bring him the laptop over." I hope I'm not going to get into trouble with LingQ for this. I hear the anti-fraud laws in Canada are quite strict. I don't want the Canadian Mounted Police to come knocking at my door to arrest me for letting a famous scientist and a small boy steal my identity.
