Monday 10 March 2008

Invitation to Mike Hitchen

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mike, you've made many libellous and defamatory claims against me.

We've been provided with this space to thrash it out.

Please elaborate on the accusations you make against me.

Come on... you start.

Anonymous said...

It came to my attention a little while ago that Mike Hitchen had retracted my book review he posted on his site back in August 2007.

The book review went something like this:

"I don't normally publish book reviews but this is different. The Silent Treatment, is written by Jill Havern, one of our regular contributors. However, even though I know Jill, I would not endorse a product unless I actually liked it and thought it worthy of mention. I approached Jill and suggested I publish a review, as I truly believe this story needs wider exposure. I don't charge friends either for exposure on this blog, or as business clients, so any one with any ideas on that score can go whistle Swannee."

Not exactly the best review anyone's ever read, but I appreciate my book isn't the best anyone's ever read either. It was written from personal experience, which is what my book and website are all about. I did not envisage that my book would ever be seen on a shelf next to Jilly Cooper or Stephen King, but even they began their writing careers with their first book, didn't they? That Mike has retracted the book review is meaningless to me. But the fact that he deliberately referenced my book about the NHS to child abuse, when he could have simply deleted it from his blog, shows more about the sort of person he is than it does of my intentions to help people find life saving operations when they have been diagnosed inoperable.

In his article he said that he had agreed to write a foreword for my book. Clearly, that is a blatant lie, because no one could write a foreword for my book when it was already printed and published. The rest of his 'review' of my book was actually my own words taken from my book cover, or the comments of published authors. Who exactly is Mike Hitchen, anyway, in comparison to published authors? A blogger who copies and pastes articles on his 'business' blog; a man who has an online spanking shop; and a reprobate who has a penchant for writing fantasy stories about children involving corporal punishment.

That aside, either he read the book and liked it enough to endorse it and is now just being vindictive, or he didn't read it and published a false review. Either way I look at it, I have to question his motive.

I have spent 5 years so far researching medical matters and policy documents to produce my book and website, for the very purpose of helping misdiagnosed people. My fight with the NHS, to secure a life saving operation, took me 16 months when my husbands' prognosis was 2 years. Had I had all this information to hand at the time, my husband would have been saved much sooner. I hope other people can be helped too, then all this research will have been worth it.

I notice Mike Hitchen has not, as yet, taken up my invitation that I posted here on 10 March to discuss the issues he feels he has with me.

The invitation is still open.

Anonymous said...

Wot, still no response from Maggot?
That's cos he's a coward and has no brain. He couldn't write anything that required thinking.