Jul 17
SSG/SPCK – Will the real Mark Brewer please stand up?
This is all a bit bizarre. A couple of weeks ago I posted the sad news of the death of former Worcester bookshop manager Steve Jeynes by his own hand. This followed a long saga of exceptionally bizarre management of the former SPCK bookshop chain by the Texan brothers Mark and Phil Brewer
A comment was left on that post by someone who gave his name as Mark Brewer that said this:
I am the the former chairman of SSG, the limited company for which Mr. Jeynes worked until SSG filed for bankruptcy on June 4. My sorrow at Stephen’s passing from this life is inexpressibly profound, but I offer sincere condolences to his widow and children.
This Mark Brewer gave an email address at bplaw.com. This company seems to be law firm where he is one of the partners.
Today another person, also giving his name as Mark Brewer, left this comment:
The posting attributed to me (no. 5) was not posted by me.
This person gave an email address at spckonline.com, the old site of the SPCK chain, still apparently in use, despite the Brewers having lost the licence to the SPCK name. Ironically, they can’t even spell the name of the Worcester shop, but seem to think it is Worchester.
My question, dear readers, is what’s a blog host to do when this happens. I’ve chosen to note the problem. My own guess is that the original comment is from the real Mr Brewer for two reasons:
- Someone impersonating him is much more likely, I think, to use the SPCK email address, than the obscure BPLaw one.
- I can more easily imagine someone faking a denial of condolences, than faking the condolences themselves.
Of course, I could be wrong.
July 17th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Intriguing indeed. Of course, it is equally possible that NEITHER of them is the real Mark Brewer!
July 17th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
And wouldn’t that be weird!
July 18th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Could be that he’s just changed his mind. That seems to be a trend with them.
July 18th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Or they could BOTH be from the real Mark Brewer, he’s changed his mind
and wants a non-embarassing way of saying so…
July 18th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I don’t believe in Mark Brewer.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
I’m sorry “anti-fundamentalist” but I’ve deleted your comment. It seemed to me that you have assumed as a fact that both the comments I referenced were from Mark Brewer. I would have informed you of this be email, but your address doesn’t seem to be working.
Could I ask everyone to be careful of what they say?
July 18th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
OK then, all I can say is that the first post from Brewer was definitely from Mark.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
I know the Bros Grimm hate their actions as being referred
to as “bizarre” but really…they give us so much
ammunition!
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:48 am
[...] goes beyond perfectly legitimate reporting and fair comment. What do you think? Notes 1. See: SSG/SPCK – Will the real Mark Brewer please stand up? Metacatholic, 17/07/2008. My parenthesised comment is part of the original article as written and [...]
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:43 am
Do you have the ip addresses?
That may help.
Matt
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:03 am
Mat, genius. I’ll take a look.
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:48 pm
[...] Mark Brewer Saga: weirder than you think Tag: SPCK — doug @ 12:48 pm A couple of weeks ago I noted my confusion. Posting from one email address someone claiming to be Mark Brewer had left a comment. Posting from [...]