The Freak Writer and the Taxi Cab Driver

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Coin dealer Dave Welsh has a post (A Call for Action) over on the appropriately-named Freak website in which with - apparently - a straight face he informs his readers over there that:

[Paul] Barford, so far as I am able to determine, has for many [...] years [...] a hardscrabble impoverished existence, first as a cab driver and later as a document translator in Warsaw, Poland [...].

Makes your heart bleed, don't it? This is what this coiney rabble rouser (see the rest of his sad post) claims to have "determined". That's obviously the way these people "determine' something - by simply making them up and not checking their facts or citing sources. Welsh has made the claim earlier, for example ("In reality, he is presently a self employed translator and before that, was a taxicab driver"), and here: "Reality for instance might be that one may actually drive a taxicab, or translate documents, for a living".

Here are the contact details for Barford Cabs

01926 620096

7, Sandy Way,
Barford
Warwick, Warwickshire CV35 8DY
United Kingdom

But don't bother phoning enquiring if I work there, I do not. Neither do I drive a "taxicab" in Warsaw. Among other things, I do however translate texts (on archaeological, historical topics, culture, culture preservation and cultural property law etc) for a number of institutions such as UNESCO, ICOM, ICOMOS, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, I've done texts for most of the major universities and museums (archaeological and art collections, National Museum too) here, the Academy of Science, the State Service for the protection of Historical Monuments and a variety of other clients. That is not what I do for a living, neither is driving a taxi cab.

Of course if Mr Welsh had done his "determination" with a little more care, he would find the source of his mistaken information was a comment back in May 2009 by fellow coin dealer Joe Blazick on that classic source of coiney misinformation, the Moneta-L discussion list ("I suggest you change your profession..Get back to digging up history or become a taxi driver in Warsaw if the digging business is so not to your capabilities").

Vignette: Neither do I drive a taxi cab in Seattle, Washington state.