Would you please answer the questions put to you in ‘The numbers game’ thread, currently on Page 2.

I am very disappointed with Deus ex Machina.

Why does he still refuse to answer the questions put to him?

I shall not be renewing his subscription.

Given the forum's ongong tolerance of a steady stream of destructive garbage from other posters, most notably Lotta, that is proving to be the primary cause of Fran's absence here and is causing constant loss of other valuable contributors, how in the heck can someone with a fancy title justify threatening to withhold non existent subscriptions based on such an insignificant issue?

If DeM choses not to to respond that is his priviledge, in the same way it was his choice to post or withhold the original comment!

For heavens sake, if you are going to restrict participation you have a very obvious first target, and it isn't DeM!

Thank you for your suggestion, TinyJim/Bib/lotsofus.

As a relative newcomer to this Forum, you may not have realised that Fran and Deus ex Machina are one and the same.

I am pleased to say that I have renewed your subscription.

Keep posting!

That's a pretty big claim, and since it has such profound implications, let's hear how you arrive at the conclusion that Fran and DeM are the same person.

I must admit that the degree of irritation and improbability associated with everything Lotta caused me to not just dismiss her prattle but pass through neutral to an assumption that the opposite was likely true.

If Fran and DeM are the same person and neither one has changed their address(!), then the Fran posts and DeM posts would have the same IP, or a random IP from the same group in the same geographical area. Is this so?

And since this is far from conclusive, what other concrete justification is there?

Gosh, if you are right it will take a while to get over the shock. Did Lotta REALLY post something the forum can believe....?

The answer lies in the Frantasies. All will be made clear when the Full Frantal is published.

It obviously hasn't occurred to Research Assistant that I simply missed the questions in the first place given that they occurred some 67 or so postings down into the 'numbers game' thread and that I had signed-off from the thread immediately before the questions were posed with this posting:

Re: The story so far
No score for this post May 7 2006, 9:17 AM

Definitely the last post - I forgot to observe that what made me dip into this thread in the first place was of course that the root posting is from 'Einstein'. One does hope sometimes to meet fellow travellers in the more scientific community with a view on this subject however complex or numerical the form of exposition. I am now dipping out for certain.

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I might have missed some search capabilities available on this forum but once you are out of a thread and things move on it becomes very difficult to re-trace steps. I expect those who run it can do a proper database search but anyone who simply posts potentially has to visit every thread and posting to find individual contributions. Does anyone else have a technique which works?

The other factors which Reasearch Assistant seems to have missed is that:

a) I am likely to have a job and cannot track/post every minute of the day.
b) We are still passing through the times of year when I am likely to exchange the view of stony beaches and uniformly grey seascape only broken by Grade 1 listed but twisted ironmongery for far-flung sandy beaches and deep blue sea and sky for as extended a period as I can afford.
c) As a moving target any thread continually migrates to pages other than that where any individual last noticed it.
d) I have been looking for other things at earlier dates in the forum as is shown by my recent postings. With limited time to do this.
e) Any posting containing 'Fran' material is immediately of more interest than anything with my name on it.

Nevertheless I have dug through to find the questions.

1) I have 'corresponded' very briefly with Sherry and I have an email address for her.

2) Sherry said at the time:

She was working as an estate agent around Watford

Fran was briefly registered on the FR site, in her profile gave correct details of going to college immediately after leaving school and indicated she is/was in the academic world. She had sent her an email, but had no reply.

They apparently had some 'interesting' times together when at school and slippering of girls by the PE master 'had been known'.

As I have pointed out Sherry's registration on FR has subsequently disappeared, confirming the need to be very discrete in enquiries.

'Fran's' 'Oh my G-d' posting from 2002 confirms other information.

Sherry may have fled from Friends Reunited after being inundated with questions about green knickers, but you may still hear her whining voice at:

http://www.dailymotion.com/BigJohnPeacehaven/video/x37bu_my-kinda-wembley-woman

and see lovely pictures at:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/198833/thread/1117778394/last-1154776509/Wembley+Revisited

When I first read Fran's early postings, I thought it possible that the author was female even though the story about the green-knickered slippering from the male gym teacher was almost certainly a fantasy.

Research was later to show that there exists not one scrap of evidence to suggest that the male gym teacher identified in the Fran postings ever slippered a girl in his life. Indeed, there is considerable evidence to suggest that he did not slipper girls.

Additionally, as more postings appeared from Fran it became clearer and clearer that the author was yet another silly man pretending to be a woman and it wasn't long before I became as certain as it's possible to be that Fran was a man.

Then Deus appeared - a man whose very distinctive writing style is indistinguishable from that found in many of Fran's postings and who seems obsessed with the idea of convincing readers that the quite-obviously-fake Fran and her quite-obviously-fake stories are in fact 100% genuine.

Fran and Deus are one and the same.

And Lotta is an imaginary female.......

Many teachers will confirm that when people immerse themselves in somebody's writings and then attempt to produce their own the style they were exposed to colours their attempts until they achieve their own voice. This particularly for 'science' students attempting to do 'english' essays as I have found for myself in the past. Another known effect is that people with similar styles find it easier to maintain interest and concentration on content and this supports a common neutral academic style in learning and research areas particularly if you want any material published.

I really don't have to declare an interest and active research in the writings shown in the Frantasies as this is obvious over time. As is the fact that the idea for comparing much of this stuff for consistency was suggested to me by postings such as Frantasie 24 and the tools became generally available more recently due to concerns about authorship in the academic and media community . The fact remains that the majority of my postings come out as identifiably different from 'Fran's' and particularly strongly on the dimension of gender.

But aren't the Frantasies generally much more involving and exciting than anything I have ever written on this forum or many others for that matter? I think so, almost exclusively.

Does it matter if a man pretends to be a woman or vice versa? Paul or Pauline? Does it matter if someone uses more than one name. Why not leave it to the intelligence of those reading the posts. I for one find Fran's posts perfectly believable though in fact they may well be the product of a fertile imagination. She is obviously a person of intelligence. She is not masquerading as a headmaster who is unable to spell even the simplest words correctly. So we must use our common sense and you Lotta should save your amusing comments for someone more deserving of them.

"If Fran and DeM are the same person and neither one has changed their address(!), then the Fran posts and DeM posts would have the same IP, or a random IP from the same group in the same geographical area. Is this so?"

Reply from Research Assistant:

"The answer lies in the Frantasies. All will be made clear when the Full Frantal is published."

If you are going to keep us in suspense, the conclusion had better be worth it!

In the meantime, do they have the same IP address or ones that indicate they both posted from the same geographical area? (If not, the rest becomes rather mute, doesn't it...?)

This topic began with our Research Assistant chastising a member for failing to provide requested information, complete with a clear statement that said member was in effect banned from participation in the forum for failing to comply.

Is the esteemed RI bound by different rules...?

If you are determined to withhold the real evidence of Fran and DeM's identity until the Frantal is complete (no damp squibs please!) so be it, but what is the problem with answering the simple IP question?

- Not sure how to compare similar IP's and relate them to geography?

- Or concerned that the IP's are so different that "Fran is da man" points to the kind of lotta truth we are accustommed to?

Seven more Frantasies have unfolded and not a hint that "Fran is da man" has any substance. (In fact, aided by a few decades of life experience, the past week has boosted my confidence that Fran is exactly who she says she is!)

And still not a peep from the RA about similar or dissimilar IP's, the key to much of the puzzle.

What we are seeing is more and more confirmation that Lotta is the primary cause of a treasured poster's discontent and eventual loss. The latest Frantasie (33) talks about "the individual concerned" (as opposed to previous plural references to "pretenders" etc.), and Lotta, being the dominant disruptive influence throughout, is the obvious, perhaps only, candidate.

How long do we have to wait for the shocking conclusion that defrocks Fran and turns her into a male scientist?

(Or confiscates the crown jewels and turns Deus into a fifty-something year old schoolgirl wearing green knickers.)