Thursday 18 June 2009

Bearded author expelled from Facebook

Famously bearded children's author Philip Ardagh (the best-selling Eddie Dickens books) has until recently been a very visible (well, partly) presence on Facebook, regularly commenting on the status of friends, many of whom are also children's writers and illustrators.

Until he took it into his head to wish someone a happy wedding anniversary and then compounded the felony by wishing someone else a happy birthday. He received two warnings from Facebook about abusive behaviour and has now disappeared from the site.

All his posts have also been removed.

But Philip's friends have not taken this lying down; as well as petitioning Facebook to reinstate this harmless if bumbling giant, many of them have donned similar beards in protest (see the Book Maven, above).

But wait - could this all just be a cunning plan? Philip has a new book out - four in fact - called Grubtown Tales, published by Faber. Surely not even PA would stoop to PR that involved his Facebook friends making fools of themselves in photoshopped beards?

12 comments:

  1. your beard is particularly becoming, i have to say!

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  2. you grew that very quickly - you were clean-shaven when I saw you in May!

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  3. I want to know what sort of fertilizer you used to achieve such magnificent growth so speedily! All my beard does is look distinguished which is really not on!
    BeardyN

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  4. The fertiliser is called Candy Gourlay!

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  5. Ah, I wondered how all of you had time to grow beards all of a sudden.

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  6. Excellent post, and even more excellent beard.

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  7. Oh.... I'm going to have to practice my photoshopping ;-)>

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  8. Great post, and excellent beard! I'll have to let my husband in on this "secret". He's always trying to grow his beard longer :)

    Happy weekend,
    Jennifer

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  9. Wow, this seems to be true. Any previous comments he's made have been wiped away. How strange! Where is the petition? I'd like to sign...

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  10. ho, ho

    'bumbling' ?

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  11. Tockla - just search Beardy Ardagh on Facebook, though I don't think it has the status of a petition. I'll check with Candy, who started the group.

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  12. There is now a petition at this link:

    http://www.petitiononline.com/fbbbb47/petition.htm

    Bring Back Beardy

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