WHOA!
Okay...
May I request that we either move this to a different thread, or better yet - and Habz, you know this is what I prefer - discuss this in private? How many times have we chatted on WhatsApp, and I would tell you how much I despise
qeela wa qal (so-and-so said, and so-and-so said), never want to get involved in others' affairs, and
especially don't like to get involved in any 'political'/personal stuff.
Of course I, as well as everyone else, knew who you've been referring to. All this time, I was waiting/hoping you'd get in touch with me, knowing what you already know of me, and how I like to deal with any issue (in 2 cases, as I'm sure you'll recall, I contacted you and Ouddict directly asap when I felt there was just the
*possibility* of something that could build up to something big, and thus decided to get clarification directly from you). Ouddict did the same, alerting me promptly when he heard some unsettling news from a certain distiller, and thought I should prolly know about it. And good thing he did too... I'll attach the chat screenshots below, and you'll see what I mean. And then you can also see how I would
wish for anyone to deal with situations where there is even the
slightest risk of someone's reputation getting tarnished — let alone their daily bread getting trampled on.
Ouddict, I salute you. And part of the reason I'm posting the screenshots publicly is so that you can also see what actually happened (and clearing the distiller's name... well, to some extent
).
The Lao batches... you don't need to ask about those.
Why would you need screenshots? You knew exactly what happened,
as it was happening. I was in the jungle, came back, had a broken back for a week and the cherry on top of the cake was... well, you know exactly what. So put that one aside. The others include: a Sulawesi batch (resolved, and I thank the third party involved for their chivalry and forthrightness), half of the Royal Papua batch, 2 Indian batches, half of the Sultan's Succor batch, 2 Burmese batches (resolved), a Borneo candan batch... among others.
Part of me (REALLY) wants everything to be discussed openly. But the sensible portion of my brain tells me to do precisely what, as I have told you countless times, the right thing to do is: resolve issues privately (sorry guys! I'm sure you were looking forward to some exciting masala!
).
I have thought long and hard about this, and I hope you reach the same conclusion as me (waiting for your ping on WhatsApp!). Part of the reason is also because I refuse to be 'put up on the stand', this whole
'guilty until proven innocent' thing that apparently should be applied to oud vendors.. sorry I am not cool with that. And lastly, I don't want this thread to get hijacked by a personal issue. I had started this thread to let folks discover some of the unknown aspects of the oud trade (okay, I must admit, this kinda
does reveal some of the unknown headaches vendors have to face, haha... but this is all way too personal).
So... I will request you to please either start a new thread, or better yet, just ping me on WhatsApp. Have I been anything but nice whenever we (used to) chat?
Here are the screenshots. Only posting these because I brought up Ouddict and distiller X, otherwise this would not be posted up publicly like this, despite the censoring. And another reason obviously is to demonstrate how things can (and should) be resolved (you don't see Tim Cook tweeting about discussions/disagreements/debates with the CEO of Pegatron publicly).
@all, just look about what
actually happened, and then see what ended up being conveyed (due to poor English, and as a side: pardon my pigeon English in the chat too). And now, imagine if Ouddict had decided to post this all over the internet, instead of alerting me promptly, which is what he did.