It may be imagined how irked Jim Perrin was to read the adverse comments which followed, one by one, his latest Guardian Country Diary entry about wild boar in Ariège, 23/05/2014. How, we wonder, could he have restrained himself from writing his usual retaliatory remarks? ‘Dendros’, in particular, was ironically critical — and, to judge by the response, apparently woundingly — of the author’s style.

Such criticism was not to be borne; could not be tolerated without redress; and as, presumably, the irritation mounted this most precious author — perceiving the words in his ‘lyrically-lovely-mode’ of writing, to be so many Pearls Before Swine of a different kind — found the impulse to respond to be irresistible… This is a logical interpretation.

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We have been saying throughout our posts that we believe ‘Melangell’ and ‘Llywarch’ to be only two of several pseudonyms previously used by Jim Perrin. ‘Melangell’ (JP)? no longer comments and ‘her’ last posting was on the 12/07/2013, creating a revealing lacuna given the garrulous frequency and the speed with which ‘she’ used to respond. (Read ‘her’ here.) Similarly, ‘Llywarch’ (JP?)  (A later note: now changed to ‘Tim Bartley’, read him here) now seems silent.  Possibly they may return — for the reader’s scrutiny? — but, in their absence from the field, we welcome ‘DrudwyBranwen’ who has taken up the cudgel on Jim Perrin’s behalf…

This commentator (surely JP?) — who first posted after Jim Perrin’s last diary entry in response to ‘Dendros’, and who we believe to be his latest alter ego — has also written recently, following other pieces by Jim Perrin and by other Country Diarists who are (whether or not they like to be) in his inner circle of chosen ones. All the elements: literary quotations and recommendations; cutting remarks or condescension; flattering shows of support may be recognised in ‘DrudwyBranwen’s’ postings, and are of a pattern with the previous writings of both ‘Melangell’ and ‘Llywarch’.

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Again we notice, as we did in his article in the Sunday Telegraph, 05/05/2013, a gratuitous and snide mention of Dr. Robert Macfarlane, whose work is of an effortless elegance never matched by Jim Perrin’s own worked-over prose. Shamefully he implied — ‘libelling libel-lessly’? — that Dr. Macfarlane had ‘borrowed’  (that is, he was accusing him of plagiarism!) from Jim Perrin. Low and cunning behaviour indeed; and because he was desperate to denigrate him. It is yet another example of this author’s ‘dexterity’ when planting unworthy thoughts into the minds of his readers, which he does quite regularly and brazenly, not realizing — perhaps in his ‘omnipotence’ — that by now his manipulation is apparent to all…

Only recently someone has remarked to us that ‘in [their] opinion Jim Perrin is a nasty piece of work’.

Jac’s sisters.