That was a roller coaster of a thread. I spent a bit over two hours reading it, from start to end, since I missed it when it first came to life.
It felt like reading a novel, with its ups and downs, the revelatory pieces and then the last but one response by Mr. Bicknell, that was the dark twist before the end, plus the happy ending.
I think that this was the most intriguing thread I have read so far and in hindsight I am glad I read in one go, after it was finished (?) (Hopefully not. Thank you Mr. Bicknell, Mr. Whitten and Julio)
I don't know if you have even thought about it, but apart from the times some members from AMIT met in gigs, we mostly communicate through posts, written messages that we usually spend little time to think and type and even less reading them. We could have been AIs (or ASs as in stupid - pun intended) exchanging quotes and thus creating dialogs. The human element in this thread was overflowing, but it might as well have been a figment of a very rich imagination and maybe this is a possible explanation of the rumours been replicated without caution.
Perhaps it can be explained by the lack of real human contact, but also by the human nature that makes this quote sound so true:" If you have to chose between history and the legend, print the legend". And going a step further, without wanting to excuse any wrong doing, by me or anyone else, fans are prone to creating the legends because they like to think that their favourite musicians/actors/writers/painters/photographers are out of the ordinary. Of course the easiness and openness with which we exchange messages, sometimes makes us forget that this is in writing and in public and stays this way as long as a server runs. Of course, in passing, this involves political correctness, but it is a different issue, for a different thread, maybe even too heavy for the general discussion thread.
I know that the written word gets plenty of its meaning from the readers imagination, experience in life and personal development. So if 1000 people read this thread and are asked, we will most probably get 999 different perspectives. So, in a way, most things that are not backed by a definitive and unchanging fact, are just ghosts, figments of our imagination, road signs for roads we have never taken, but dare to imagine simply by looking at the names on the signs . This is why good story telling is so revered and valued. The best ones manage to transcend reality,even by using elements of it and intentionally paraphrasing it, actually going for the hardest thing of all, truth.
But this has nothing to do with this thread anymore.