You see, that's the problem. You participate in this forum like a political debate, where one can only say things that are 100% true. It's a fan forum, dude, it's the right place to make "outlandish claims" not to be fact-checked.
First, it seems that my having made a book of photographs from the OES tour has unleashed a lot of anger in one or two people. Bizarre.
Secondly, I don't even post in 99% of the topics at this forum. In particular I NEVER post in topics about things I know nothing about (1970's Dire Straits, Alchemy, the previous tours, Mark's work since 1992, the list goes on and on).
Why you would start to dislike the forum because I participate in 1% of the topics is also bizarre.
So by my not participating in the majority of the threads people can light heartedly guess all they want.
When people talk about Manu Katche saying he hated working with Mark and just wanted the session to end, then go on to claim Manu wasn't good enough and Mark was just trying to get the drums right.... I'm sorry I'm going to state view, having experienced similar situations myself (in the real world).
When people start saying I'm the 'worst drummer Dire Straits ever had', I'm going to put my side of the story. I think I did so with humility, stating clearly with hindsight I wish I had done some things differently and would approach the gig much differently now, 35 years later. But at the same time, during the three months rehearsal Mark beat me down and by the time we started playing for paying audiences I was basically trying very hard to play the way Mark wanted me to play and was unwilling to try a different way, unwilling to suggest a different way for fear of falling victim to an acid tongue in front of the rest of the musicians again.
If you just prefer guess work from the sidelines and never be told the truth by insiders, then I think you are going to miss out on an awful lot.
And finally, all this ire is directed at me. Ed has posted at length on the forum, setting the record straight often in much more damning posts than mine. Why aren't you angry with him? ? ? Could it just be personal?