After some email to-ing and fro-ing between Chris Townley (from Battlefront) and myself we arranged for a call from BF for this morning and subsequently today I got a call from one of the owners of Battlefront to explain why my account was deleted from the battlefront forum.  Peter Suminovich was polite and explained very clearly why I was evicted, which is all I was asking for.

Back in 2008 I made a post on a New Zealand political blog, at a time when a major New Zealand politician was in the news with regards to a big political spat over scampi, fishing quotas, alleged corruption, dodgy politicians, paper bags with money in them and an injunction on a video interview with a guy who worked for Peter S who said that he had told him to lie to a Parliamentary commission.   There was this big court case where Peter Suminovich and another joker sued a media company and state-owned TV for defamation and I understand it was settled out of court.  It is all on the internet as part of public record if you want to read about it.  Anyway, that is the background.

I had forgotten all about that period in New Zealand history and could not even remember the comment so after a lot of searching archives on a multitude of political blogs, I think I found the offending post.  I am not sure that there were others but if there were I couldn’t find them.

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2008/08/hansard_of_hide_re_peters.html#comments

He said to me on the phone that I wrote a hurtful thing and he didn’t want anything to do with me and by inference that included my having any interaction with his company Battlefront. He obviously has a long memory.  My mother was a Southern European, so I know all about that.

So, there you have it.  It was not anything I said or did on the Battlefront Flames of War forums. He is exercising his right of ownership of the Flames of War Forum – and that is that. Perhaps in a similar circumstance I would do the same as Peter S did if someone called me Fat Brian.

Today I got an email from Chris Townley (Design Studio Manager at Battlefront) with this rather terse sentence.

Hi Brian,

your forum account on the Flames Of War site has been deleted at the request of the senior management.

Regards
Chris Townley

Battlefront Miniatures

Well, I wondered why – I had hardly said or done anything controversial at the Battle Front Forum. The sum total of my contribution was posting a link to my painted Battlefront Stuart Recce tanks post (in the Galleries section), and to some of my Monday Music posts that had themes that may or may not interest people interested in social history of WWII and Vietnam War (in the Canteen section – the appropriate part of the forum for such posts).

Here is what I wrote about their Vietnam range:

Battle Front’s Tour of Duty line.  Quite extensive and looks pretty good. I have only ever seen the models in blisters but I am guessing that they are of the same pretty high standard as the rest of the BF line – arguments over the shape of a T-55′s turret notwithstanding.

Still waiting to see if I get a response from Chris as to why my account was removed, but I have to ask – has Battlefront become thinner skinned than an Opel Blitz truck?