John Self: Banger of a comedy news story in today’s Times. It gets funnier and funnier with every paragraph until the punchline of “it’s all Apple’s fault that I [a man who visited prostitutes for several years] was divorced by my wife when she found out.”

Banger of a comedy news story in today’s Times. It gets funnier and funnier with every paragraph until the punchline of “it’s all Apple’s fault that I [a man who visited prostitutes for several years] was divorced by my wife when she found out.”

Also adds further evidence to my belief that anyone who uses iMessage instead of WhatsApp is a wrong 'un.

Also also, the opening explanation of "he turned to prostitutes in the last years of his marriage" sounds like he did it because his marriage was in trouble - when in fact his marriage was in trouble because he did it.

“His lawyer in a statement said, ‘A fool and his money are soon parted, and we want a slice of that sweet sweet pie.’l

i respect his lawyer the most here

Plot twist - there was no prostitute, it was his lawyer all along!

both are someone paid well just to fuck you so maybe you're right

Okay now I’m interested.

"He turned to prostitutes in what would have been the middle years of his marriage if he understood the basics of how cloud storage works" is a less snappy way of saying it

Or talking to his wife about his needs and expectations.

"We were very happily married and had been for over 20 years. I think what had been a superb marriage has been thrown away for something which many men do, and some women do, but mainly men.” Hmmm….

Yes but who did the throwing? “I destroyed my life and I demand compensation.”

He did, obvs.

"Why don't we lay the groundwork for a trial via a wheedling, self-pitying interview with a national newspaper?" "Great idea."

“The readers will understand.”

Think if he's got that much coin he lost 5 million quid in the settlement we can chalk this down to more money than sense.

Brilliant.

Exactly!

Did anyone ask the wife if she thought the marriage was superb?

Also “If I could have spoken to my wife rationally…” she would have been convinced that she was making a silly hysterical fuss over nothing and it’s perfectly fine for me to visit prostitutes? Terrifying arrogance, she is so well rid of him!

"he turned to prostitutes in what would turn out to be the last years of his marriage"

Yes, indeed!

Or you could, you know, just not message prostitutes and hope the wife doesn't find out 🤔

Or maybe…don’t cheat on your wife?

Apple users. Pfft. Clippy would have had his back.

Clippy would have reminded him he was deleting local information and he’d need to take extra steps to delete from iCloud. He would even have taken him through it, step by step, ending with wasting a sarcastic but earnest “Good job, Dick!”

“if I had been able to talk to her rationally”

"Debate me in the Marketplace of Ideas!" Willingly, but I think you'll find it's called 'Family Court'.

5'll get yer 10 "rationally" means him getting angry and blaming her for driving him into the arms and nether regions of said prostitutes

It is clear the businessman is the one doing the soliciting here & my mind goes to the process of soliciting bids for privatisation via contracting out of services. A very silly train of thought but "if I had been able to talk to her rationally" doesn't merit serious consideration on its own terms.

"Richard, not his real name..." Let's just call him "Dick"

Yeah, I can't help but think that was deliberate on the part of the writer.

That was my favorite part, too.

The “some women do it” quote!!

real Trumpian cadence to "many men do. and some women do it, but mainly men. an affair, which I consider a much greater breach of trust,"

Yes there is, you’re right.

That's exactly how I read it too.

Never seen ‘it’s all because’ do such an Olympian level of work.

I mean you have to admire the chutzpah.

A certain kind of confidence. I believe psychologists have some specific terms.

Yeah that’s the whole cause and not the *checks notes* buying the services of sex workers and hiding it from his wife.

Although he may well have a case. The delete confirmation dialog does clearly say the message will be deleted from all linked devices and it never happens.

I look forward to that being tested in court, when of course he will no longer by anonymous.

Known by his pseudonym, “Barbara Streisand”

If so, that'd be a serious safety issue for, as an example, someone making plans to leaving an abusive partner. I helped a friend escape her dangerous husband years back, and he'd hacked into her Facebook, so we had to talk in code online. We also relied on being able to delete messages.

Does it? I can delete messages from my phone and never see any such warning appear; it only gives you that warning when deleting on desktop, which is exactly what "Richard" did *not* do - and when I just tested that, it did indeed delete them from my phone.

That’s my experience too (I just tried it to check).

Never works for me.

He really doesn’t, at least as far as English contract law is concerned

Fair enough - IANAL

I just tested this myself. It also very clearly says that the now deleted message(s) will remain in the RECENTLY DELETED folder for 30 days. My take? He's a busy man, who wouldn't bother to read a meaningless bit of dialogue; after all, he deleted the msg, it confirmed, the rest is BS, right? Ha!

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