Posted by Peter Willis on 02/19/00 from 62.136.64.50 via proxy webinterceptor15c1.cache.pol.co.uk:
In Reply to: Re: Dispatches Colour Cover posted by Robert Dilley on February 18, 2000 at 16:19:03:
For what it's worth, my own theory is that "5152", aka 194.82.168.3 is in fact a fictional character either based on or possibly invented by two other people, Ethel Hallow and Michael Ratcliffe (no relation to Margaret as far as I know) both of whom have appeared on Tarboard under their own names in recent weeks, but using that same 194.82.168.3 address.
Like most master forgers their work is riddled with giveaway inconsistencies and errors, possibly included deliberately out of vanity as a sort of signature or (in the case of less commpetent counterfeiters) out of ignorance. Treasured examples are the placing of Harrogate in the suburbs of Manchester, accompainied by an almost Martian indifference to the areas served by the various London termini strange in one ostensibly setting out a geographically-based argument, and more recently a reference to a non-existent TARS committee.
Interestingly the character has or had an actual TARS membership (not the first fictitious character to do so, incidentally)and the number quoted is an anagram as it were of the character's real TARS number, I625, but, typically, with one digit incorrect, and reorgainsed in such a way as to produce an "impossible" number.