Who would ever have thought that I would be the victim of plagiarism? Not me. 

I’ve spent some time as a photographer in the past and found that people will cut off your signature from the photographs and share them and not credit them as your work. That’s bad enough but when they’ve not even paid you in the first place and you’ve done them a favour… yes, well. Enough said. 

Nobody writes a blog to make money. Well I don’t. I suppose it is partly as a diary for myself, archives if you like, for me to look back on. In the process, if I can help anyone else along the way by sharing some information on how I make something, do something or anything else, then all is good.

I will say now that I categorically have no problem at all with my posts being shared.

We all adapt recipes. Scribble things on the back of an empty envelope while watching a tv show, copy something out of a friend’s book, look something up on tinterweb and shove it in our recipe folder. It gets covered in splatters when you’re cooking and you’ve no idea where it came from. Fair do’s. 

Today, however I saw one of my blog post recipes being flagrantly copied and pasted and passed off as someone else’s. Upset? Heck yes. A few words had been changed along the way and the ingredients listed in a different order but it was absolutely akin to somebody copying someone else’s homework and thinking the teacher wouldn’t notice. They were my own words. Written by me. I can actually hear myself saying them. I write my blog posts and recipe methods in a chatty colloquial fashion as if I am talking to you and it was usmitakeable.

When I very politely pointed out to the person who wrote said piece that the words were not her own, she tried to brush it off and say she had read my blog when it was written two years ago but that the recipe was her own and she’d never even tried mine. Caught red-handed. Bunny in headlights. You little Tea Leaf. All it needed was a line saying adapted from my original recipe. Just a little politeness and courtesy. Costs nothing.

But no. I have been removed, blocked and blacklisted. Lucky old me. What is it they say? Copying is a form of flattery? Not in this case. This is plagiarism.

Granted, I have been off the radar for a good few months, I broke my leg before Christmas and had a horrific few months with countless hospital visits, surgery and enough metalwork holding me together to build a tower of Mechano. And so I haven’t felt much like blogging. But this is enough to give me a kick up the proverbial. I am back in action.

So please enjoy my blog, my recipes and anything else you find along the way. Cook, make, and share away.  Have the confidence to try something new. Enjoy the great sense of satisfaction that comes from growing, making, and baking.  All I ask is that you don’t pass my words off as your own.

Thankyou x