> I hope you - and others - find this useful.  I spent two and a half
> hours trying to say it nicely.  How did I do?
>
> I know it still could be construed as being a little abrupt, and I
> apologise in advance.
 
Permit me, as my first posting in BEE-L, to say that I am most grateful for Mr. Allen's
postings. He may be a little more brusque than most, but that's just his nature and,
for the most part, I've grown used to his style. There are a few others around whose
style takes a little getting used to also and I'm grateful to them also.
 
BEE-L is not meant to be a mutual admiration society. It exists to exchange ideas and
information. My grandfather was gruff but a fountain of knowledge. To those who didn't
know him, he may have sounded outright mean, but I knew better. Mr. Allen says above
that he spent 2.5 hours trying to be nice. My two cents is that I'd prefer him to spit
out information off-the-cuff rather than to compose fewer but more carefully worded
responses. If he's going to spend 2.5 hours writing, let's have it be action-packed.