BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0

I feel compelled to issue a statement clarifying my position as Barnet & Brent correspondent for WOOFAH magazine.

When I joined the title in 2007, I did so in good faith, believing that an independent mag for grime, dancehall and dubstep fans was inherently a positive move, and one that would sidestep the usual publishing concerns of boosting circulation and subscribers by rehashing any old shite from a press release.

As the events of the past fortnight have confirmed, this was sadly not the case.

First came the 'interview' with Leslie Lyrics in Issue 1. Had I known that the 'quotes' featured had been obtained by illegally hacking Professor Lyrics' Nokia 3110, I certainly wouldn't have contributed copy to the magazine. Unfortunately, it appears that the editorial team was content to pull the wool over my peepers as well as yours.

During my frequent visits to the WOOFAH office, I often spotted a man in a kaftan and sunglasses, clutching a large hessian sack marked SWAG, darting out of the back window and making his getaway in a badly beaten-up golf buggy, mere seconds before my arrival. Whenever I raised this with the editors, I was assured that everything was 'OK' and that it was most likely 'a neighbour, collecting milk bottles'. I received this answer six or seven times.

In fact, when I openly challenged the editor, to his face - Is the print run being bankrolled by Gadaffi? - he just looked me in the eye and categorically stated, "No".

We now know this to be a brazen lie.

But the lie didn't end there.

In 2010, a WOOFAH co-writer, whose identity will remain anonymous, met me in a pub near Warren Street and handed me a dossier of emails he'd collated over the previous two years. They paint a picture so gruesome I can scarcely bring myself to convey the horrors within.

The dossier included: proof that WOOFAH writers had phoned the Met to get London grime nights cancelled, just so they could submit articles about police heavy-handedness; AIM chat transcripts revealing that shipments of fresh new releases from international artists, forwarded to the magazine for review, had in fact been intercepted in Stoke Newington, redirected to Dublin and listed on eBay; proof that the infamous Droid v Eden 'Kings X clash' was staged - all 'live mixing' having been provided by a fellow WOOFAH hack, hidden under the table((a retrospective photo of the event, when enlarged, reveals that the decks weren't even connected to the amp)).

You, WOOFAH's loyal readers, deserved better.

It is with the utmost regret that I have to report that the person who provided this dossier cannot comment further on the situation. This is because he was found dead in his home, just two hours ago.

In light of the above, I therefore wish to announce that, with immediate effect, I am resigning from the zine and will henceforth cease to have any connection to WOOFAH whatsoever. I thoroughly reject any suggestion that I was aware of the foul play committed by the editorial team during my time on the zine, and must insist that any enquiries regarding the aforementioned crimes are directed to the former and present editors, as well as the dubstep editor, most likely.

Sincerely,

Martin.