THE BANNED

Conservative posters on Lucianne.com had drawn up a hit-list of people they wanted off the site - and fast. Top of this list were two Australians - KingKangaroo and BigBoomerang - and a bandwidth hogging Brit called JJ.

JJ received numerous warnings in the summer of 2000 from an exasperated Lucianne herself and was finally banned for arguing with a Brit-hating Conservative poster called quidnunc, who inflamed his younger rival by attacking Princess Diana and describing her as 'ditzy'.

Before his exit there were several near-misses and on one famous occasion hundreds of posters flooded Lucianne's mailbox demanding his reinstatement. She reluctantly relented and Brouwer was free to continue his idiotic postings.

He crossed the great lady once to often, however, and was banned for good. The reason given was that the Brit had turned her site into a 'chat room'. Following JJ's demise there were naturally others to assume the mantle of chief agitator.

The up-and-coming KingKangaroo had somehow outlasted his JJ and countryman BigBoomerang. His postings from obscure Australian publications were put up with for a while and attracted the interest of female posters with names like Kitten and Mitten but he was to over-step the mark one fateful evening during the Sydney Olympics.

An excitable Roo was accused by Lucy's webmaster of posting under the influence and was kicked into touch, like an Aussie Rules football. The experience did not tie the Kangaroo down however and he jacked in his job as a spin-doctor for Australia's Labor Party and headed to The Land of the Free for a year's travelling.

The bannings of JJ and the Aussies were to be just the tip of Lucy's iceberg however. More significant axings of right-wing supporters of the literary giant were to follow...