Plagiarism

This is what Robert Kirby had to say about the whole affair in last week's Mail & Guardian:

It seems that Bristow-Bovey's writings are a bit like opening a tin of Pick 'n Pay spicy pilchards. You never know what extras you'll find. Bristow-Bovey, bless his magnetic pen, has been shown to be quite a deft hand when it comes to lifting, almost word for word, whole paragraphs from the writings of the English writer, Bill Bryson, and passing these off as his own. Bristow-Bovey's inventive practice was revealed in a brilliant piece of investigative reporting by a trainee journalist, Rob Boffard, and published in last week's Saturday Star. In return for this Boffard received a decidedly menacing e-mail from Bristow-Bovey warning him of the dangers of "kick-starting a career in journalism by seeking to tarnish a colleague's reputation".