Out of courtesy, I sent a link to my blog post about Eric Joyce’s expense claims to Eric Joyce’s email. I just received this charming response:
Hello M.K Hadjin, it’s Eric’s partner here. My name is India Knight. I read your Twitter account with increasing alarm. Obviously you’re both not well and horribly lonely. You’re also boring. I have more than once suggested that Eric take out a restraining order, but he seems to pity you.
I’d hate to write about you, but I’m longing to, quoting your 18 months’ worth of texts and your odd, stalkery painting of a man you’ve never met. Would that be ok? Is that what you need – attention? Do let me know. Or don’t. You are very much lolzy, whatever happens. But you knew that, right?Get better!India Knight
She was kind enough to send a postscript:
BTW, planning to post the cut & pasted below on my public timeline. See also my column in the Sunday Times. Such an interesting topic, insane women getting crushes online.
Sadly for India Knight, whoever she may be, I don’t read the Sunday Times.
What’s interesting about this letter is that my name is misspelled exactly in the same way Eric misspells it.
Such drama about a painting. Honestly, he couldn’t just say thank you and put an end to the matter? Maybe I’m just unimaginative, but I can’t find anything odd or stalkerish about sending a gift to someone who was interested in my art and wanted the gift. I do have the emails from him to prove that he wanted it. He told me what colors to use and what size to make it. If he changed his mind, why didn’t he tell me? He had plenty of opportunity.
It’s a pity he couldn’t simply give a polite response. It’s all I wanted him to do.
I’ll leave it to my readers to decide whether that makes me “not well,” “horribly lonely”, “boring” or “insane”. To me these accusations seem way over the top. It sounds like what a very self-absorbed person does when criticized : refuse to admit any wrong, attack and devalue the person doing the criticizing.
Seems to me that it takes a lot more energy to conscript one’s girlfriend into writing vicious emails than it does to just say thank you.
.
Update: After I wrote this post, I got the following response:
Wow. Instant blogpost, like a letter through the door. Maybe back to the hospital? Meanwhile, we’re making a harassment complaint, plus you’ve slandered me, so there’s that. ENJOY YOUR REALLY GREAT, UNLONELY LIFE! XXXXXXXX from Not Eric : (
I’m unclear as to who thinks they’re being slandered here or why. Also the talk of a harassment complaint is odd, since Eric never asked me not to contact him.
So I send a polite reply making these points, and get this response:
Please stop contacting me. It’s very aggressive. You’ve encouraged people on Twitter to contact me online. I have no concerns at all about what you blog about. If you contact me again, even by this means, my only recourse is to contact the police. This is my final communication with you.
best wisheseric joyce
All my friends did was ask him why he didn’t say thank you after receiving a nice painting. I’m just not seeing aggression there. Aggression would be insults and threats, right? Insults like “not well”, “horribly lonely”, “boring”, “insane”, “odd and stalkery” and threats like “I’ll write nasty things about you in my column” and “we’re making a harassment complaint, even though you’re not really harassing us.” But fair enough. He made a formal request for me to stop emailing him and I’ll respect it. I just don’t see why he had to troll me first.
.
But since he doesn’t care what I blog about, I can freely write about it.
.
Sadly, he never revealed what he had done to the painting. I worked for five months on that painting, which is the longest time I’ve ever worked on a single painting. I thought it would be representing me in Joyce’s office in the House of Commons so I agonized over it quite a lot. It was a big investment of time, energy and love. I wonder what he’s done with it. I guess I’ll never know.
.
Update #2:
People are telling me Eric Joyce has deleted his twitter.
Update #3:
Apparently he’s back. That was a short flounce.
Update #4:
Both Knight and the papers have apparently misunderstood which artwork I sent to Joyce. It was not the portrait sketch I made of him. That was just something I did for fun one evening.
The painting I sent was this abstract landscape, using the colors he specified (red, purple, and green):
Red, Purple, Green, mixed media, 70 x 100 cm, by M.K. Hajdin
The reason it took five months to finish is because it went through many stages. Halfway through, Joyce said it wasn’t red enough, so I had to add a lot more red and adjust all of the other colors. It’s got more red in it than I’d use, normally, but that’s what he wanted.
Exiled Stardust 
This comment is dedicated to India and Eric.
You are both embarrassing and your desire to use ableist language against MK Hajdin, to belittle her, to attempt to humiliate her is disgusting and confirms how out of touch you are.,I am embarrassed that EITHER of you would dare to engage with her in this way.
“Insane women”? India – you are a DISGRACE.
Those of us who know and care about MK Hajdin know the story. She sent Eric a painting – it was delivered, he never acknowledged it. All she wanted was a thank you for an incredible and beautiful gift. He said fuck all. Because HE (as the post clearly illustrates) is an arrogant, spineless embarrassment of a human being.
Kindly fuck off and stop your bullshit – you are irrelevant.
How vile! Just say thank you for your time or return the painting you horrible horrible man!
The replies you received are genuinely terrible. For someone who is a renowned journalist and has come under fire for previously for making light of mental health you’d think Ms Knight would know better. However, it appears not.
To put the nicest spin on it I’m wondering if they’re projecting things on to you from their past experiences with people. As you say (and have shown) you and Mr Joyce had several friendly Twitter conversations, leading to you spending all your time and effort creating and further developing a painting at your expense due to his changing specifications.
For him to cease communication at this point seems incredibly discourteous. You had spent time defending his character to those who had already seen a pattern of his outlandish behaviour develop through the media.
You continued to give him benefit of the doubt for a lot longer than the average person would, yet no response, let alone a thank you came.
To come to this post and the responses you received, you clearly have a lot of friends if Mr Joyce was so threatened by people tweeting him on your behalf (not that you ever asked anyone too, there are just so many people who can see how talented you are and are furious at the current state of affairs where the privileged think that they are owed the moon without having to say thank you).
I am confused by the slander (or should it be libel as it’s written, again I’d have thought a journalist would know the difference), you have stated fact and have evidence. To call you “insane”, having a crush, needing to be hospitalised, etc seems to be far more libelous to me.
I’m also concerned that Mr Joyce does not want to have people contact him on Twitter. I can understand under the current climate about shouting back, but the tweets I have seen have been polite questions so no form of abuse, if he cannot handle polite questions it brings into question how he handles being an MP.
I could go on but I know there is a word limit for comments. Just know you are not alone or insane, despite their attempts at gaslighting you.
J
To clarify, Eric Joyce and I had been exchanging friendly emails/tweets and the occasional phone call for over a year. I doubt Knight has read all of Joyce’s communications to me and I doubt she was listening in on the phone calls.
We were friendly. We had fun talking. And that’s all. He was rather flirty with me at first, but I suspect he’s like that to women in general so I didn’t think much of it.
Knight’s depiction of myself as some sad, desperate woman pining away is simply odd.
Being asked to say ‘thank you’ and give acknowledgement for a gift that took 5 months of skilled work to make is a basic expectation of common decency. That this fuckwit man feels entitled to belittle Hajdin after partaking of her artisan work is a massive insult. He deserves nothing but contempt until he apologises for his behaviour and lets her know what has become of the painting.
India, your petty insecurity about this being about a woman crushing on your dipshit yob of a bloke is hilarious, and you are an embarrassment. That your snivelling turd boyfriend would rather delete his entire presence on Twitter than simply acknowledge his receipt of a labour-intensive gift – presumably an attempt to garner sympathy and cultivate the impression of being victimised – speaks only to what a pathetic disgrace he is. You both ought to take a long, hard look at yourfuckingselves.
I appreciate everyone’s support, but could we try to phrase our comments respectfully?
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/londoners-diary/india-knight-throws-a-tantrum-in-defence-of-her-man-eric-joyce-8749938.html It’s in the UK newspapers.
Thanks for the link.
Updated this to show the artwork that was sent was not a portrait.
God. India Knight makes everything right about the “Go Home you Illegal Pakis” racist Home Office vans. What a vile nasty piece of work. Your humanity and graciousness shows her and her alcoholic “partner” up. just be grateful, you are not HER.
Thank you for your kind words. They are much appreciated.
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