London woman's e-mail sent to millions like a virus

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Wired News, 12/15/2000 15:02

She'll Go Down in History

The famous British tabloid press has tracked down a London woman whose lewd e-mail exchange with a boyfriend was circulated to millions around the world like a virus.

Claire Swire, who's explicit exchange in a private e-mail flooded into millions of inboxes around the world, is to be featured on British television Friday night and has reportedly sold her story to the Mail on Sunday.

The Londoner gained national notoriety this week when an e-mail exchange with her boyfriend about oral sex was forwarded by her boyfriend to some of his male friends.

Within minutes, the friends had forwarded it to their friends, and within hours the exchange had spread across the globe.

The Register, which picked up the story first, published details of the exchange but found it too hard to swallow and concluded it was a hoax.

But the episode made the front pages of many of Britain's newspapers on Friday, including the Guardian, the Times and the BBC, and Claire Swire shot to fame.

Hoax or not, her boyfriend, Bradley Chiat, may be canned on Monday. His employers, Norton Rose, a posh law firm, takes a dim view of obscene, non-work-related e-mail -- and presumably, the unwanted attention of the international press.



-- Tidbit (of@the.day), December 19, 2000

Answers



-- (_@_._), December 19, 2000.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-52505,00.html

SATURDAY DECEMBER 16 2000 Celebrity beckons for author of saucy e-mail BY SAM LISTER CLAIRE SWIRE, the author of a salacious e-mail that ended up being forwarded around the world, could make a small fortune from her notoriety. In the past week Ms Swire has become an obsession for millions of Internet users who read her online message to her boyfriend, Bradley Chait, referring explicitly to a sex act. Ms Swire has subsequently been the subject of Internet hunts by people keen to track her down and the web address www.claireswire.net has been snapped up. The astonishing scale of the search was highlighted by the online trading company OpticianX, whose customer relations manager has the same name as Ms Swire. Its website was visited more than 70,000 times yesterday compared with its normal 500 hits a day. Unable to resist publicising his prowess, Mr Chait, a City lawyer, had sent the e-mail to six colleagues at the legal firm Norton Rose. The company, one of the largest law firms in the world, is investigating five employees who were “active participants” in forwarding the message. Mr Chait, 27, and four fellow lawyers -- believed to be Edward Drummond, Claire Faulkner, David Ferri and Joel Hames -- face possible disciplinary action. Within hours the e-mail had travelled around London and was titillating readers across the globe. The men's magazine Loaded has expressed an interest in signing up Ms Swire, 26, for a photo shoot or as an agony aunt or “sex columnist”. Danny Plunkett, the features editor, said that she could bring more readers to the magazine. Max Clifford, the public relations consultant, said: “From her e-mail she sounds fun and lively. She clearly knows her own mind. “It depends on her attitude, but if she comes across as an independent person with some interesting and original views on sex and relationships in the office, which she seems to have, you are talking about tens of thousands of pounds.” Mr Clifford added that the key to Ms Swire's marketing potential lay in the fact that she had been more a victim of circumstance than a self-publicist. “Her misfortune really could be the launching pad to all kinds of things, especially because she sounds like she has a sense of humour as well.” “If she is capable of being that frank in public then she would be perfect. If she wants to do a photo shoot there might well be a chance of that,” Mr Clifford said. Ms Swire was last seen at her parents' £3 million farmhouse at Blackboys, East Sussex. Her parents, Glen and Caroline Swire, were surprised by the fascination over their daughter. Mr Swire, a director of Vinehall preparatory school, near Robertsbridge, East Sussex, said: “We can't believe how much interest this thing has caused.”

-- Tidbit (of@the.day), December 19, 2000.


Ol' Claire must be one of the 'nice people'......;-)

Gotta love her spunk!

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), December 19, 2000.


Gotta love her spunk!

Hah!

Apparently she liked her boyfriends spunk even better!

-- nonehere (none@to.give.net), December 19, 2000.


2 Q's:

Is claire swire related to diane squire?

"she'll go down in history" & "The Register, which picked up the story first, published details of the exchange but found it too hard to swallow..."

Uh, do you think they could have picked worse wording for that?

-- (foo@foo.bar), December 19, 2000.



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