A lesson that a journalist friend of mine gave me lately was that silence does count as a response. On the face of it, this sounds bizarre. How is saying nothing a reply?

It’s simple. Keeping quiet about something is a choice. If I ask you a question, you can choose whether to answer it or not. You can also choose your own words and your own content for your reply. Either way, silence is still a response – and often a very telling one.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Terrence Parker sharing a fundraiser for his favourite French club, Djoon. This got on my nerves, because I know that Parker owes money to people for gigs that he’s been booked for, but not turned up to do. So I decided to ask a question – has he paid back his debtors yet?

He was contacted ahead of publication, like many of the people written about on this blog are. He didn’t reply. I note, however, that he chose to block the Amateur At Play’s House Twitter account. And all this counts as Parker’s response.

Instead of denying the allegations or confirming them, he’s chosen to ignore them. That makes him a pretty unworthy person, in my opinion – and makes it more likely he’ll get written about again in the future.

His response competes unfavourably with Sugababes member Mutya Buena, who complained about a post s few weeks ago. Did her response answer my criticism in any way? Nope. But we had a discussion about it. She had the courage to approach me on the subject. Parker ducked the chance.

But as society reopens again as this pandemic starts to recede, these questions will only get louder and louder if he tries the same tricks again. And I’ll be there watching…