The Customer Is Always Right

Some people just have no manners:

I wrote to support my government thusly:

Dear Home Office,

I see the detainees were creating a bit of a stink in the Harmondsworth detention centre last night. I am writing to say that I find the whole situation to be absolutely disgusting. How dare these people, many of whom I’m reliably informed can’t even speak English, come over here unannounced and start creating such a ruckus?

I paint a purely hypothetical scenario. Imagine, if you will, going to visit your cousin for the day. You have a pleasant enough time, despite the fact they cook as if they had a personal grudge against food, and then you drive home. As you park your Volvo in the driveway and get out, you notice that your cousin has strapped himself to the roof rack while your attention was diverted retuning the car stereo to Radio 4 from whatever benighted racket your nephew had selected. Said cousin hops down off the car, and demands you put him up for a few days until he finds somewhere else to live. You’d be livid, wouldn’t you? I was, or rather would be, certainly.

Nevertheless, you put him up for the night in the spare room. And what do you find when you wake the next day? He has sprayed the walls with his own (presumably) faeces and set fire to the bed. Well that is hardly the behaviour of a good houseguest now is it? And you would be well within your rights to send him packing with a flea in his ear and a dry-cleaning bill in his pocket.

Now this is the same situation we find ourselves in with Harmondsworth. Granted, my cousin is unlikely to be fleeing from religious oppression, death threats or ethnic cleansing (although he does live in Croydon), but I think the analogy holds. I don’t feel that just because these people fear all manner of human rights abuses in their own country that excuses bad manners. Okay, they might fear false imprisonment (In their own country, not here. We’re merely detaining them. Totally different thing you understand) but is committing suicide going to help things? Of course not.

And so what if some of the guards take a firm line with their charges? Okay, not wanting to live in poverty and fear doesn’t make a detainee a criminal but you can see how the guards get a bit confused. And who could criticise a prison (or rather, detention centre) guard from giving prisoners (or rather detainees) the occasional slap? Not I.

I do think there is a possible solution, if you’d like to hear it. I read an article today about the RSPB.

( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6191410.stm )

I’m now an ex-twitcher myself, after all that silly business with the nurses’ home. I was watching the top floor of their accommodation because it had a stork on. I said this to the police when they arrived but I fear they may have misheard. Anyway, I hear the RSPB have bought a sizeable plot of land in Poland because some sort of rare bird lives there. My wife feels it’s a shame that the £400,000 spent by the RSPB (from public donations) couldn’t be spent on providing a better life for human beings but she’s a sentimental sort that way.

According to my like-minded friends and the newspaper I take, most of these immigrant sorts are from that neck of the woods, or as near as makes no difference (Ukraine or what have you). Why not use this apparently very pretty piece of land to release the immigrants back into their natural environment? I’m sure they’d love it there. Now I’m not going so far as to suggest turning it into some sort of human safari park to ensure it stays self-funding. That’s hardly my job. But I would merely ask you bear it in mind.

Anyway, keep up the good work arresting terrorists and what have you. And don’t let people get you down. You can’t be right all the time.

Yours etc.

It’s always good to see our betters thinking up new ways to tell us how to behave ourselves properly. If only we listened to them a bit more often and stopped asking impertinent questions, this country would be in a far better state. Tory leader David Cameron recently launched just such a scheme:

and to congratulate him I wrote thusly:

Dear Mr Cameron,

Your campaign urging people to ignore ‘tossers’ is an excellent idea. No doubt that balding smart-alec on Have We Got The News For You will turn this around, saying something snide like “Well if everyone does that, Cameron will never be prime minister”. Then whoever is hosting the wretched show (Kate Thornton or some such) will give him two points. If they dislike politics so much, why do they keep going on about it?

Anyway, I have instituted the scheme in my own house with admittedly mixed results. My nephew insisted on having a broad band for his computer. Apparently this makes sending emails quicker or something. As I occasionally use his computer to look up special interest web sites which need not concern us here, I decided to agree. But after seeing how much it costs each month I decided to cancel the broad band to my nephew’s computer. So already we have one less tosser in our house.

Next up was my mother, who has moved in with us due to her inability to do most everyday tasks – such as cooking, cleaning (herself or her environs) or talking to ethnic minorities without offending them. Spurred on by your campaign as well as the recent campaign by our energy supplier, I have switched the central heating off and removed the dial to the thermostat. My mother used to have this place like Korea, where I was stationed while in the army. Although there isn’t a brothel quite so close to our house as there was to the barracks. At least I don’t think there is.

Mother has screamed blue murder over this, asking if I want her to die of hypothermia. I don’t think it’s fair to ask such leading questions, but I politely ignored her and tossed her another blanket. She was always simultaneously blathering on about the good old days AND how hard she had it as a child. Well she doesn’t seem to be enjoying it now.

Next was the toughest nut to crack – my wife. Every day I count my blessings for having such a wonderful creature in my life but there are days when I envy Helen Keller’s other half. She told me in no uncertain terms that her toiletries, bus fare to her book club and so on did not count as luxuries. I explained your campaign to her but all I got was a lengthy tirade along the lines of “It reeks of rank hypocrisy that a Tory leader should tell us not to get into debt when his party, when it was in power, sold off every asset the country had and still drove the economy to the brink of collapse”.

Women and politics really don’t mix, do they? Apart from Baroness Thatcher, obviously, although I’m not sure she counts. To get away from the constant complaining in my household I and a few like-minded friends have booked a few days holiday in Amsterdam. Apparently there’s some late-night ping-pong tournament one of the chaps wants to see.

Anyway, keep up the good work, whatever it is you do and good luck for the elections.

Yours etc.

Those nice people at the Tory Party replied to my letter, as shown below:

Dear Mr -------,

Thank you for emailing David Cameron – I am replying on his behalf.

Thank you for your feedback on the Sort-it campaign. This is about doing rather than just talking. The sort-it campaign is not a political campaign. It’s about getting people to think about their own social responsibilities.

We don’t believe that in Opposition all you can do is talk about what you might do in Government. That’s why we’ve developed the Young Adult Trust; that’s why Conservative candidates are creating their own local social action projects around the country; and that’s why we’ve launched the sort-it campaign.

Thank you again for your email,

Yours sincerely,

David Beal
Correspondence Secretary
David Cameron's Office
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA
www.conservatives.com

Nice to see my support is appreciated and I let them know as much by writing thusly:

Dear Mr Beal,
Thank you for getting back to me. I just want to let you know that the economy drive in our house is now in full swing. As you say, campaigns are about doing rather than just talking and if your party are ever allowed to run this country again, I’m sure you’ll do a lot to it.

Our family have completely jettisoned any unnecessary spending. We now shop at Kwik Save and while it does resemble a Jeremy Kyle special on supermarkets, they do have some remarkable bargains. My wretched nephew complains that the value soap powder (99p for 5 kilos – imagine that!) has caused his eczema to flare up to the point he looks like a sunburnt Simon Weston. But we all have to make our sacrifices. I, for instance, am having to survive on Gordon’s gin and generic tonic water, rather than my usual Tanqueray and Schweppes. But do I complain? Well after a few of them I have been known to berate my wife slightly, but not often. My wife seldom talks to me these days, anyway, which is a blessing in disguise if truth be known. Our new brand of shampoo is very cheap but it does make her look like one of the Jackson Five.

And of course my mother is taking all of this very hard. In order to instil a bit of the Blitz spirit into her I’ve moved her out to the garden shed (or ‘Anderson Shelter’ as we now call it) with a crash helmet and a box of egg powder. I think it’s worked as I haven’t heard her complain since (although that could be down to the double glazing).

I wondered how you chaps are managing with cost cutting? I read somewhere that your party is thirty million pounds in debt, which seems odd especially given the 66% pay rise you recently awarded yourself. Although I suppose it’s harder to get the old brown envelopes stuffed with cash when you’ve no peerages to offer. Perhaps you need to do some cost-cutting yourself? You haven’t got nearly as many MP’s as you used to, so perhaps you could scale down your operation a bit? Just a thought.

Anyway, keep plugging away at the politics. You’ve come on in leaps and bounds over the last few months and I’m confident you’ll soon get the hang of it.

Yours, etc.

I’ve always felt that my forthright views should be used in the political arena and the response below shows that I’ve always been right. It’s good to see they’re listening to the man in the street (Not tramps, obviously, unless they were formulating a policy on falling over or vomit.) I’m now clearly part of their wider think tank. Expect some sensible policy changes from the Tory party in the near future, as long as they continue to take my suggestions on board.

Dear Mr ______,

Thank you for your response - which has been noted.

Yours sincerely,

Alice Sheffield
David Cameron's Office
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA

Having watched a lot of daytime television recently, I couldn’t help notice a rather nice new scheme for what seems like money for jam. I took down the details of one such company in on this ruse and wrote to them thusly:

Dear Accident Compensation People

First of all, I like your name. A bit like The Village People without all that ‘other’ unpleasantness.

For many years, I have had accidents that were not my fault. Indeed, I used to be of the opinion that accidents were, by their very nature, unpleasant occurrences to which no blame could be attached. Otherwise they wouldn’t be accidents. They’d be caused by maliciousness, incompetence, etc.

But looking on your website and seeing the amount of money that can be gleaned from a clearly cash-rich criminal justice system (At £27,500 for severe wrist injury I feel my nephew is mere months away from finally earning his keep) I see I was wrong.

It actually makes my blood boil (Could I claim for that? Just a thought) that moaning do-gooders have the gall to complain about lack of funds for prison space, rehabilitation programs, probation services etc. when there’s all this money floating around to give to the clumsy and inattentive.

Anyway, my family have had a number of accidents recently and I wanted to know where we’ll be going on holiday this year as a result. First there was the incident with the television last month. Since my mother came to live with us we have had to have the central heating permanently on full. As I had the house to myself, I decided to watch a program on Channel 5 which I thought was about physics called ‘Blue Heat’. The house was unbearably hot so I decided to disrobe. As the credits rolled, it quickly became clear that this film was not, at least ostensibly, concerned with physics. Unless laboratory dress requirements now include stockings and very little else. I dropped the remote control into my lap in shock and was fumbling to retrieve it when my wife returned from her book club.

This perfectly innocent situation was taken in completely the wrong way by my wife and she threw the book she was reading at me. It’s still a matter of regret that they’d recently chosen A Suitable Boy. Two weeks earlier and a slim collection of Sylvia Plath would not have done half as much damage. She is a remarkably good aim when angry and I received a contusion to the forehead and severe dizziness. I also caught a cold sleeping in the shed for a few days. What would be the going rate for something like that, which anybody can see was in no way my fault?

Also, as a quick sideline, I would mention that my mother is sadly no longer queen of her toilet habits and the mop has been pressed into service like never before. Our detergent bill has gone through the roof. Any chance of a quick payoff for that?

I look forward to hearing from you with a cheque ready for me.

Yours etc.

My nephew continues to be the bane of my life. But by chance I read an article in the newspaper about an organisation that might just be the ones to get him back on the right path. And out of his bedroom, hopefully. I therefore wrote to them thusly:

Dear Scientologists,

I am writing on behalf of my nephew. He is, I am saddened to say, the kind of youth that only the lack of National Service can produce. His indolence is matched only by his questionable body odour.

I became aware of your club after reading in the newspaper that one of your members – Tom Cruise – had just had a Scientology wedding. Now this seemed like the kind of chap I would wish my nephew to grow up into. Well-scrubbed, polite, level-headed, trenchantly heterosexual. And his wife seems like an absolute treasure. Too many women these days feel the need to challenge their spouse at every turn. Even my own wife moved to her mother’s for a week after an unfortunate misunderstanding involving a photocopier and a secretary some years ago. But Kelly Holmes seems like a more old-fashioned sort. The way she stands slightly behind Tom to make him look taller points to that, I feel.

My nephew’s upbringing has been a rocky one. His mother, my sister, is not a well woman. Nor indeed are the three people who were unfortunate enough to be in the local takeaway when she ran in there with that sword. She currently resides in a secure hospital where the most dangerous weapon she’s allowed near is a plastic spoon. Actually, if you’ve any suggestions for a good psychiatrist, I’d love to hear them.

So I have taken the parental reins (His father left town the day he was born. Taking his love of the pop group The Temptations a little far, I feel.) And while I’ve tried to do my best for the lad, I can’t help but feel that a morally responsible outside influence will help him to fly straight, do right, and at the very least turn down that infernal racket on his stereogram.

How would I go about joining him up with your club? Is there some sort of membership fee involved? And I think he might be a little resistant to the idea of joining up, but a couple of the wife’s valium in his Ribena might stupefy him enough so we can bundle him down to your offices.

Anyway, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours etc.

My nephew is always getting me into trouble and this recent news story:

made me fear he’d done it again. I decided to nip things in the bud and wrote to the Bono thusly:

Dear The Bono,

Let me start by saying that I, personally, am not a fan of your music. The last pop group to really get my foot tapping were Lieutenant Pigeon and everything since then has been a shower of potty-mouthed poetry and a demonstration of falling standards in education, especially amongst music teachers.

However, your recent tussle with your former ‘stylist’ and the personal items she stole gave me cause for concern. Over and above the concern that a grown man who professes to be heterosexual would actually employ a stylist, obviously. While we are on the subject, may I ask how this stylist actually earned her weekly stipend? Photos of you and the other chaps seem largely to feature denim jeans and a t shirt. If this is style then I would consider doing the job myself, if it wasn’t a job for women and ‘those’ types.

Anyway, the reason for my missive is as follows. My nephew attended a pop concert at which you performed a few years ago. While I would not normally allow him to attend such a den of drugs, licentiousness and socialism, my amazement at him actually motivating himself to leave his room swayed my decision.

Upon his return from the concert, he was clutching a drum stick which your percussionist had flung into the auditorium. I’m a forgiving man and will overlook the fact that he could have had somebody’s eye out. My nephew caught said drumstick and was proud as punch. It still has pride of place in his room next to an odd-looking rubber item some lady called Marilyn Manson threw at him during another concert.

My worry is falling foul of litigation. I fear that your percussionist might have tossed away the drum stick in a fit of pique after having to spend all night sat behind the rest of you and is now regretting the decision. He might, in short, want the thing back. If so, do please let me know and I will post it to you forthwith to pass on to your percussionist. Let us not drag this through the courts.

By the way, sterling work you’re doing to highlight the lives of the hungry, the poor and the sick around the world. Those films really are quite moving. If they don’t show this country’s youth what happens to you if you don’t pull your finger out and do a hard day’s graft, then I don’t know what will. We need more people like you. It’s not been the same since Norman Tebbit went a bit mad.

Yours etc.

Crime, it seems, is everywhere. One can barely walk to the shops to buy a special interest magazine without being raped in the face by a crack burglar. The Big Issue offices in Bristol are the latest victims:

and as a gesture of support I wrote to them thusly:

Dear Big Issue,

I was saddened to hear of the theft of money from your Bristol office. It seems that nobody is safe from the darker elements of society these days. I myself have been a victim of just such a crime, as the fifty pounds I had saved for the annual Bridge Club Christmas jamboree was stolen from the tankard above the fireplace.

I asked my nephew, who lives with us for various reasons I shan’t bore you with now, whether he knew anything about it and I must say his lack of sympathy turned my stomach. The whole time he just sat there, giggling and trying to introduce the prettiness of the wallpaper into the conversation. It’s a basic Laura Ashley print, nice enough I suppose, but hardly germane to the theft of my money. He then went on to hum a few bars some godawful Bob Dylan song – about tambourines or some such piffle – while I tried to question him.

The interrogation of my nephew was cut short when he marched off to the kitchen, loaded himself up with snacks and disappeared to his room. So whether he knows anything about the disappearance of my money, I’ll never establish. If his mother was still capable of looking after him, I think she’d have something to say about his attitude recently. Not to mention the odd smells emanating from his bedroom.

Anyway, I hope the investigation into the theft is proceeding well. I myself have never read your magazine. I hope you will not take this as too much of a criticism, but I find the shabby demeanour of your vendors somewhat off-putting. Many of them have not even bothered to shave before turning up for work.

I do believe that a man is innocent until proven guilty. The only exception to this (apart from paedophiles, of course) was my father during WWII. Although he died without a criminal record, I think the broadcasts he made to Germany would cast him as guilty in many people’s eyes.

But a man’s innocence is sacrosanct until proven otherwise. However, might I make a suggestion to both you and the local constabulary? Many of your vendors are drug addicts, layabouts, dropouts and, let’s not mince our words here – riffraff. If I were heading the investigation, I’d certainly know where to start. I’ll say no more.

Yours etc.

I’ve a lot of time for anyone with a bit of front, and Mayor Ken Livingstone showed this in spades recently:

For that reason, I wrote to him thusly:

Dear Mayor,

I see that you recently went on a little jaunt to Cuba. It’s a place I’ve always wished to visit myself, as I’m a keen cigar smoker and have no problem at all if my waitress is wearing less than a nudist does in the shower.

Sadly, as a retired gentleman I have no employers with which to swing such a cushy jaunt. I always think the mark of a good politician is to be able to keep a straight face when saying something patently ludicrous and your reason for travelling halfway around the world at London’s expense – to see how we could win a medal in basketball – was a stroke of genius.

Well done you. How you managed not to burst into laughter when submitting that expense form shows what a shrewd man you are. For instance, I see the Ukraine won almost as many medals as Cuba but who wants to visit a series of tractor factories in the freezing cold? Not me and, it seems, not you either.

You said we can learn a lot from Cuba’s Olympic achievements as their youths seem more engaged in sports at an early age. Would that my nephew, a lazy hound whose idea of physical exercise is reaching to the top shelf of newsagent racks (I’ve warned him he’ll go blind. Although then he could enter the Special Olympics I suppose) would be so engaged.

I do wish that my nephew lived in a temperate climate more suited to outdoor activity. And sadly, living in a democracy with free access to information, no restriction of movement, etc. tends to make his mind wander, unlike his Cuban counterparts. Still, best to fly all the way to Cuba to find that out, I suppose.

We can learn more from Cuba than just sporting prowess, and I’m not just talking about the way the lady’s bottoms seem to swivel as if trying to escape their hips. I’m talking about the country’s fine attitude toward what can only be called bolshiness.

Castro got the ball rolling early, executing 500 chaps of the old regime, which I’m sad to say makes your reign in the Town Hall look a little tame in comparison, Mayor. He also popped a clever little clause in the constitution (Article 62) which basically stops the newspapers getting ideas above their station. Imagine, you’d be able to call reporters Nazis, wife-beaters, paedos or (even worse) communists without the slightest worry of getting into trouble.

And they also craftily refuse entry to the Amnesty/Red Cross mob to stop them poking around their jails for political prisoners. I know with your congestion charge you’re trying to discourage people from coming into central London, but I do feel you could learn a lesson from Mr Castro on keeping out ‘undesirables’.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I understand Mauritius once entered a swimmer into the Olympics. Why not pop over there and have a chat to see how he did?

Yours etc.

My new best friend Ken Livingstone continues his ‘fact-finding’ (such a catch-all phrase, I feel) mission in South America and yet again, the media try to find something seedy in it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6124998.stm
I felt he needed some support and therefore wrote thusly:

Dear Mayor,

Excellent work, sir! As my previous message suggested, I thought getting a freebie trip to Cuba was a masterstroke. During my 40 years working in the security business, the only trip I managed to wangle was a two-day conference in Hull discussing walkie-talkies. And the whole mix-up with the hotel (they somehow managed to mix some women’s laundry in with mine – long story) made the whole thing not worth the journey when I got home. I still have the scar above my left eyebrow. My wife is an excellent woman but quick to temper.

Anyway, I see that your sojourn around Cuba (Did you pick up any cigars? Not a word to customs, eh?) was merely a stop-off on your way to Venezuela to pick up some cheap oil. Having had to pander to my wife’s latest fad for using olive oil in everything (I blame the Oliver boy – she positively worships him.) I know just how expensive the stuff can be. Although I can’t imagine travelling to South America would work out cheaper than Sainsbury’s, unless you’re buying it in bulk.

Such a shame that Chavez feller couldn’t take the time to meet up with you, though. Especially as he was apparently quite a keen baseball player as a lad. Maybe you could have asked him how we could win an Olympic medal in that, too. Always best on these beanos to make it look like they’re getting their money’s worth, I feel.

I see Chavez calls you his ‘new best friend’, although if my friend had travelled halfway across the world to see me I’d at least have had a pint of bitter with him. But you two are friends and with so much in common, I can see why. As you no doubt know, Chavez attempted a failed military coup in 1992 and eventually had to cosy up to the government he’d previously professed to hating. Doesn’t take a genius to see parallels to your own life, eh Mayor?

And he’s had more than his fair share of assassination attempts, much like the media’s repeated attempts to stop you saying whatever you damn well please. It’s a shame you can’t enact the law Chavez has, which can put a public figure in jail for three years if they publicly insult him. Half of Westminster would be deserted if you did!

And I’m sure you can sympathise with the widespread rumours of corruption during his presidency. Like in March 2002 when you just happened to employ those six chaps at inflated wages that may, possibly, have helped you get re-elected. People can read so much into the simplest of actions, can’t they?

It’s interesting that Chavez is prepared to flog you a lot of cheap oil, given that at the 2005 UN summit he said “"we are facing an unprecedented energy crisis.... Oil is starting to become exhausted." No wonder, if you’re buying it all, eh Mayor? Still, you are providing him with all your expert knowledge on how to run a public transport system. I’m sure I echo the sentiments of many Londoners when I say that you certainly know how to run a mass transit system fit for a third-world country.

Yours etc.

Ken Livingstone has returned from his fortnight’s beano so I thought I would drop him a line upon his return. The press just won’t let this one go:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6145382.stm
so as a proud London resident I sent further words of support by writing to him thusly:
Dear Mayor,

Welcome back to London! I do hope your journey home was a comfortable one. In fact, at a cost of £7200 per person for a fortnight’s holiday (sorry, fact-finding) I’d be amazed if your journey home was not a comfortable one. At that price I’d want my pillow fluffed every five minutes, a jolly good foot massage and maybe even a ten minute get-together with a stewardess in the toilets.

Seriously though, Mayor, I do worry that your travel agent saw you coming. A quick phone call to Thomas Cook tells me that you can get an all-inclusive fortnight with them for under five hundred quid. I have a like-minded friend who runs a travel agency and I’d be more than happy to pass on his details to you if you’d like. Fair enough, it’s us rather than you that foots the bill, but it must still smart when you have to hand over the cheque.

I see the press is getting on your back again about this charabanc, but I do hope that this won’t cause you to try and wangle another jolly out of the bosses. I know how tempting that would be – after all, the Australians are rather good at sports and a fact-finding mission that just happened to coincide with the Ashes would really hit the spot. But I must not put ideas in your head! I think the ideas already in your head are more than enough to be going on with.

At the end of the day, you were invited to Cuba by Lord Moynihan. And it would be disrespectful of you to turn down an invite from such a prominent Tory peer. You may have been political enemies in the past but that’s all water under the bridge. Or Atlantic under the First Class compartment, if you prefer.

Many have questioned the value of your trip, merely because no senior delegates from either country could actually bother to come and see you and the proposed oil deal fell through. £32,000 to watch some chaps play basketball and have a quick mooch around Venezuela is hardly the best use of mayoral funds, they say. Especially in a city with a chronic drug, gun, homelessness, knife, infrastructure and crime problem. But you really shouldn’t be worrying about those sort of things because that’s hardly your job now, is it?

I do wish the press would leave you alone to carry out your mayoral duties – being driven in a car with a flag on it, cutting ribbons outside new buildings and wearing a large gold chain. And long may you continue to do so.

Yours etc.