The Customer Is Always Right

A Place In The Sun Writes To Customer Service

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 12:09:32 +0100

Excellent news! The good people at A Place In The Sun want me to appear in their show. I received the following email from the unfortunately-named Mr Fico:

Dear ***,

Thanks for getting in touch with the show and for your very interesting
email!

Unfortunately, at the risk of disappointing you, "A Place In The Sun"
has not yet been re-commissioned by channel 4 for 2007, and is
therefore currently not looking for househunters.

However, should you be interested, our popular show “A Place in the
Sun-Home or Away” has been recommissioned by Channel 4 for a fourth
series and we are therefore currently looking for househunters
interested in buying in various locations across Europe.

In case you haven't seen it 'A Place in the Sun-Home or Away' is for
people who are looking to either relocate or buy a holiday home but are
torn between buying in the U.K or on the continent.

I've attached an application form for 'A Place in the Sun-Home-Away'
below in case you are interested. If you wish to be considered for this
programme please complete this form and return a.s.a.p. (if possible
please attach pictures of yourselves and your current house.)
Please note that only people who are torn between buying in the UK
and/or abroad will be considered.

If you are caught in just such a dilemma I look forward to reading why
you deserve the opportunity to appear on the show and to benefit from
the service provided by our team of expert foreign property
researchers!

Should you need to ask any questions please do not hesitate to contact
me via the details below.

I await your response in due course.

Kind regards,
Etc.

I got to work on the application form straight away as this looks like my chance to be free to pursue my other interests with likeminded friends without the noise of nagging, pop music or racial slurs. I have laid out my answers to the team below. I cannot fail to be chosen, I feel. After the usual personal questions (address & whatnot) the form continues thusly:

Relationship (husband and wife, friends…)
This is all rather academic as my intentions are to leave my family in the bosom of the state when I move abroad. I have other bosoms to concentrate on now. My likeminded friends will, I’m sure, be paying me visits in my Amsterdam property. I’ll charge competitive room rates and more importantly, I’ll clean up afterwards without asking questions.

Where and when did you meet?
We met at a protest march in Trafalgar Square re that whole Vietnam business. I remember the first time I saw her, jabbing a placard in my face and screaming the word “Pig” at me. I was volunteering for the police at the time. They kindly let me have a go at the water cannon and my future wife got 100lbs/psi of H2O right in the temple. I caught up with her by one of the lions. I asked her out for some tea & toast and she rather dazedly accepted. The rest, as they say, is history.

Names and ages of any children
My daughters no longer live at home. One of them is rather feeble minded, sadly, and so has had to enter a secure place where screaming, heavy medication and drab clothing are the order of the day. The other moved to Australia so she’s in much the same situation.

Hobbies and interests
I have many activities which occupy me throughout the day. I’d rather not go into them here if that’s okay. What a man does in the privacy of his own bathroom when everyone else is out of the house and the door is securely locked is, I feel, his own business.

Why are you planning to make a move? (eg. Holiday home, relocation, investment)
I need to be in a place where a man like myself freely pursue his hobbies. Or if not freely, then at a pre-agreed fee.

Are you looking for one property in either location or one in each?
Just the one in Amsterdam, thanks. As I say I’ve been paying my stamp for years so I think it’s time the government chipped in with somewhere to live for my family.

Please tell us about your dilemma and why you are torn between the UK and abroad?
To be brutally frank, there’s no dilemma for me at all. My heart belongs to the coffee houses, canals and a woman called Svenka of Amsterdam. But if it’ll make for better television I’m willing to scratch my head & dither a bit for the cameras.

Please tell us who prefers what and why?
UK: My wife, nephew and mother. I think they prefer the UK because they currently have somewhere to live there. All that’s about to change, but mum’s the word, eh?

Abroad: Me. Although I’d prefer it if you didn’t call Svenka “A broad.”

Where would you want to look at properties in the UK?
Well if we have to go through the whole charade I suppose we could have a shufty around Knightsbridge. Maybe the wife could do a bit of shopping while she still has the chance.

Why have you chosen those areas?
UK: For the sake of getting on the program but I dare swear you can come up with a decent reason for the show.
ABROAD: Anyone who has strolled through the bustling streets of Amsterdam at midnight, a relaxing cigarette in one hand and a Lithuanian buttock in the other, would know the answer to that question.

What type of property are you looking for? (No. of beds, land required etc.)
UK: Well I don’t think we’re going to get much in Knightsbridge for the amount of money my place will get. Nowhere with stairs, though. Let’s not tax ourselves, eh?

Abroad: A two-bed place overlooking the canals would be super. And if the walls are capable of holding quite heavy weights, that would be marvellous. We need not concern ourselves with why.

Are there any specific requirements for the area? (eg. Near beach, children’s facilities etc.)

Just a coffee shop, a canal and a nearby needle exchange (this is at Svenka’s request. She must be a keen knitter, I suppose.)

What efforts have you already made to find appropriate property?

Myself and a few likeminded friends spent a wonderful few days in Amsterdam recently. We toured the area extensively (although we never did get round to visiting any galleries or museums). I now have a good working knowledge of the upper stories of Amsterdam apartments (bedroom layouts, bathroom facilities, etc.)

Are there any dates between January and October 2007 when you would be unavailable for filming? (Filming takes place over 2 separate weeks)
Any time really, but better to make it during the summer. I often go away for a fortnight with my likeminded friends for a bit of a beano so it won’t raise too much suspicion with the family if we make it July-ish.

Do you own or know anyone who own a camcorder? (in case your application form moves onto the next stage, which is the completion of a screen test)
I do. I bought a rather fine one from Dixons last year after corresponding with their sales staff.
http://customerservice.blog.co.uk/2005/12/20/customer_service_vs_dixons~402199
I’d be loathe to lose some of the footage I have on there (as the lady in question has moved away now) but needs must, I suppose.

I’ve sent the form off and now just pray I get selected. I shall let you know their response as soon as it arrives.

Comments

Customer Service Writes To A Place In The Sun

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 17:09:15 +0100

As a retired man, my afternoons are often spent watching television. This, I feel, is the best time of day for TV. The shows on offer tend to have less of the unpleasant elements that later programs insist upon. My wife, for instance, seems unable to settle down in front of the box unless there is robust language, lesbians or John Hannah in it. And if I could work out how to set the parental controls on our receiver, I believe my nephew would give up on television altogether.

One of my favourites is A Place In The Sun:

http://www.channel4.com/4homes/ontv/place_in_the_sun/index.html

It’s a delightful show based in the exciting world of property conveyance. Basically, people who are sick to the back teeth of living in Britain for whatever reasons - the weather, Tony Blair, having to live near poor people, etc. – sell their homes and live their dream life abroad.

This sounds like the kind of thing for me. I wish to appear on their show and wrote to them thusly:

Dear Program makers,

First of all I’d like to say how much I enjoy your show. I don’t normally go anywhere near Channel 4. I had enough of violence, foul language and graphic displays of homosexual buggery during my time in the army when I was posted in Korea. Although your new presenter Jasmine Harman causes the kind of stirrings I’ve not felt since New Years Eve, 1981, when my wife got drunk and dressed up as Margaret Thatcher.

Your program is a far more gentle affair than a lot of Channel 4’s offerings. I see recently that they’ve allowed some guttersnipe in a house for the express purpose of shouting abuse at an overseas actress. My mother can’t get enough of the blighted woman, complaining only that she doesn’t go far enough and should start a one-woman pogrom. My mother is my cross (extremely cross, if anyone multiracial appears on the screen) to bear.

Anyway, I would really like to appear on your show. My mind is finally made up – I’ve had enough of Britain and would like to get away as soon as possible. My house is a semi detached affair at the end of a cul-de-sac. It’s a nice area, with good neighbours. A couple of years ago we had some people move in who we suspected of being Socialists but we soon dealt with that. I shan’t bore you with the tactics we employed and anyway, I fear that this email may be admissible in court.

I have three bedrooms and a good thing too as we’re currently at full capacity. My mother has the back bedroom and her slapdash attitude toward hygiene has turned the dry rot in the floorboards into wet rot. The room being used by my nephew will need fumigating, and a service by a priest might not go amiss. The room my wife and I use, however, is in pristine condition as nothing untoward ever happens in it.

What I’m looking for is to buy somewhere central in Amsterdam. I went there recently with a group of like-minded friends and must say it was an eye-opener. I felt like a teenager again and could have had one if I hadn’t spent all my money in the nightclub we’d just visited. The range of entertainment on offer is truly breathtaking. In fact, I saw a mask in a shop window for precisely that purpose. I wouldn’t need anywhere too big – a couple of bedrooms (I intend to convert one room to a new hobby I discovered while in Amsterdam) would suffice. I would also miss not having a potting shed, if you can find somewhere with one. A lot of tourists were talking about pot so I don’t see that being a problem.

One slight concern is how discreet you chaps can be. The thing is, I’d rather we went through the whole procedure without informing the rest of my family. They will no doubt become unreasonably upset when I tell them I have no intentions of taking them with me and I’d hate to have to go through the whole rigmarole of dealing with estate agents with them on my back, serving restraining orders, etc.

I also think it would be a smashing idea if I could spend a few days in the Hoerenbuurten getting my bearings. I’ll leave it up to you to arrange hotels, accomodation, etc. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours etc.

Comments

Customer Service Writes To Carol Malone

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 16:11:48 +0100

We had some workmen in over the weekend - my wife saw to them for most of the time, to be honest, as I couldn't recall any building work we needed doing. They did seem to be unusually pleased with themselves, despite having to work weekends. My wife is in a better mood than I've seen her for some time, too.

Anyway, they left behind a copy of the Sunday Mirror, in which was a copy of the following article:

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/carolemalone/

This Malone woman seemed a nice sort so I wrote to her thusly:

Dear Malone,

I read with great interest your article in the Sunday Mirror regarding your stay in the Big Brothel house. I don't normally stoop to tabloid television, or indeed tabloid newspapers, although my nephew subscribes to a sporting newspaper that comes out on a Sunday (They seem to focus exclusively on female sport. Naked female sport, apparently).

I feel your pain in having to live in an enclosed space for ten days with no entertainment or decent food. It must have been awful. And I imagine the hundreds of thousands of people around the country in bedsits for whom, thanks to unemployment/mental health problems/etc. face the rest of their lives doing the same, shared your sense of suffering. I certainly cannot look at your photo now without thinking about something unpleasant.

In fact, the description of your plight ("endless days", "tears of frustration" "exhaustion & terror") brought to mind the detainees of Guantanemo Bay. Like you, they were whisked away at short notice, had all their possessions confiscated and were dumped into cramped, confined quarters with other people. Okay, they've been there for years apparently (your newspaper doesn't seem too bothered about the situation - although you do cover far more fun stories like the ghosts of serial killers haunting prison cells) and you knew you'd be there for at most a month. Although blocking a month out of your diary might have been optimism bordering on arrogance. And those prisoners have, by and large, done nothing wrong whereas you may have made some questionable decisions when choosing an agent. And you chaps weren't sadistically beaten every day. Maybe they're saving that for next year? Fingers crossed.

But other than that, it was startlingly similar.

It must have been frustrating when that scruffy Cliff Richard-type knocked over your bean cans, causing you to lose track of days. It's a shame I wasn't in the house, as I am able to count further than three, so the whole catastrophe could have been avoided. It's nice to hear you got on with Shilpa Shetty because to the outside observer it might have appeared that you were a cowardly sycophant content to ride along with the status quo rather than question the other housemate's disgustingly racist attitude toward her. But she gave you some shoes, so that can't be true, obviously. Some of my best friends are Indian too, you know. Well, I say friends. Neighbours, really. Well, they were until my mother moved in. Her strident rants about the Raj became too much for them in the end.

Good to see you've cleared up your differences with Jade, too. I suppose once you get to know a person, rather than making sweeping assumptions, personal attacks and a nice wedge of cash whilst hiding behind the security of a by-line, you realise they're not such a bad egg after all. Even a common, bigoted, ignorant, dead-eyed creation like Jade.

So overall I'd like to say well done to you and the other housemates. You and they have certainly opened a lot of people's eyes to a lot of issues in society - the negligible worth of fame, the hypocrisy of the media, underlying racism and how bloody awful today's pop stars are.

Yours etc.

(With enormous thanks to the following blog for info - it's a very, very funny blog and worth a visit:

http://blog.myspace.com/wivenhoefunnyfarm)

Comments

Customer Service Writes To Some Christians

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 14:03:52 +0100

There’s nothing I used to like more than a day out with a group of like-minded friends engaging in a good old-fashioned rally. The open air, the camaraderie, the bellowing at passers-by. You can see why the Germans loved them so much. So I was delighted to hear of the following rally due to take place in London:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6243323.stm

The chap running the rally works for a fine body of people called Christian Concern For Our Nation

http://www.christianconcernforournation.co.uk/sor/index.php

and I wrote to him thusly:

Dear Christians,

May I first of all wish you a happy New Year. I hope the holiday season was a good one for you. We’re only just past Christmas and already the shops are filled with Easter goodies. Marvellous. If only Jesus had done something of note in August then we’d have something to look forward to every three months.

Anyway, I’m writing to you regarding the rally you’re organising against the government’s latest plan to force normal working people like ourselves to treat people as equals. I’m sure if some of them had done a bit of time in the army, as I have, they’d realise that not all people are created equal. Communal showers have a way of revealing that, if you understand me.

I wish I could come along to the rally myself, but unfortunately I will have to stay at home. My nephew has recently started smoking in his bedroom and I worry that if he’s left alone for five minutes he’ll burn the place to the ground. Ironically my elderly mother’s lower regions currently resemble a dramatic interlude from London’s Burning, such is her vague influence over her bodily functions these days. Between them the house should be safe but I’d rather not risk it.

I’d consider bringing mother with me but to be frank, Mr Omooba, I fear that this legislation would not be the only thing that would offend you on the march if she came along. She gets worse as she gets older and her current views would make Oswald Mosely blush.

My wife has refused to look after the house so I can go to the rally, calling your opposition to it “A disgraceful throwback to values of another era that have no place in an inclusive society and further evidence that organised religions must progress to address modern society or wither away.” I really wish I could deal with her in an Old Testament fashion sometimes, but the last time I tried I was laid up in bed for three days with a bag of frozen peas in my lap.

Unlike my wife, I think you make some good points. For instance, you say that Christians would never want to be homophobic out of bigotry or prejudice. Quite right, too. I think their terrible music and that Graham Norton chap are enough reasons to be getting on with, aren’t they?

Some might see your subsequent statement, that Christians should be free to discriminate against homosexuals to show them that we (and God) are right and they are wrong, as being contradictory. Some might even argue that it goes against the whole “Hate the sin, not the sinner” forgiveness part of Christianity. But not I. If they want to flounce about the place being in love with people with the same shaped body parts, then restricting their access to services, facilities and so on and generally treating them as inferior citizens should be the minimum punishment.

You ask us to consider a poor Christian couple running a B&B being forced under law to give a room to two people whose personal behaviour is no concern of theirs whatsoever. Horrible thought, isn’t it? It seems that the sign they used to be able to hang outside gets smaller all the time. It used to be “No blacks, poofs, Irish or dogs.” Now they can only ban dogs from their premises (unless David Blunkett or one of his lot show up, obviously).

I do hope the government take up your draft exception clause,

http://www.christianconcernforournation.co.uk/sor/docs/amendment1.doc

which basically says that discrimination is bad unless you’ve read a book saying it’s okay to do so. Although I do have to suggest that if your place of business could possibly “promote, facilitate, encourage or assist the practice of a sexual orientation” then you’re probably not running a very Christian shop to begin with and are more likely to be running a knocking shop or something.

Best wishes for the rally. I hope you get all you deserve.

Yours etc.

Comments

Customer Service Puts On A Show

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:06:19 +0100

Sadly, the New Year does not find me in good spirits. Christmas was largely a dismal affair. The Queen’s Speech, normally the highlight of the day, was absolutely ruined when my mother insisted on having some form of seizure just when it was getting to the good bit about the Commonwealth. My wife was in an absolutely foul mood after the whole book token episode. And my nephew was sulking in his room after the Nintendo Wii he was expecting turned out to be a box with a note in it saying “Try using your imagination for a change”.

To make matters worse, a very close like-minded friend has got into a spot of bother with this blighted government’s immigration services. For years he’s been the absolute embodiment of the Trotsky Left’s view of environmentalism by living off the land. But as soon as he shows a bit of entrepreneurial flair when it comes to employing casual staff they turn on him. If you’ve ever bitten into a great British cabbage, the likelihood is that cabbage was grown by my friend. For years, he’s eked out an income, keeping costs down by getting them picked by the educationally subnormal, single mothers, his children and when times got really hard, he rolled up his sleeves and picked a few himself.

The recession was biting hard until the EU borders were flung open and half a million Eastern Europeans clumped into view. And rather than seeing them bullied into prostitution or turn to the evils of drug dealing or working in restaurants, he welcomed them with open arms onto his farm. He made every effort for their comfort, clearing out most of the rusting farm machinery from his barn and laying down enough straw to make the floor comfortable. He paid them a living wage, minus the fees for accommodation, food and so on. But all it took was one government busybody to poke his nose about the place and suddenly phrases like “Human rights abuses”, “Restriction of movement” and “Medieval practices” are flung about the place like plates in a Greek restaurant.

So now he’s ruined. But I intend to help him by organising a fundraising variety show. And we’re going to have some of the stuff you’re not allowed to see on TV anymore. Proper, old-fashioned variety. My friend loves Jim Davidson, the Black & White Minstrels, people hitting each other with ladders while putting up wallpaper. Things like that. I seem to remember him being quite keen on The Minipops when they were on Channel 4, too. What an extravaganza it’s going to be. I needed a venue so I emailed the Colchester Arts Centre thusly:

Dear Arts Centre,

I am writing to you to enquire how one might go about hiring your hall for an evening of variety some time later this year?

I intend it to be a charitable event, raising funds for a friend who has got himself in a little bit of bother and needs some financial assistance.

There are a few questions I need to ask about the facilities in the place before I choose your venue over the other fine venues in Essex. The Cliffs Pavilion in Southend, for instance, is hosting stars like Jethro, so I know they’re a class act, but your place is more convenient for my needs.

Any info you have on prices, availability, fire regulations, backstage bar/crèche facilities etc. would be gratefully received.

Yours etc.

Comments

Customer Service Writes To Richard Littlejohn

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 15:51:24 +0100

After all the news coverage the murders in Ipswich has been getting, it’s good to know that one person finally talks some robust sense about the whole matter. Who else but Mr Richard Littlejohn?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=423549&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=322&expand=true#StartComments

A cracking read and I decided to let him know by writing to him thusly:

Dear Little John,

I read with interest your article in The Daily Mail about those dollymops being offed in Ipswich. At last somebody has the bravery to tell the truth about the matter. Congratulations, sir – your family must be proud of the common sense, compassion and sensitivity that you have brought to the Little John name. Especially when you consider that your surname sounds like a description of a diminutive customer of one of these ‘ladies’.

As you say, being brutally murdered and left on a cold patch of waste ground, stripped of their clothes, their dignity, their hope and the chance to turn their life around is what they agreed to when they first started accepting a pittance to be manhandled by fat sweaty middle-aged men (no offence).

I only wish other businesses would take a similar line with their employees. For instance, think of how profitable the construction industry could be without all that mucking about with hard hats and harnesses. They’d look a lot less like those Village People mob, too (and I think we’re in agreement here how much we dislike ‘those’ lot).

I imagine you wouldn’t complain if your employers got rid of their health and safety department, sold their fire alarm systems for scrap and risked using hazardous computer equipment. Although I don’t think any right-minded person, on reading your column, would want to imagine you screaming in agony with hot shards of jagged monitor glass sticking out of your face. In fact, if your employers did make those savings you could be paid more than your current salary of £700,000+. Which is cracking value, if I may say. I’d rather see you get that money then, say, 45 nurses every year. What do they know about immigration? Apart from the thousands of immigrants whose hard work holds up the NHS, obviously. And okay, just like those Ipswich tarts they’re not going to find a cure for cancer. They’re only going to minister to those suffering from it. But can they write a funny article about poofs and Gipsies? I think not. Anyway, I digress.

Glad to hear you say those women were on the streets through choice. Quite right. Just like homeless people, they had the choice to live a normal, decent, Christian life and instead chose to live a life of harrowing hardship, daily brutality and a hollow lack of hope. Lord knows what got into them (many ‘experts’ suggest a member of their own family at an impressionable age). I once decided to go to Peterborough for a sales conference but I’d hardly make the kind of decisions those women made. It’s almost as if they were driven to it through a combination of a poor education system, lack of opportunity and a woefully under funded social support network. But obviously that’s not the case. They simply decided they’d quite like to live out their short life in squalid despair. Madness.

I’m interested in these massage parlours you mention. You clearly have a far greater knowledge of their whereabouts and what goes on in them than I. Would you have further details? We need not go into the reasons for me asking this.

“Disgusting, street-addled whores” is a smashing bit of writing, by the way. I’m sure their families will get a real kick out of reading that. So much more descriptive than “Daughter” or “Mother” or “Sister” or somesuch. Should your own children (Or are you a confirmed bachelor? None of my business, I suppose. Prying into private lives is more your end of things, really) end up fellating dockers for spare change, I’m sure you’ll come up with something even better.

And bravo on giving Tony Blair a swift boot at the end. I can’t begin to imagine what kind of mind you’d need to use the deaths of five women to have a pop at him, but you’ve clearly got one.

Keep up the work. With people like you in positions of journalistic power, it’s only a matter of time before this country is they way Baroness Thatcher, god rest her immortal soul (Although is she actually dead yet? I’m not sure) would want it to be.

Yours etc.

Comments

Customer Service Finds A New Friend

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 12:38:20 +0100

As the Christmas season is upon us, and goodwill is all around, I was gladdened that one of my like-minded friends was thoughtful enough to forward me a delightful poem that was apparently in the news some time ago:

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Politics/documents/2006/11/06/1106poem.pdf

As you can see, it really is hysterical. He was sent it by a lovely lady whom I shall merely refer to as Lisa. I don’t think it’s right to bandy a woman’s name about. Not that I’m implying she’s bandy, of course. I wrote to her thusly:

Dear Lisa,

I was forwarded the ditty on immigration and I must say it really brightened my day.

I was a little concerned about some of this fine work, however. I notice that many of the terms used (“welfare”, “yard”, “truck” “aliens” etc.) seem to be American in origin, leading me to believe that the poem was written by an American. I do hope we’re not celebrating the work of a foreigner here. Okay, they may look the same as us but nevertheless, they’re still invaders to these shores. Especially near Harrods.

Also, I note that you say the country is getting full. I’m sure I read somewhere that we’re the 48th most populous country in the world, Countries more densely populated than us include Grenada, Samao and Barbados, which never really struck me as concreted high-rise hellholes, to be honest. Still, you know best. I’m assuming.

I showed the poem to my wife and I have to say she was less impressed than I. She’s a rather strident woman, the kind of person who won’t even allow me to watch re-runs of “Love Thy Neighbour” in peace. She was really picky about your poem, insisting on using facts and research rather than common sense. Just listen to some of the nonsense she wrote:

“The poem states that immigrants ‘love breeding’ but there has been little change in the under-20 population since 1990 (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=716). The national statistic centre also said this:
“In Great Britain, there has been an increase in the proportion of dependent children living in lone parent families with 23 per cent of dependent children living in a lone parent family in 2001 compared with 18 per cent in 1991. Couple families were relatively most frequent among Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi headed households.”
In other words, the greatest population increase from one-parent families has come from traditionally non-ethnic households.

As for the idea that benefit-claiming is all immigrants do, this is what the National Statistic Centre found:
The proportion of working-age people living in workless households was lowest for the Indian ethnic group, at 6.8 per cent; while 11.0 per cent of those in the white ethnic group lived in a workless household.
So ‘welfare scroungers’ are more likely to be white than Indian.”

To be honest, my wife went on in this vein for some time. I switched off after a while. Jack Smethurst had just dressed up as a Zulu to scare his neighbour. He does make me laugh.

It’s good to see a strong Christian message being circulated at this time of year. What would a Muslim know about the Christian concept of charity? Apart from Zakat, one of the five pillars of the Muslim faith, obviously.

There are literally dozens of respected organisations that might accuse you of spreading racial hatred, but I’m not one of them. And if you have somebody as sensible as me on your side, you know you can’t be wrong, eh?

Merry Christmas. Peace on you all.

UPDATE:
Well Lisa really is a very keen correspondent! A reply the very same day!

Well Hello Nick & Unnamed Wife,
So the Illegal Immigrant Poem seems to doing the rounds with my name attached now

...I don't suppose you will want to share who gave you my email details? Don't bother... I think it is obvious... it must be the same person that has emailed me at least 5 times this morning (I have not responded to her at all) and emailed all my contacts without my permission at least twice and she has now threatened us all with the following...

I shall forward ANY literature (including the poem) and senders details to the University authorities and to Searchlight – an anti-racist organisation that you may find interesting.

Perhaps she wants me to reply to you instead?
You seem to be very interested in statistics... do you know what Disraeli said about Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics?
With so many illegal immigrants here how can a argument based on numbers possibly stand up to scrutiny?
My last word on the subject was as follows...
I think you are missing the point, I have repeatedly said that I and most English people are tolerant towards immigrants in real need... like your Rwandan friend or my Syrian friends who have had their families brutally murdered and who are distressed at the fact that they cannot stay in their beloved homeland
... it is the thousands of spongers who we question have the right to our council houses, our benefits, our land... especially those who are here planning to make this a muslim country by force and those here illegally who are not included in the statistics you quote... the BBC have recently showed how easy it is to get a false passport and gain entry and get all the benefits that are fast running out... !
My grandparents who fought for our freedom and paid into the NHS & Welfare Benefit system for their children and their children's children are turning in their graves!
Let's make a New Years Resolution for 2007 to wake up and call a halt to this madness.
Let me take this opportunity to wish you a Happy & Prosperous New Year for 2007.
Seasons Greetings!
Lisa ______

There followed some very interesting anecdotes, which I have edited, of people being shoved on the bus by a foreigner, an old soldier who doesn’t like seeing so many variations of skin colour on the street. Stuff like that. Most heartwarming. I replied thusly:

Dear Lisa,

Thanks for the quick reply – our type needs to stick together, don’t you feel?

Not sure if your email has been ‘doing the rounds’ (a term once used in relation to my daughter and one I’m not terribly keen on) but a like-minded friend certainly thought I’d enjoy it, yes. He attached your name to the email, I think, because your name was on it and you’d sent it. Odd behaviour, I know, but there you are.

This whole email business is a bit fraught though, don’t you think? The problem is, I feel, that people will assume that if you express very strong and, to some muddle-headed Trotskyists, outdated views in an email, that you can assume this is how you actually view things. Nonsense.

Not sure about this person who has been emailing you all the time – I can only assume her housework is done for the day. I tend not to let my wife near the computer until early evening. At least that gives me the chance to ensure the websites my nephew has been visiting don’t pop up (a rather apt term, I feel) while she’s studying for her book club. But to threaten you in that manner does seem rather harsh. Regardless of what the law, civil liberties groups and employment procedure might think.

I’m happy for you to reply to me though, obviously. Nice to hear somebody talking some sense for a change. Although I should point out it’s the wife who has an interest in statistics. She seems to think facts are the way forward to understanding society. I know, I know. Madness. I agree with Disraeli too, despite his immigrant background.

You’re right, of course, that my wife cannot use facts to support an argument – how ridiculous. We do not know how many illegal immigrants are in this country, although the Home Office seems to think it does and puts the figure at roughly 430,000. Or put another way, Sheffield. Frightening though, eh? A huge, sprawling metropolis the sheer scale of Sheffield made up of low-paid folk with virtually no access to support services? Makes the skin crawl.

Glad to hear you’re tolerant toward immigrants. I tolerate next door playing the trumpet at 8am, I tolerate my hayfever during the summer and it’s good to see you tolerate the influx of people into this country since the Romans in the same manner. It’s the spongers we need to look out for. The people who do little jobs on the side while their husband works. Things like that. Although with no figures on what proportion of fraud is caused by illegal immigrants available, we’re going to have to rely on anecdotes, which is where I usually form my opinions (unlike my fact-obsessed wife).

And it’s always best to assume that absolute worst, isn’t it? I’d rather ten needy people and one scrounger starved to death than ten needy people get benefits along with one scrounger, wouldn’t you?

So yes, let’s call a halt to the madness. We should close the borders. None shall enter. We should follow the example of two countries with the lowest rates of immigrants in the world – The Phillipines and Guyana. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Imagine our country sharing their quality of life? All that lovely hot weather, for a start.

Seasonal greetings.

Yours etc.

Comments

Customer Service Writes To Qantas

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 12:58:20 +0100

The festive season is fast approaching and soon my daughter will be flying home from Sydney with her pal Spike. I had a few concerns regarding the flight and therefore wrote to Qantas thusly:

Dear Qantas

Where’s the ‘u’ gone? I know that Australia is a long way from the headquarters of the Oxford English Dictionary, but that’s still no excuse.

Anyway, to business. My daughter will be using your airline in a couple of week’s time. She is flying from Sydney to England, along with her female flatmate and very close chum Spike. I’ve had to endure some fairly base comments down the bridge club regarding their relationship. Some people cannot see two single women sharing a one-bedroom flat without drawing unpleasant conclusions. One particular fellow wouldn’t leave it alone and it was only my pointing out that at least my daughter hasn’t died of bulimia (as his did) that caused him to desist. I feel he overreacted to that comment, personally. If you can’t take it, you shouldn’t dish it out. Although in the case of his daughter there was no point in dishing anything out as she’d only vomit it back up into a shopping bag shortly afterwards.

My daughter and Spike are coming to see us for the Christmas period and also apparently have some news they wish to tell us in person. The only clue they would give is that it involves some sort of civil ceremony. I’m delighted, as a good steady job in civil service is just the sort of thing I’d hope for my daughter.

My concern is for the pair of them on the long flight home. My daughter has always been a picky eater (not as bad as my bridge club compatriot’s daughter, admittedly) and I was pondering what she would like to eat on the flight. The suggestion my nephew made caused him to be grounded for a week. I don’t know where he gets it from, I really don’t. I wondered whether you could do a vegetarian meal for her? I think it’s a fad, personally, and I’m sure that come Christmas lunch she won’t be able to resist the traditional meat and two veg (Sadly, I also said this in earshot of my nephew. He’s not getting his Playstation back until he apologises).

On the subject of food, I wondered whether there is an excess charge for larger passengers? Spike is not a small girl and what with her numerous tattoos she resembles a blob of blu-tac rolled across a newspaper. I could ask my daughter whether Spike could possibly lay off the barbecues for the next couple of weeks if this is going to cause a problem.

Also, what with the heightened security on flights since those chaps parked their jets into the side of those buildings, I’m a little concerned about Spike & my daughter’s various piercings. Some of them look absolutely lethal and I’m worried that a jetlagged cabin crew member could mistake Spike for some sort of human limpet mine and go berserk. I’ve asked my daughter whether she could remove them for the flight but she said something about her piercings enhancing her enjoyment with Spike. So I expect they’ll spend the whole flight comparing jewellery. Girls will be girls, I suppose.

Anyway, if you could let me know about the above queries I would be eternally grateful. Good day, gobber, as you chaps would say.

Yours etc.

They don’t hang about, these airline types, and I was gratified to receive a reply quicker than you could say “Strewth. What’s that dingo got in his mouth?”

Dear Mr ________,

We refer to your below e-mail and due to your daughter's requirements we
suggest you contact our local office with your enquiries :

http://www.qantas.com.au/needhelp/dyn/contacts/teleSalesContacts

Please also note QANTAS is an acronym for Queensland and Northern Territory
Aerial Services.

In anticipation we thankyou for your feedback.

Kind regards
Qantas Network Operations

The above address led me to one of those awful call centres where one ends up listening to Mantovani played by a pocket calculator for half an hour. I much prefer the written word and so replied thusly:

Dear Qantas,

I hope you do not mind if I reply via email. I have tried using call centres in the past and have not much cared for the experience. If I wanted to listen to awful music for hours on end before conversing with an unmotivated teenager I would go and sit in my nephew’s bedroom. I’d have to brush all the socks off his bed first, though. How he gets his socks in such a state I cannot begin to imagine.

I wasn’t aware that QANTAS was an acronym. After my experience of flying with BA, which culminated in me being bundled off the plane in Belgium after accidentally brushing against the bottom of a stewardess several times, I can only assume their company name is an acronym for Bloody Awful. Excuse my language.

My daughter and Spike have informed me that they have sorted out their dietary requirements for the flight, so no need to panic. They don’t actually plan to eat on the plane, and I hope when the cabin staff are handing around the barbecued chicken and whatnot and Spike refuses, they won’t be offended. Frankly, given her stature, I think they’re more likely to be amazed.

I apologise for the biological nature of this, but apparently, the girls will be swallowing something before their flight that they don’t wish to pass until they’re in England. An unusual thing to be patriotic about, I know, but there you are.

I spoke to some like-minded friends who told me that overweight people do not incur extra freight charges, so that has eased my mind. A missed business opportunity for the US airlines, though, wouldn’t you say? And the majority of their piercings will have to be removed in order to get through the metal detector, so we can stand easy on that, too. The girls walk around with more metal in them than an Iraqi civilian running away from a US troop.

Do you have any idea what film will be showing on the flight? The girls said they’d love it if you could dig out the following: “Bound”, “Gia”, “Boys Don’t Cry” or “The Killing Of Sister George”. An odd mix, I thought, but see what you can do.

Incidentally, your cricket chaps. Not funny. Not funny in the slightest. We invented the damned game after all.

Yours etc.

Comments

Customer Service Writes To The Home Office

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 13:35:45 +0100

Some people just have no manners:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6194410.stm

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.

Comments

A Letter To David Cameron

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 12:52:39 +0100

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:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6177190.stm

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

Comments

A Letter To Accident Compensation People

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 12:38:01 +0100

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.

Comments

A letter to the Scientologists

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 15:56:38 +0100

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.

Comments

A Precautionary Letter To Bono

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:36:00 +0100

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

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6150070.stm

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.

Comments

Customer Service Writes To Big Issue

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 12:02:59 +0100

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:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/6141194.stm

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.

Comments

Customer Service Writes To Ken Livingstone

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 11:24:29 +0100

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

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6118934.stm

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.

Comments

Some Questions For Stannah Stairlifts

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:36:05 +0100

We recently had to move mother into the family home. Difficult times all round and some adjustments have to be made. To this end I wrote to Stannah Stairlifts thusly:

Dear Stannah,

I’ve always admired your adverts on the television. The site of Thora Hird whizzing up the banister brought a ray of sunshine to many an episode of ‘Countdown’, especially when they insisted on having that vile Richard Stilgoe character on the show. He’s very fond making ‘amusing’ anagrams of people’s names but is conspicuously quiet on the fact that an anagram of his own name is Corgi Shitelard.

I’m still a fit and able-bodied man myself, so for me to use your product would be an act of wilful laziness. Three years in the army taught me many things, such as how to bandage an amputated leg, how to start a fire in a swamp and how to ask “How much for both of us?” in Korean. But the main thing it taught me was that laziness is a vice.

No, I am interested in some information not for myself, but for my mother. Mother is a fiercely independent person, used to living alone. I cannot condone what she called the Nigerian Meals On Wheels woman, but it does point to her wish to look after herself. However, in recent months it has become clear that this is no longer an option.

We started noticing the unusual smell when my wife & I would visit. At first she blamed this on the new people next door but it soon became clear that this was not the fault of the Guptas (a lovely family) but my mother’s inability to use her upstairs bathroom.

Mother also used to be a formidable cook. Her bread and butter pudding was infamous throughout our family and many still believe it to have played no small hand in Uncle Mortimer’s stroke. But recently we noticed that her kitchen was awash with microwave meals and Pot Noodles. Either mother had a student lodger, we thought, or she’s not able to fend for herself. Sadly the latter turned out to be true.

So, mother now lives with us. It’s not entirely convenient, but we’re coping the best we can. And the new conservatory bought with the proceeds from selling her house cheers her up no end. Or will do, I’m sure, once she’s allowed in it. This may sound cruel but I don’t feel that parquet flooring and incontinence mix.

Anyway, to my questions about your products. Firstly, is there an upper weight limit to the apparatus? Mother is not a slight woman, and I’d hate to have your engineers around the place every five minutes, despite my wife’s feelings on this matter. Secondly, are the stairlifts terribly difficult to be tampered with? I ask merely for my own information.

I look forward to your response.

Yours etc.

Still no response from the Stannah people. I think this might put a rocket under them though. And just in time for bonfire night.

Dear Stannah,

I am disappointed by your lack of response to my perfectly reasonable questions about your products. To whit, how fat does your chosen elderly need to be before they render them unusable and how easy, or rather how difficult, is it to tinker with the mechanism?

I am a potential customer and as such you could be throwing away thousands of pounds by not furnishing me with the information needed to make a purchasing decision. If you doubt this, just ask my local bakery. Their refusal to assure me that their French fancies were not, in fact, baked by a French person has cost them dearly.

Your sluggishness has also inspired me to look at alternatives and I think I may have come up with an idea that could put you out of business. Ask yourself this – why do the seniors generally want to go upstairs? To go to bed, to do toilet duties, take a bath or maybe have a quick shufty through their photo albums and have a bit of a cry.

Now rather than having to use your (if I may say) rather ponderous ride to get upstairs, I have devised a method that is 50 times quicker, is cheaper, and uses no electricity. And we all know how much they like to have a bit of a moan about using electricity. I sometimes wonder why they don’t just whack the heating on and hang the expense. The court system is murderously slow and the chances of them still being alive when the bailiffs come is a gamble worth taking.

Anyway my system is this (and I’d shy away from plagiarism if I were you. One of my like-minded friends has every episode of “Rumpole” on video and wouldn’t hesitate to whack you with a writ.). A fireman’s pole is installed in the living room, poking up into the bedroom above. The pole has a seat attached to it. And attached to the seat are a set of counterbalanced weights. I weigh the old dear when installing to make sure it works and hope no wasting disease mucks the whole system up.

They could then whizz up and down the pole to their heart’s content. And it might make the grandchildren more likely to visit with a ride like that at granny’s house. I think it’s a winner but I can’t wait for the investment to come flooding in to use it for my own situation. So if you could answer my initial questions I would be awfully grateful.

Yours etc.

Comments

Mr Gregory Barker, MP

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 13:33:48 +0200

I was saddened to read that once more our Communist press were trying to besmirch the good name of one of out fine upstanding Tory MPs.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_headline=exclusive%2D-top-tory-dumps-wife-for-man%26method=full%26objectid=17992356%26siteid=94762-name_page.html
I wanted to offer my support and wrote to him thusly:

Dear MP Barker,

I am writing to you to offer my wholehearted support at what must be a very difficult time. I understand that you have recently parted from your wife and children and are now living the life of the gay bachelor.

I once had to spend a week living in the potting shed after an ill-advised comment I made about my sister-in-law’s breasts in front of the wife. So when I say I know what you’re going through, believe me I do. I only hope your wife was understanding enough to allow you to gather a few items together before you left. I was reduced to wearing one of my nephew’s dreadful rock group t shirts for three days and some stern questions were asked down the bridge club as to what exactly an “Anal C**t” was.

I find it disgraceful that the media should intrude in the manner that they have. If a man chooses to leave his wife and children after years of marriage, then that’s his own business. And if he chooses to move in with a close male chum, that’s also his own business. And if the man in question is an MP with a long track record of voting against pro-gay legislature…well…I suppose that is the electorate’s business but I dare swear you had a very good reason.

Just because your party fashions itself around old-fashioned family values doesn’t mean you actually have to adhere to those values yourself. “Do as I say, not as I do.”. That’s what my old games teacher used to tell us as he watched us shower. The brass neck of the media to imply that your recent behaviour may display some sort of rank hypocrisy really turns my stomach.

I too have had to bear the brunt of nasty innuendo. Not against myself, of course. I love the ladies, always have, always will, nothing’s going to change that, I’m 100% man. Those years spent in Korea with the army don’t really count. You do what you have to do to get by.

No, the insinuations I speak of have been against my daughter, who now lives in Sydney with her female chum Spike. Some people have made pointed remarks about the fact their flat only has one bedroom. My daughter assures me that rent prices in Sydney have precluded her getting a bigger place and I have chosen to believe her. And she tells me that her regular attendance at the carnival ‘those lot’ have every year is merely because she likes the pretty outfits. Now what could be more normal than that for a young girl? The tattoos of Amazon women across her back are a bit of a worry, though.

Anyway, I hope things are well with you. Follow the advice of the great Iron Lady herself – “The lady’s not for turning” she said. And neither, I’m sure, are you.

Yours etc.

Comments

Customer Service & The Country Of Iceland

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 13:54:18 +0200

After reading news that the good people of Iceland had started whale-hunting again, I decided to write to them to offer my support:

Dear Iceland,

I read with interest that your country has decided to resurrect the traditional and essentially harmless pastime of firing spears through the heads of whales and dragging them ashore.

I fear that over the coming weeks you may get a glut of messages from so-called ‘do-gooders’ who will try to convince you that such behaviour is wrong. Well, as one of your countrymen was wont to say on our television (You have television in Iceland I assume? The shipping forecast must be a big hit.) “You’ve started, so you’ll finish.”!
(Not ‘Finnish’, you understand. Entirely different race, the Finns. They’re overly fond of that gloomy metal music my nephew insists on blasting out behind his locked bedroom door. If the miserable little toad washed occasionally and went outside once in a while, he wouldn’t have to listen to such miserable dreck.)

At least, you’ve started so you’ll finish once you’re out of whales. I suppose you’d then have to start harpooning cod or something. You take your pleasures where you find them, I say. At least, I said that to my wife after that whole sales conference secretary ‘incident’.

Anyway, I do feel that if some of these fringe lunatics (such as Greenpeace, the IWC & the European Commission) were to see the glorious spectacle of a whale hunt, they’d soon change their minds. The salty spray in the face of the sailors. The excitement of the chase between two perfectly matched foes – a man on a 200-ton boat armed with a jet-powered explosive harpoon versus a fish. The bold splash of red as the whale blood gushes out onto the rocks of the bay. Who could watch that and wish to ban it?

We’ve had our own troubles in this country with hunting. I shan’t bore you with the details but suffice to say a similar group of Trotskyite ne’er do wells managed to ban the hunting of a type of vermin in this country (They’re called foxes – imagine skinny seals with arms and legs.) One of their feeble excuses was that we never ate the kill afterwards. Now, I’ve read that the majority of whale meat gathered by your brothers-in-spears in Japan has been stockpiled due to lack of interest. It’s not stopped that industrious little nation and neither should it stop you. So what if the meat is never eaten? I’ve got a bag of couscous that’s been in the cupboard for two years and I don’t see a band of scruffy tree-huggers marching down my mews. Well, except when my nephew’s friends visit him, anyway.

As your spokesman has said, there seems to be enough whales around your neck of the woods, so how can they be endangered? I was once thrown out of London Zoo when I was found near the giant panda enclosure with a pistol and can you believe that when I used the very same reasoning as your spokesman, I was thrown out on my ear? The place was teeming with giant pandas. Surely they wouldn’t miss one?

And then there are those who insist whales are to be watched, rather than harpooned for pleasure and maybe some sandwich filling. Nonsense. People like that don’t understand that after years of watching harmless, beautiful and rare creatures, man’s natural instinct is to challenge them to a fight. I imagine the real reason Adam & Eve were thrown out of Eden was when God found Adam rabbit-punching a unicorn in a headlock shouting “Take that, you smug bastard.”

Fear not about this proposed ‘tourism ban’, either. Since Bjork moved to Primrose Hill I can’t imagine there’s much reason to visit Iceland for most people. I, however, will soon be organising a trip with my wife and a group of like-minded individuals who share your free-spirited view toward wildlife. On that point, I have two questions:
What are the best beaches in Iceland to see seals frolicking around the place as nature intended? And secondly, what permits would one need to take a shotgun into your wonderful country?

I look forward to your response and hope that my resisting the temptation to make a puerile comment about a chain of supermarkets will show the seriousness of my missive.

Yours etc.

I trust this message of goodwill is appreciated. I shall keep you updated of any replies.

Well, the Icelandic ambassador replied. I thought he’d be as busy as a bee, but the length of his reply would suggest otherwise:

Thank you for your correspondence concerning Iceland?s policy on
whaling.
I wish to assure you that Iceland has no intention of catching any of
the endangered species of whales, killed on a large scale by other whaling
nations in the past. Iceland?s resumption of sustainable whaling only
involves abundant stocks and is linked to Iceland?s overall policy of
sustainable utilisation of marine resources.
Several countries catch whales, most of them on a much bigger scale
than Iceland. The biggest whaling countries among the members of the
International Whaling Commission (IWC) are the United States, Russia,
Norway, Japan and Greenland. The whaling operations practiced by all those
countries, as well as Iceland, are sustainable and legal and in accordance
with the rules of the IWC.
Iceland fully appreciates the need for careful conservation of marine
resources. Our economy depends on those resources as marine products
constitute around 60% of Iceland?s revenue from exported goods and almost
40% of all Icelandic exported goods and services. Disruption of the
ecological balance in Icelandic waters due to overfishing or other reasons
could have catastrophic consequences for the livelihood of Icelanders.
As you may know, Iceland was among the first countries in the world
to extend its fishery limits to 200 nautical miles in the year 1975, in
order to put an end to the uncontrolled fishing around Iceland by trawlers
from other countries. Since then Iceland has taken great care in
maintaining balanced and sustainable fishing in Icelandic waters by
enforcing an effective management system for various fish species including
cod, herring and capelin.
Iceland takes pride in its pioneering work in this field, which has
been emulated by many countries in the world wishing to avoid unsustainable
practices. The annual catch quotas for fishing and whaling are based on
recommendations by scientists, who regularly monitor the status of the
stocks, thus ensuring that the activity is sustainable.
For a number of years, Iceland has acknowledged the need for
scientific research on whales to gain a better understanding of the
interaction between the different whale stocks and other marine species and
the role of whales in the marine ecosystem. Therefore, Iceland began
implementing a research plan on minke whales in 2003. So far, 161 minke
whales have been taken and we look forward to the completion of the
research plan in 2007 when the sample size of 200 minke whales has been
obtained. Whaling quotas will take into account the number of whales that
are taken in the implementation of the research plan, ensuring that the
total number remains well below sustainable levels.
There are many different whale species and stocks in the world's
oceans. Some are in a poor state and in need of protection. However, many
whale populations are far from being threatened or endangered. The total
stock size of Central North-Atlantic minke whales, for example, is close to
70,000 animals. Of those, around 43,600 live in Icelandic coastal waters.
Fin whales in the Central North Atlantic number around 25,800 animals. Both
estimates have been agreed by consensus by the Scientific Committees of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and the North-Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO).
Iceland?s decision to resume sustainable whaling involves takes of 30
minke whales and nine fin whales, during the current fishing year which
ends on 31 August 2007. This will bring the total catches of minke whales
in Icelandic waters during this fishing year to 69, including the minke
whales taken in completing the research plan. These takes equal less than
0.2% of the number of minke whales in Icelandic coastal waters, an even
smaller fraction of the total stock, and less than 0.04% of fin whales in
the Central North Atlantic. Both are considered to be close to
pre-exploitation levels and estimated sustainable annual catch levels are
200 and 400 fin and minke whales respectively. As the catch limits now
issued are much lower, the catches will not have a significant impact on
whale stocks. A responsible management system will ensure that the catch
quotas set will not be exceeded. The catches are clearly sustainable and
therefore consistent with the principle of sustainable development.
Iceland?s resumption of sustainable whaling is legal under
international law. At the time of the re-entry of Iceland into the IWC,
Iceland made a reservation with respect to the so-called moratorium on
commercial whaling. As a part of that reservation, Iceland committed itself
not to authorise commercial whaling before 2006 and thereafter not to
authorise such whaling while progress was being made in negotiating the
IWC?s Revised Management Scheme (RMS), a management framework for
commercial whaling.
At the IWC?s Annual Meeting in 2005, Iceland went on record
expressing its regret that no progress was being made in the RMS
discussions. At this year?s IWC Annual Meeting, Iceland?s judgement of the
situation was reconfirmed as the IWC generally agreed that talks on an RMS
had reached an impasse. As a result, Iceland?s reservation has taken
effect. Therefore, Iceland is no longer bound by the so-called moratorium
on commercial whaling. In this respect, Iceland is in the same position as
other IWC members that are not bound by the moratorium.
Iceland was one of the first countries in the world to realize the
importance of a conservation approach to whaling. As signs of
overexploitation of whales emerged early in the last century, Iceland
declared a ban on whaling for large whales around Iceland in 1915. Whaling was not resumed until 1948, except for limited catches 1935-1939. Strict rules and limitations were applied to whaling in Iceland from 1948 to 1985 when all commercial whaling was halted again following a decision by the IWC.
Iceland has been a leading advocate for international cooperation in
ensuring sustainable use of living marine resources, including whales. This
has been the position taken by Iceland within the IWC, based on the
International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling from 1946. The
stated role of the IWC, according to its founding Convention, is to
?provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible
the orderly development of the whaling industry?.
I hope that this information will be useful to you in understanding
Iceland?s position on sustainable whaling. You may rest assured, that the
desire to ensure the conservation of the whale stocks around Iceland and
elsewhere is fully shared by the Icelandic Government.
Sincerely yours,
Sverrir Haukur Gunnlaugsson,
Ambassador

Interesting use of question marks but jolly nice of him to take the time, I thought, and replied thusly:

Dear Iceland,

I appreciate you speedy response to my email. Here was I, worrying that your reply would be delayed due to the deluge of correspondence you’d receive from animal rights activists (for activist read ‘communist’, in my view) and the general majority of the public who’ve watched “Finding Nemo” once too often and think that just because an animal is considered intelligent, defenceless and graceful it gets a free ride in life.

Frankly, I’ve had to watch my nephew cruise through his blighted existence without lifting a finger and he has none of these qualities. That’s enough to turn my stomach alone without worrying about some overgrown cod.

So anyway, well done on your promptness. My wife rather cynically suggested that yours was a generic response that needed to be drafted due to overwhelming public condemnation, and was automatically sent to anybody mentioning whale hunting. She started waffling on about the fact I was supporting the whale hunt yet your email seemed to be a defensive one, almost as if you hadn’t read it and expected every missive to be critical of this generally-derided practice. That was until the valium in her cocoa kicked in. I can cope with her strident tones until 930pm, no later. I’m a patient man but I have my limits.

So anyway, about your email. I really don’t think you should be worrying whether the Fin Whales you slaughter are endangered or not. Although I suspect having a ten-foot shard of metal through the skull would endanger most animals. The US Fish & Wildlife Service and The International Conservation Union Red List seem to think the Fin Whale is endangered, in the case of the ICURL as recently as this May. However, I’m sure lots of little Fin Whales have been born since May and I’m not about to believe the word of two internationally-respected wildlife agencies over the word of a government minister. It would be a sad day for democracy in Iceland and England if we start believing the experts over our elected betters.

Even if they are endangered, I look at it this way: endangered animals are treated better than most humans (certainly better than I was treated by my wife after having an innocent drink with a work colleague at a motorway hotel one Saturday evening). They have protected spaces, their diet is checked, they even have people to pop around with potential bedroom partners. Much simpler than inventing a weekend meeting about a trade fair. I imagine. So being endangered is a far cushier lifestyle than being abundant. So by pushing these animals to the brink of extinction, you’re giving the remaining ones a much higher standard of living. And are you applauded for this? No. Disgraceful.

I read your statement about extending your fishing waters out to 200 miles in 1975. I remember that whole unpleasant affair and all I will say is that I let bygones be bygones, the best man won in the end, and the need for our warships to mooch around your island to ensure our lads weren’t being roughed up was purely a precaution. If I can buy Fray Bentos corned beef, I’m sure I can buy your (or rather, our) cod.

And you are right that yours is not the biggest culprit of whaling and that China catches far more whales than you. In fact, if your island of 300,000 people could keep up with a country like China (population 1.3 billion and counting, despite their robust attitude toward giving birth to girls) then I’d be more impressed by your little nation than I currently already am.

It is a sensible defence and one that should be used more often in world politics. Maybe North Korea could give a whirl, do you think? “Hang on, Johnny Foreigner” that chap with the glasses could say “I’ve only got one nuclear weapon, and I’ve already used that. You chaps have got thousands of the blighters”

I would like an answer to my previous question re the seals and the shotguns, though. Hunting in England is a drab affair. Once you’ve bagged two dozen badgers, your interest wanes. The thought of blasting an entire family of seals into the next life, now there’s a challenge I’m sure as an Icelander you would relish.

I apologise for not replying in Icelandic, and congratulate you on your English. I was going to reply with little lines through all the letter “O”’s, but thought that might be a bit patronising.

Yours etc.

I look forward to his reply with some trepidation. His prose is like an evening in bed with my wife - long, dry and rather tedious.

A reply. Of sorts.

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your reply, as the Ambassador is away, for information, please look at the webpage of the Ministry for Fisheries for further information,
http://eng.sjavarutvegsraduneyti.is/

Best regards,
Ágústa

Ágústa Óskarsdóttir,
Embassy of Iceland,

Well, I don’t know what they call it in Iceland – probably something like Ooouanggsrtaauningononon – but from where I’m from that’s called the brush-off. I’m going to head down to the travel agents forthwith and cancel my little hunting spree immediately. And if they think I’m eating their seafood again, they can go and tickle.

A like-minded friend has told my good things about Vietnam as a hunting venue. Apparently, for about fifty quid, you can blow up a water-buffalo with a bazooka. Now that’s more like it…

Comments

Customer Service vs the US Catholic League

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 12:47:57 +0100

I like to think I keep my finger on a pulse. And that pulse is modern television. So imagine my joy to hear that a right-wing religious organisation was making sure programs that disagreed with them would never be aired:

Dear Catholics,

I recently read a news article that stated you were instrumental in having an episode of the so-called ‘comedy’ “South Park” cancelled after it depicted a statue of the virgin mary bleeding from her bottom.

(http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/dec05/southpark601202.php - not included in letter)

I wanted to know more about an organization that would take such a bold and forward-thinking step so took a look on the internet (Which is a wonderful thing, don’t you think? I use my nephew’s computer although he always has to fuss about with it for five minutes before I use it. I can’t imagine what he’d be looking at on the internet that he wouldn’t want me to know about.)

Can I say that you fellows are doing a sterling job? I wish that we had an organization like yours in this country. I was pleased to hear your glorious leader Mr. Donahue (Is this the same gent who hosted that chat show where people voiced their opinions loudly? Never could see the appeal myself) speak out about the important issues affecting everyday folk like myself.

For instance, Mr Donahue criticized that awful song “What If God Was One Of Us?” Quite right too. I’ve never heard such anodyne warblings in all my chuff. In my day you had Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. I think it’s disgraceful that such twaddle is allowed on the air. Well done you.
(http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1252/is_n12_v123/ai_18420062 - not included in letter)

More recently he stood up for our honest, humble and mostly harmless priests. He correctly pointed out that the whole so-called “sexual abuse scandal” in the Catholic Church was, in fact “A homosexual scandal, not a paedophilia scandal”. An important distinction to make, I think.

If one of those kindly priests took a fancy to one of the young boys in their charge, it’s important to point out it was for their supple, burgeoning, manhood. Not for their smooth, hairless androgynous bodies. Over here, being a homosexual is viewed as a lesser crime than being a paedophile (I know. Crazy!) I assume that’s the case in your country too and Mr Donahue was cleverly “Copping a plea to a lesser charge” as I heard them say on Hill Street Blues once. Very canny, that.

I imagine that the many children that led our officers of God into temptation would be comforted to learn that they’d been groped by a puff rather than a nonce (These are English expressions, by the way. Feel free to use them yourself.)

Speaking of homosexuals, I read that Mr Donahue once said “I'm pretty good about picking out who queers are…I'm usually pretty good at that.” Has he ever thought of missionary work amongst the Catholic staff? He could weed out the several thousand rotten eggs that spoil the barrel for the rest. A bit like Vincent Price in “WitchFinder General”. Mr Donahue turns up at the local church. Speaks to priest. Looks up at DVD shelf. Sees an excess of Judy Garland. And Bob’s your Uncle. You’re fired, your grace.

His queer-finding abilities (I believe I’ve heard my nephew call it “Gaydar”. Not sure why) were mentioned in relation to “The Passion Of The Christ.” Rather too much gore and bondage in it for my liking, but each to their own. In the same interview, I see Mr Donahue said that “Hollywood likes anal sex. Hollywood likes abortions.” When the wife and I went there on holiday we saw neither but I’ll take his word for it. However, this does raise the question - if Hollywood is so cock-a-hoop (if you’ll forgive the expression) about anal sex, why does it need to have abortions? I leave the whole reproduction side of things to the wife but I’m fairly sure this isn’t how babies are made.

Finally, congratulations on getting the episode of South Park banned. Can I just ask Mr Donahue to clarify one thing, though? He has asserted that “Hollywood likes anal sex” (and I’m sure I’ve seen a video of that title in my nephew’s bedroom). The episode in question shows a statue of virgin mary bleeding out of her bottom. Are the South Park lot suggesting that virgin mary likes anal sex too? Because that is just shocking. Although it may go to explain how she remained, strictly speaking, a ‘virgin’.

Keep up the excellent work!

Yours etc.

(Most of the quotes and opinions of Donahue and his organisation can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_A._Donohue)

Comments

Customer Service vs Dixons

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 15:55:02 +0100

Christmas is nearly upon us, and the wife is making the usual bleating noises regarding gifts. I felt Dixons could provide the answer and wrote to them accordingly:

Dear Dixon

As you can see by the format of this communication, I have been forced to
enter the new era in technology. The black & white television that had
served me well for thirty years was the first casualty. It was only when
John Craven started looking like a hobbit that I realized that the tube
might have been on its way out. So, I can now enjoy the full extent of the
various ill-judged clothing decisions made by the parishioners on 'Songs Of
Praise' in all their glory.

My nephew eventually convinced me that computers were not just the preserve
of the socially inept and has introduced me to the delights of the
internalnet. Using his computer terminal I can write to my daughter in
Australia in a matter of seconds without the usual ordeal of Post Office
queues, fiddly stamps and recalcitrant staff. She will insist on sending me
photographs of her new life, which features a few too many piercings for my
liking. Her female flat-mate seems to like them, so no matter.

While using his computer terminal (I'm pleased to see he is finally doing
something about his atrocious acne, if the amount of websites about
'facials' is anything to go by) I noticed that it is now possible to order
goods from a computer and have them delivered to your home. This is the
reason for my missive.

I'm considering the purchase of a moving camera to record the various antics
of my grandchildren. I was wondering whether such an item could be bought in
this manner and delivered to my home?

I look forward to your reply.

Yours etc.

Dixons are obviously doing a roaring trade as it was some days before I received my reply:

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for your e-mail that was brought to my attention this afternoon.
Please accept my apologies in my delay of response.

For more infomation about ordering products online, you can call our sales
department on 0845 8500 535

Kind Regards

Deborah Whyke
Customer Services

"Sir/Madam"? There hasn't been that kind of confusion since I was in the army. Nevertheless, I replied:

Dear Ms Whyke,

Please don't apologise for the late arrival of your reply. I didn't think you were ignoring me, although the same cannot be said on the few occasions I have visited your stores. Trying to attract the attention of some of your sales staff is rather akin to trying to get the Sphinx to blink.

I trust there is still time for my order to be delivered before Christmas. Following an indiscretion at the staff Christmas party, I feel that handing my wife a consignment note and a kiss will meet with a frosty reception. As mentioned earlier, I'm after a camera, the smaller the better. It may, on occasion, need to be used from a confined spot (there's a hat box on top of our bedroom wardrobe that might do the trick) so something that can be remotely controlled would be even better. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Finally, may I ask whether you are in fact the rather fetching lady currently appearing in the Dixons advertising campaign? I must say that the catsuit is a first-rate outfit. The wife always harrumphs when the advert comes on, which spoils my enjoyment somewhat. Maybe I could film the advert with the new camera and enjoy it at my leisure when she is at her book club meetings? It's a thought, certainly.

Anyway, I look forward to your reply and wish you all the very best for the forthcoming festivities. Be careful with the seasonal treats, though. That catsuit looks a rather unforgiving item of apparel.

Yours etc.

Well, the good people of Dixons finally replied to my requests. Sadly, not in time for Christmas Day. As predicted, the wife was not best pleased with her gift. Although I’d have thought she would have been grateful, especially as she spent the majority of the day in the kitchen anyway.

Dear Mr Pettigrew

Thank you for your e mail, which has just come to my attention, and in
time to cheer me up on boxing day.

I hope you have been able to get your camera delivered on time. The
consequences of that extra glass of cooking sherry at the staff party
can often be most unfortunate.

The lady in the Dixons advert is not Miss Whyke, but in fact Mr Alan Fraddon
one of our correspondance advisors. This fact is not generally known.

Should you have been watching Songs of Praise yesterday from the Albert Hall
you may have noticed a disagreeable looking lady with an unusual squint and
orange wig singing with the tenors. This was Miss Whyke, blink however ,and you
would have missed her .

Thank you for writing to us

Kind regards and best wishes for
the new year

John Silverton
Customer Services

Disturbing news, but I thought it only polite to reply:

Dear Mr Silverton,

"Alan Fraddon" you say? Oh dear. Well that's one more thing to discuss in confession this Sunday. Hopefully it's not a mortal sin if you don't know it's a man. That's the party line we used when our unit was stationed in Korea, certainly.

I now switch over as soon as your advert comes on. I trust you will not take offence at this.

A very happy New Year to all the staff at Dixons. Even Mr Fraddon, I suppose.

Yours etc.

(PS: He doesn't have a brother working in the Oddbins in Wandsworth, does he? I've always had my doubts about Gloria, to be honest.)

Comments

Customer Service vs Governor Schwarzenegger

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 15:01:46 +0100

I was delighted to hear of Arnie's recent decision to execute Stanley 'Tookie' Williams:

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news/press/16670.shtml

and decided to write to Governor Schwarzenegger to show my support:

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,

I am writing to you as a British citizen who is very pleased to hear of your stance on the so-called "Reformed character, humanitarian campaigner & multi-nominated Nobel Prize contender" Stanley Tookie Williams.

His (former) associates, which include such known dissidents as Snoop Dogg, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela (an ex-convict himself, lest we forget) would try to have us believe that Williams was a different person, peaceful and contrite. Which is very easy to do when an armed guard patrols your cell every five minutes!

However, their can be no excuse for murder, unless it is within the confines of the legal system. Williams was a murderer and as the Bible says "Those who live by the sword die by the sword." Sobering words indeed.

In this country, there is no death penalty. Criminals are allowed to roam free, stealing cars, getting drunk and generally behaving like the marauding Nazi army of the 1930's. I feel our legal system can learn much from the Californian model. Certainly, there would be far less "Miscarriage of justice" freeing of prisoners had the death penalty been retained.

In summary, I applaud your decision to execute Williams and hope it sends out a message, both in your country and abroad, that people cannot get away with murder.

I organize a small party of like-minded individuals who seek to have the death penalty reinstated in the UK and would be honoured to receive any support you may be able to give us. If only we had a hundred like you! The catering bill would be astronomical, but money well-spent, I feel.

I await your response eagerly.

Yours, etc.

The governor was clearly busy in the run-up to Christmas, so he had one of the ladies in his office reply:

As the Governor's Legal Affairs Secretary, I have been asked to respond to your email concerning Stanley Williams.

Clemency decisions are always difficult, and the case of Mr. Williams was certainly no exception. Governor Schwarzenegger studied the evidence, reviewed the history, and thoroughly considered the views and arguments presented before making a determination in this matter. A great deal of time and thought went into the Governor's decision, and it was only after careful deliberation that he concluded clemency in Mr. Williams' case was unjustified. The Governor's statement of decision is available at www.governor.ca.gov.

We acknowledge your views and comments in this matter and appreciate you taking the time to share them. On behalf of the Governor, thank you for writing.

Sincerely,

ANDREA LYNN HOCH
Legal Affairs Secretary

I was glad to see we were on the same wavelength and spared no time in letting the offices of the Governor know:

Dear Ms Hoch,

Thank you for your prompt response.

It must, as you said, have been a very difficult decision to kill Stanley Williams. Very difficult indeed. The governor had to ignore the overwhelming support Mr Williams had received from various so-called humanitarian organizations (as well as the petition signed by over 170,000 of his own Californian constituents asking for a temporary suspension of executions. There's gratitude for you!).

He also risked condemnation from the majority of people who, for some reason, view injecting a human being with poison in front of an audience as somehow barbaric, obscene or medieval. I applaud his determined stance.

Clemency is something that needs to be earned, not simply given out to people on the basis that they have renounced violence and campaigned for peace. As somebody who has variously been accused of being a neo-Nazi, cocaine user, adulterer and sex pest, he must surely know more about the power of forgiveness than most people. I certainly know how he feels. I once came home from the office party with a photocopy of my secretary's bottom in my breast pocket and have been paying the price ever since.

I often think it's sad that real science has yet to catch up with film science. If only the governor could have gone back in time to when Williams was a child and killed him then. He could even have dressed up like the robot in "The Exterminator" for added effect.

Williams was a burly fellow, much like the governor, at the time of his death. But I'm sure the governor would have been able to snap his (for argument's sake) eight-year-old neck like a twig. This would have saved the lives of his alleged victims as well as a lot of legal and prison costs. For instance, I'm sure removing all the non-Caucasians from the jury at Williams' trial couldn't have come cheap!

Sadly, this is not yet feasible, so we have to maintain the appearance of a fair trial by a jury of one's peers. Although I do feel that the scumbags who recently scraped the paint on my car should have been made to fast forward to the punishment end of the judicial system.

Keep fighting the good fight, Governor Schwarzenegger. "They'll be back"? Not after an armful of Potassium Chloride, they won't!

I await your response eagerly. We are all big fans of your work here. Some of us like your films, too.

Yours etc.

I hope he has a peaceful Christmas. Although with that enormous car he drives, I fear this may be unlikely...

Comments

Customer Service vs Asda

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 15:52:27 +0100

My nephew, who quite frankly is a lazy little hound, is in need of the steady hand of employment. I felt Asda would be the perfect place to provide said employment:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I was wondering whether you could furnish me with the answer to a query? My teenaged nephew is, sadly, an indolent youth who seems to feel his raison d etre in life is shooting prostitutes and stealing cars. My sister assures me this is entirely via the medium of computer games, which is some sort of comfort I suppose.

Nevertheless, I feel that his outlook in life would be vastly broadened by some sort of work experience scheme. I was wondering to whom I should forward his details (he would do it himself if he could be pried out of his bedroom for five minutes) in order to register him for just such a scheme.

May I also take this opportunity to congratulate you on your cheese counter. Absolutely first rate.

Yours, etc.

They replied promptly:

Thank you for your message.

Dear Mr Pettigrew

Thank you for your e-mail to ASDA Customer Relations. Store vacancies are handled locally so you should keep an eye on the local press and Job Centre. For other vacancies please see the Enjoy Jobs at ASDA page on our website www.asda.co.uk

Should you require any further information or assistance please do not hesitate to contact us.

Yours sincerely
Tony Sandham
ASDA Customer Relations

However, I felt it was time to come clean with the full details of my envisioned employment:

Dear Asda,

Your prompt response does you credit. It has certainly convinced me that this is the sort of organization my nephew should be working for. His timekeeping (and please don't pass this on to his potential new boss) is atrocious. I often tell him he'll be late for his own funeral! Well, if his grandmother's funeral was anything to go by.

I apologise for replying directly to you, as I appreciate that Christmas must be your busiest time. Although, with the consistently low prices in your stores, giro-cashing day must be no picnic either.

The reason for my direct response is that I was not looking for work experience for my nephew in the UK. I understand your parent company WalMart uses the services of various factories in China whose attitude toward youth labour (as I prefer it to be called) is rather more liberated than over here.

I feel that the 12-hour days, the chance to see new parts of the world (or the part of it visible through the factory windows) and the opportunity to learn a second language (although I do worry that he'll be picking up some rather salty phrases) are too good to miss.

If your worry is over the cost of transport, fear not. I have been contributing to his trust fund for the last thirteen years and this will be the perfect way to spend it. I've estimated it will cover just enough to get him there. And if he needed motivation at his new place at work, then earning the price of his return fare will certainly provide that.

If you could see your way clear to providing me with the contact details for the HR department for one of your Chinese outfits, I would be grateful. Please be assured that any suggestion that the factory is upsetting the Amnesty mob will be kept strictly under wraps.

As always, I look forward to your response.

Yours etc.

Hopefully, he'll be sewing T Shirts come the new year...

UPDATE 15/12/05

Asda have maintained their promptness in replying:

Thank you for your message.

Dear Mr Pettigrew

Thank you for your continued interest in our company. I am sorry but though ASDA sources a lot of its general merchandise from Asia we do not own any factories there. There are Chinese Wal-mart stores but they operate independently of ASDA reporting to Wal-mart in the US. For more details on Wal-Mart please visit their web site www.walmart.com

I am sorry I could be of no further assistance.

Yours sincerely
Tony Sandham
ASDA Customer Relations

For further correspondence regarding this issue, please reply to this email.

They were being rather shrewd, which I appreciated.

Dear Tony,

I understand perfectly where you’re coming from. It’s a canny business decision not to own the factories yourself. What the eye doesn’t see, UNICEF can’t moan about.

I myself have read numerous reports about these factories which have mentioned hazardous conditions, long working hours and, best of all, the use of the younger element in their workforce. All of these factors help to keep your overheads down and I respect that. They also give any nascent unions short shrift (as well as the business end of a baton). If only our misguided employment law would allow us to do the same in this country, the economy wouldn’t be in the state it’s in!

Anyway, I appreciate your wish to distance yourself from what other small-minded people view as human rights abuses and borderline slave labour. But that distance shouldn’t extend to buying your products from factories that abide by a load of silly international working standards. You and I know it’s just good business sense.

If you have contact details for any of your Chinese suppliers, I’d be very grateful as my nephew needs the kind of tough love that only a ruthless Chinese factory owner can provide. If you go through a third party to throw the caring brigade off the scent, maybe you could give me their details?

I await your response.

Yours etc.

I hope they get in touch soon. The thought of him chomping his way through the Quality Street while the Queen’s speech is on turns my stomach.

UPDATE 16/12/05

It seems that ASDA will not be enjoying the fruits of my nephew's labour at knock-down prices:

Thank you for your message.

Dear Mr Pettigrew

Thank you for your interest in our company. I am sorry but I am not allowed to give out details of our trading contacts.

Thank you for your correspondence.

Yours sincerely
Tony Sandham
ASDA Customer Relations

Not wishing to end on a sour note, I replied with what I hope is my usual good nature:

Dear Tony,

Thank you for your continued support. I hope you have a peaceful and prosperous Christmas. I was hoping my nephew would be having a hard-working, bleak and decidedly Chinese Christmas, but alas it seems this is not to be. You should see the child trough his way through a box of Milk Tray, though. Alters one’s perception of the innate goodness of mankind.

I will continue my quest to find a suitable sweatshop for him to toil in. I understand that you want to keep the details of the sweatshops your company continues to use (despite the interference of various do-gooding busybodies) to yourself. This one sounds ideal:

http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_40/b3701119.htm

If the maxim “Treat them mean and keep them keen” has any truth, he will soon become a credit to any company that chooses to employ him. He currently lives a pampered existence - hot meals, warmth, shelter, freedom of movement and so on - so the culture shock when he returns may take a while to wear off. The wife has been guzzling nerve pills for years, so a few of those in his cocoa should hit the spot.

If you have children of your own, I would heartily recommend the regimen Wal Mart’s Chinese partners subscribe to. In the absence of National Service, it really does seem a first-rate way to mould the nation’s youth into a hard-working bunch who know the detrimental nature of back-chat.

Seasons greetings to everyone at the Wal Mart group. Long may they continue to challenge what constitutes acceptable working conditions.

Yours, as always, etc.

Comments

Customer Service vs Sainsbury's

Fri, 09 Dec 2005 15:54:58 +0100

Following Sainsbury’s decision not to stock “Jerry Springer - The Opera” on DVD
(http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/dec05/opera071201.php)___##1##___ I decided to exercise my right as a consumer and let them know exactly how I felt. This is the story so far…

I emailed their customer service department on 7/12/05 with the following:

Dear Sainsbury,

I have been a customer of yours for a number of years and have generally found your service to be a good one. Your encouragement of the Oliver boy is a regrettable decision, but I understand you must bow to the whim of market forces and the older ladies seem to have a soft spot for him. So be it.

However, I am disturbed by the decision-making in your DVD purchasing department. There is a DVD widely stocked by your otherwise morally upstanding establishment that is frankly (and I apologize for the rough language) a blot on the Sainsbury escutcheon. I am referring, of course, to “Jim Davidson - Full On Live.”

That you would allow such a tawdry, debased and vile individual to leer at your customers from the DVD shelves is a disgrace. I know people who have children, and I shudder to think what kind of example you are setting them, via the promotion of Mr Davidson’s products.

Clearly, by stocking this DVD, Sainsbury are sending out the message that tax evasion, racism, spousal abuse and old jokes are things to be aspired to. I, however, disagree. I would therefore insist that you remove this offensive item from the shelves forthwith or I (and many of my kith and kin) will be forced to take our business elsewhere. I have heard very good reports of the cheese counter of the local Waitrose, for example. Do not make me do this.

My continued support of your otherwise august establishment is also dependent on one other thing - that you reverse your decision to ban the DVD “Jerry Springer - The Opera” from your stores immediately. These sceptred isles have a long tradition of bawdy entertainment, satire and musical theatre stretching back hundreds of years. Your erroneous decision to ban this DVD would have Rabelais, Swift, Pope and Orwell spinning in their graves. Or are you going to ban their fine and upstanding work from your shelves also? I expect to see “Jerry Springer - The Opera” on your shop shelves shortly.

I await your response at the earliest convenience. I have a large family who are not easily sated and the Christmas table will be groaning with food. Do not let that groaning food come from another supermarket.

Yours etc.

Two days later I received the reply below:

Dear Sir,
Thank you for taking the time to contact us. I am very sorry that you are unhappy with our decision to stop selling Jerry Springer, The Opera on DVD.

Please let me assure you that we would never wish to cause offence to any of our customers. As a retailer, we feel we should offer our customers a choice of what to buy. We monitor all feedback about the products on sale in our stores and I can confirm that we are no longer selling Jerry Springer, The Opera.
Thank you again for letting us know how you feel. We are committed to getting things right for our customers and I do hope I have been able to offer you some assurance.

Kind regards,

Sarah Rose
Sainsbury's Customer Services

This, I felt, was clearly evading the issue. On 9/12/05 I sent the following reply:

Dear Sainsbury,

Thank you for your prompt response. Taking as it did a mere two days to arrive, it easily outstripped your home delivery department. I think you could teach them a thing or two about punctuality! Although, to be fair, I imagine an email is lighter to send than 10kg bags of sprouts and three litre bottles of lemon squash. Having spoken to several like-minded people I see that I have received exactly the same response they were given. I admire your consistent approach.

I note that in your email you state that you have ‘stopped’ selling the Jerry Springer DVD. I assume then at one point you were selling this fine product? Scuttlebutt has it that some really rather fervent religious types contacted you and suggested strongly that this may not be the policy to pursue. They hinted that God would be very cross. Is this correct?

How quickly did you manage to remove the items from the shelves? Was an APB sent out to all stores via some central emergency system? In my imagination (a very fertile and verdant place, I can assure you) I see a main control room sending out the clarion cry “Calling all stores! Calling all stores! Cease and desist from selling Jerry Springer to people! Even if they’d actually quite like to buy it! Go red team! Go red team! Snatch it from their hands if need be!” Am I close to the truth?

How many customers do you have by the way? I thought you were a large enough concern to cope with the absence of a few dozen punters. And if we’re being honest, it’s unlikely they would be buying the luxury goods (alcohol, tobacco and whatnot) which, as I’m sure you’re aware, are the real moneyspinners. Given their puritanical bent, you understand.

Following your decision to bend to the will of this handful of people, I worry about their ability to affect Sainsbury policy. What if, drunk with power, they decide to contact you and say “20p off crumpets. God would prefer it if you did. You know what to do.”? I would hate to see Sainsbury brought to its knees in such a manner.

You state your wish to offer your customers choice and your wish to avoid offence. By denying me the ability to walk into one of your fine establishments and proudly say “A copy of your very best Jerry Springer DVD, if you’d be so kind. Oh, hang the expense, let’s pop a bottle of sherry onto the tab while we’re about it.” you both deny me my freedom of choice and offend me.

I therefore offer my support against these muddle-headed but potentially dangerous patrons who would wish to bind your hands when deciding what to stock. Standing shoulder to shoulder we can defeat them. The bullies must not win. If, in 1942, Churchill had said “Oh alright, Adolf, make yourself at home. Don’t mind us.” where would we be then? Actually, my father was a Nazi sympathizer so he wouldn’t have been executed, but you catch my drift.

I look forward to your response.

Yours, as ever, etc.

I have yet to receive a reply. You, dear reader, shall be the first to know when I do...

UPDATE: DECEMBER 10th
Well, the Sainsbury behemoth rolled once more into action to respond to my dissatisfaction at their DVD policy. Not one for the literary archives, I'm afraid:

Dear Nick,
Thank you for contacting us. I am sorry you have been disappointed by our decision to withdraw Jerry Springer – The Opera from sale in our stores. As there has been lots of interest in this matter I would like to clarify why the title was taken out of our range.

We sell many DVD titles throughout the year and our range changes from week to week based on what customers want and, of course, sales. In the first week that Jerry Springer – The Opera was released, we sold only 111 copies in all stores nationwide and received a high number of complaints from unhappy customers. In the early part of the second week we sold only 21 more copies and received further complaints. Due to these very poor sales figures this DVD would have been withdrawn at the end of the week, but in view of the complaints we had received we removed it a few days earlier than planned.

Please be assured that, as a company, we feel it is our responsibility to offer choice. We do not feel it is right for us to tell our customers what they should or should not buy. However, in this case sales were so low that we did not think removing this title would have a negative impact on our customers and we wanted to give them a choice of more popular titles.

Thank you for taking the time to let us know your views on this matter and for giving us a chance to explain the reasons behind our decision.
Kind regards,

Kerry Coban
Sainsbury's Customer Services

I felt a more conciliatory tack might achieve the desired result. My response was as below:

Dear Sainsbury,

Once again the promptness of your reply is to be commended. Some may cite the fact that you merely had to select "Generic second response" then press "Send" on your computer, but not I. I assume that the " high number of complaints from unhappy customers" was dealt with in a similar fashion. Did you already have a template marked "Pandering to the hysterical religious minority" or did some poor peon have to knock one up especially for the occasion?

It is regrettable that the DVD sold so poorly in your stores, as contact with other retailers has indicated robust sales elsewhere. The fact that you appear to be one of the few retailers that seemed unable to shift this product is remarkable. Some would immediately assume that you have invented a story about poor sales to cover yourselves against accusations of censorship. Not I.

I feel it far more useful to suggest possible reasons for its poor sales as well as workable solutions. After all, you must have thousands of copies of the DVD currently moldering in your warehouse, and why should you be punished for the public's inexplicable decision to buy the DVD in healthy numbers everywhere else except your shop?

Display placement. Always a hot potato amongst retailers, I know, but I feel that placing a copy of the DVD next to any religious-based items elsewhere in the shop (advent calendars, wine, candles, etc.) with a note saying something like "Ah, but have you ever considered it this way?" might shift a few. I leave the precise wording of the notice up to your advertising bods. Anyone who can come up with a slogan like "Try something new today" must be brimming with ideas ("Try something new today - like a fat man in a nappy swearing"? Just a suggestion.)

The Oliver lad. As mentioned in my previous correspondence, young Jamie is inexplicably popular with the older female contingent. It's always struck me as a disturbingly Oedipal mixture of mothering and mating instincts, but there you have it. But there's still time to film a quick addition to your Christmas campaign. Possibly featuring Jamie blubbering the slogan "Try Jerry Springer The Opera - it's sacrilegiously pukka!" or some such. Again, your decision on the final wording.

Disc swapping. I know this might seem like the kind of sharp practice that your less-prestigious rivals (such as Kwik Save) might involve themselves in, but hear me out. Put the Springer DVD in a more popular case - I believe 'Madagascar' is doing a roaring trade. Come Christmas day, the family settle down, expecting an animated adventure about talking animals featuring Chris Tucker (Or is it Chris Rock? I get the two muddled up.) Instead they watch a feisty musical farce. They enjoy said farce. And rather than demanding to speak to the manager, they end buying both DVD's. Problem solved.

I always look forward to your responses, even though I know, in my heart of hearts, that I shall receive the automated and ultimately short shrift that my fellow like-minded individuals have received.

Yours, etc.

(On a personal note, may I send my commiserations on the suicide of your rock-star sibling, Ms Coban. He seemed a lovely chap and had his romantic decisions been a little more shrewd, who knows? He may still have been amongst us.)

They can hardly refrain from taking that on board. Can they?

Comments