Dear Santa…
Dear Santa,
It’s a very long time since I last wrote to you. I suspect my last letter was asking for a diving suit for my Action Man. My spelling was probably a bit dodgy but I probably used my very best joined up writing. You must have read it though because the diving suit showed up on Christmas morning. You also ate the mince pie and drank the little glass of sherry (man, you must have been pissed when you got back to Lapland). Rudolph even ate some of the carrot.
But you didn’t turn up again this year did you Santa? It was just the same with the tooth fairy earlier this year when I had a wisdom tooth removed. You mythical characters are a bunch of slackers!
No, Christmas isn’t what it used to be.
Nonetheless, my wife adores Christmas. To be more accurate, my wife adores Christmas from February to November. She spends December doing what you, Santa, are supposed to be doing (and bankrupting the household in the process). In January, she gets counselling for post-traumatic stress disorder.
I hate Christmas.
Even as I began typing this, Santa, some warm-hearted pillock has just knocked and my door and separated me from another £2 of my hard-earned cash for a crappy snowman pin badge in aid of some hitherto unheard of charity caring for unspecified children suffering unspecified misfortunes in unspecified locations. He's probably just screwed me and my money is going towards a mighty Christmas piss-up in the next village but in this season of goodwill to all men, I couldn't exactly tell him to shove his little snowman up his own private ice hole (tempting as that might have been).
And now, to make matters worse, the Sellotape dispenser has gone missing again. Little wonder when we have a spare bedroom dedicated to the art of industrial scale wrapping and known at this time of year as the ‘Wrapping Room’. It’s not as if we have a huge family or hundreds of friends but it’s like the Amazon.com warehouse in there. No wonder my beloved family can’t find the bloody Selloptape. “Try aisle 36 – ‘Presents for Distant Relatives and Work Colleagues that Didn’t Piss Us Off This Year!!”, I shout helpfully.
God, I hate Christmas.
People do such weird things at Christmas.
By way of example, my wife and daughter have erected in our living room an eight foot tall, largely plastic, replica of a pine tree, having first rearranged all the furniture to accommodate it. They then covered said replica tree in shiny balls of glass and plastic following which they spent two hours untangling about 40 yards of lights and establishing which of the 400 little bulbs didn’t work. Having finally located the broken bulb, they spent a further two hours locating the spare ones before they finally got the lights working. They tell me that they enjoy this annual ritual.
I hate the Christmas Tree Ritual.
The only time I enjoyed the Christmas Tree Ritual was when we chose a real pine tree and unbeknown to us, there was a bat asleep inside the tree. Its peaceful hibernation was rudely interrupted when the 400 little lights were switched on and it began screeching[1] around the living room at 400 miles per hour, spraying bat droppings as it went. Seeing my wife hit the floor in less than a nanosecond and attempting to lie as flat as a sheet of lasagne was one of the funniest things I have ever seen.
Since we got the plastic tree, it just hasn’t been the same.
However, despite the undeniable artificiality of the tree, the cat now thinks that the living room is a garden. In that the cat also thinks that a garden is a toilet, this is far from ideal. As a result, the cat and I do not get on well at Christmas.
That doesn’t stop the cat from getting a present from the Wrapping Room of course.
My wife buys the cat a little packet of Cat Nip. In case you don’t know, Santa, Cat Nip is rather like a feline version of LSD – laced with Viagra. I like to sprinkle the stuff around the cat’s scratching pole. Watching the little fur ball trying to have sex with a roll of carpet is almost as funny as watching my wife avoiding a low-flying bat.
When you hate Christmas as much as I do, Santa, you have to find your amusement where you can.
Because at Christmas, Santa, the world goes completely crazy.
For instance, why is it that at Christmas, we can never get enough satsumas? At any other time of year, no one gives a stuff about these crappy, nondescript citrus fruits but at this time year, the entire country starts buying huge orange string bags full of the bloody things as if our very lives depend on it. Why?
The same goes for mulled wine. 11 months of the year and we’re content to drink our plonk chilled or at room temperature. December arrives and suddenly, we’re boiling it up and sticking cloves and cinnamon sticks in it. And you know what? It’s bloody disgusting. It’s like drinking hot Pot Pourri.
And then there’s the Christmas turkey. Why in God’s name do hundreds of millions of people eat this pug-ugly and completely tasteless bird on the same day each year?[2] Why, for instance, don’t we eat penguins? At least they would be in keeping with the snowy Christmas theme. There are millions and millions of them. David Attenborough said so.
Personally, I’d rather have a curry. I hate Christmas dinner.
I hate Christmas cards too. My wife sends Christmas cards to people we haven’t seen for thirty years! Some of them are probably dead! Most of those who are still alive have probably forgotten who we are. My wife also puts Christmas cards on display. We have them on window sills and shelves all over the house. I open them and throw them away. I figure if she thinks a few people haven’t sent us a card, it will save a few stamps next year.
Most of all though, I hate Christmas songs. There is simply no escape from the mind-numbing, all-pervading crappiness emanating, it seems, from every single loud speaker in the world. Every time I hear ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Bloody Reindeer’, I want to rip his antlers off and stab myself with them.
Do you know what I got for Christmas, Santa? I got credit card debts, that’s what.
Great big red-nosed credit card debts with bloody Jingle Bells on.
All because you can’t be arsed to show up!
You lazy sod!
Yours,
Anthony.
PS. Merry Christmas!
Whiskas: Does My Cat Have Bulimia? – UPDATE
I hadn't written any mischief letters for a while so I thought it was high time I did. When the cat threw up all over the kitchen again this week, I had an idea....
Customer Relations Department
Mars Petcare UK
Registered Office
3D Dundee Road
Slough
Berkshire SL1 4LG
Dear Customer Relations,
Whiskas and Feline Eating Disorders
I have a cat called Nahla (I’d rather have a dog but cats bury their own poo in the garden – usually someone else’s - which is a lot better than picking up smelly poos and putting them in a bin). She’s named after the lioness in the Lion King. She doesn’t look much like a lion, in fact she looks like a tiger that shrank in the wash because she’s small and stripy, but she seems to like the name.
She also likes Whiskas ‘Oh So Meaty’ in Jelly. In fact, she likes Whiskas so much that she gets very stroppy when we give her crunchy cat food which the vet says we have to on account of her gum disease. Her favourite Whiskas is the poultry selection. She doesn’t like the ‘Oh So Fishy’ ones – probably because we live a long way from the sea.
Anyway, I am beginning to get a little worried about Nahla because she keeps being sick after she has eaten her Whiskas. Unfortunately, she seems to prefer to throw up in the house instead of in other people’s gardens. I don’t particularly like the look or smell of Whiskas when it’s fresh from the pouch. When it’s been inside a cat for ten minutes, it’s not nice at all!
I think she is displaying a lot of the classic symptoms of Bulimia.
I have looked up Bulimia on the NHS website and it says that low self esteem could be a major factor. Nahla is much smaller than all the other cats in the neighbourhood and her tummy is a bit ‘saggy’ since she had kittens when she was very young. I suspect that she is being bullied. She is also adopted (she was already over a year old when she came to us) so perhaps she is insecure.
As you are clearly very expert in the area of feline nutrition, I was hoping that you may be able to offer some advice.
Yours hopefully,
Anthony
Full marks to Mars Petcare, and in particular, to Susan Hendy from their Customer Care Team. She was soon back to me with a very helpful reply:
Naturally, I'm obliged to serve another volley now that I know I have someone to play with....
Watch this space.
Ten Formal Complaints in Six Months
This one has been tweeted about across the globe so I asked the author, David Thorne, if he would mind me sharing it on DCR. Its not exactly a complaint letter but is a series of formal complaints allegedly made about David by a work colleague. It first appeared on David's utterly brilliant 27b/6 Blog (link in the sidebar).
David has also published a book containing much of the correspondence from the 27b/6 blog: 'The Internet is a Playground - Irreverent Correspondences of an Evil Online Genius' [ISBN 978-1-58542-881-6]
Anyway, this one is about complaints and it's very funny, so here it is:
Ten F26-A formal complaint notices
in six months.
Apparently after receiving three, you are meant to have some kind of formal meeting between the parties involved but this never happened. According to the rules, if there are five complaints, an external mediator has to be bought in. This didn't happen either and I was quite disappointed.
I don't really have anything against Simon apart from the fact that he likes the band Nickelback and has no sense of humour; I just get bored. There have actually been twelve formal complaints by Simon against me but two of those were complaining that nothing had been done about the previous formal complaints so I didn't bother scanning those in.
Cleveland Browns – The Ultimate Put Down
As readers of this blog will know, I am always on the look out for funny complaint letters. This one however is a funny response to a complaint. As ever, there is no guaratee that this exchange is genuine but in this case, we appear to have scans of the original correspondence so it may just be the real thing. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.
The letters were allegedly written some 27 years ago between a Mr Dale O. Cox, a lawyer, and a season ticket holder of the Cleveland Browns and the Cleveland Stadium Corporation. Mr Cox was unhappy about a growing trend amongst Browns fans to make paper aeroplanes out of the match programme:
The reply from the Stadium Corporation came from their own legal counsel - a Mr. James N. Bailey - and was pure, unadulterated genius:
If you have come across any brilliant put-downs, please send them in!!
Andrex: What’s so difficult?
It should be possible to spend a few peaceful moments in the smallest room without getting annoyed.. but, no. Try as I might, I can't get that bloody loo roll to tear along the perforations. I suppose that if it did, that puppy wouldn't be able to run all over the house dragging the stuff all over the place....
Kimberly-Clark Ltd
1 Tower View
Kings Hill
West Malling
Kent
ME19 4HA
Dear Customer Relations,
Andrex Toilet Tissue
What is so difficult about making toilet tissue that tears along the dotted line?
Yours sincerely,
Anthony
Starbucks: A Global Pandemic of Mediocrity
I love great coffee. I therefore hate Starbucks. About time they knew about it:
Customer RelationsStarbucks Coffee Company Building 4
566 Chiswick High Road
London
W4 5YE
Dear Customer Relations,
I have to admit to being a bit of a sucker for your Caramel Frappuccino®. On a hot day, slurping one of these cholesterol and calorie loaded concoctions is a wonderfully self-indulgent way to cool down. The only problem is that I always drink it too quickly and get ‘frozen gullet’ (which is as painful as having your tonsils removed via your rectum without anaesthetic! [1] ). Yet, despite the certainty of the excruciating pain to follow if I buy one, I still struggle to walk past your establishments in warm weather. And let’s face it; there are a lot of them to walk past.
The other day, I was wondering just how extensive the global spread of Starbucks had become and was staggered to discover from your website that I can now slurp a Caramel Frappuccino® in no less than 50 countries.
It appears from the website that it came as something of a shock to you too:
“To this day we’re still amazed by how warmly our coffee shops have been embraced by millions of people around the world”.
Well, you can’t be as amazed as I am I can tell you. How can you grow to the point where you have 5,500 ‘coffee houses’ all over the planet when you have never served a decent cup of coffee in 4 decades?! You see, whilst I may have a weakness for your rather excellent Caramel Frappuccino®, I think your lattes, cappuccinos [2] and espressos are an insult to anyone who knows what real coffee tastes like.
Firstly, your coffee is too weak - by a country mile. We all know that Americans dilute their coffee to homeopathic levels but that is no justification for inflicting urine-coloured coffee on the rest of the world. I’ll never forget queuing very early one morning in a Starbucks near Union Square in San Francisco with all the flakes [3] and hookers – they made the cast of ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ look like a bunch of Nobel prizewinners - and the barista looked at me like I was the crazy one - just because I’d ordered a ‘Quadruple Tall Latte’!
You shouldn’t have to drink half a gallon of coffee to get a caffeine hit. Maybe it's because you want to hide the true taste of the coffee because, secondly, strength notwithstanding, the coffee itself is… well, bloody awful.
I suspect that this has something to do with the fact that it is ‘Fairtrade Certified™’. Whilst I applaud every attempt to support traders in developing countries, I believe that ‘Fairtrade’ is a means of securing a premium price for inferior goods by appealing to the social conscience of the consumer. If it doesn’t sell because it’s crap, stick a ‘Fairtrade’ label on it and it will fly off the shelves and at the same time, you look like a socially responsible retailer. At the end of the day though, it's still crap. If we had 'Fairtrade' aero-engines, aircraft would be falling out of the skies like rain.
Let's face it, it you have a cup of Illy espresso in one hand and a cup of Starbucks in the other, one is going to taste like heaven and the other is going to taste like you washed an athlete's foot sufferer's socks in it.
So, despite the delights of Caramel Frappuccino®, the global Starbucks pandemic is a complete mystery to me. You have succeeded where Swine Flu failed and you have spread across the world. I just don't get it.
Go on, tell me. What's the secret?
Yours Faithfully,
Anthony
Footnotes: [1] Actually, I have never had any part of my body removed via my rectum. This is a figment of my literary imagination. [2] To be accurate, Cappuccini is the correct plural noun but that would be a bit nit-picky. [3] For the benefit of UK recipients, ‘flake’ is American for tramp/vagrant. Being behind them in a Starbucks queue is very frustrating because they pay for their coffee one cent at a time (and they don’t smell terribly good - a bit like Starbucks coffee come to think of it).
Ibuprofen Liquid Capsules: Easy to Swallow?
The story told in this latest letter is actually completely true. I should have sued the riding school.
Customer Relations Department
Superdrug Stores plc
118 Beddington LaneCroydon
Surrey
CR0 4TB
Dear Customer Relations,
Superdrug Ibuprofen 200mg Liquid Capsules
Twenty years ago, a very big horse ran up my back at full gallop.
My wife and I had been riding in the forests of the Morvan National Park in France - and very nice it was too. Nice that is until our mounts were spooked by a snake and we were both thrown out of our saddles. The big problem for me was that I was riding in the front. As a result, milliseconds after the pain of hitting the rocky ground at high speed, my wife’s horse ran straight over me at a velocity Red Rum would have been proud of. Unfortunately, one of its thundering hind hooves struck me squarely on my upper back, just inside my right shoulder blade. After that, the pain of the fall seemed utterly insignificant.
For some time afterwards, my Quasimodo impersonation was flawless. My hump was the size of a small French village and my right arm hung limp and useless at my side. I wouldn’t have been able to stand or lie straight if you had run over me with a steamroller. Gradually though, the pain and the swelling subsided, I eventually resumed an upright stance and life returned to normal.
Nonetheless, to this day, there is an area of damaged tissue in my shoulder – roughly the size of a horses hoof. Once in a while, it seems to flare up for no apparent reason and I develop an acute neuritis, causing excruciating referred pain down my arm and pins and needles in my right hand.
So, to finally get to the point of my letter, this is exactly what happened a few weeks ago.
It was the weekend and I was unable to see my GP straight away so you can imagine my relief when my wife handed me a box of Superdrug 200mg Ibuprofen Liquid Capsules. Just the job I thought. A painkiller and an anti-inflammatory. Perfect. What’s more, they were fast-acting and (best of all) “easy-to-swallow”!
At least that’s what it said on the box.
Easy to swallow? I suspect that it would have been easier to swallow the horse!
I know the capsules aren’t exactly tiny but I have certainly swallowed bigger tablets without difficulty (indeed, the 400mg ibuprofen tablets that I was eventually prescribed were much bigger than your capsules and looked like shocking-pink flying saucers but they slid down my throat like a good oyster).
No, size isn’t the issue, nor, I suspect, is the egg shape of the capsule. It is the gel of which the capsule is made that is the problem. It seems to react with saliva to form a highly efficient adhesive which firmly glues the capsule to the throat, just below the point where you can cough it back up again. No amount of drinking will dislodge the little blighter. The only way to get the capsule down far enough to do the ‘fast-acting’ bit is to eat - without chewing excessively so there are lots of ‘bits’ to dislodge the glued-on capsule. Salted peanuts work very well, I eventually discovered.
This all seemed like an awful lot of trouble to swallow an “easy-to-swallow” capsule. In fact, bearing in mind its shape, texture and general squishiness, it occurred to me that it may actually be a great deal easier to introduce the capsule into the gastro-intestinal tract from completely the opposite end! A quick dab of Vaseline and hey presto!
So before I buy a pair of rubber gloves, I thought I’d ask: Would they be just as effective as a fast-acting, “easy-to-shove-up-your-bum” suppository?
Yours faithfully,
Anthony
Fit as a Butcher’s Dog!
A new letter has been added to the Best Ever Mischief Letters section of the site. Terry Ravenscroft, master of the art of mischief letter writing, has allowed me to reproduce a letter from his fantastic book: 'Dear Customer Services - Letters from the World's Most Troublesome Shopper'.
The letter concerns the culinary qualities of Butcher's Tripe Mix.
Take a look.
Unilever – The Lynx Effect
There are so many easy targets out there for letters such as this. I had hoped that the customer relations departments possess a sense of humour and reply in kind. Alas, they couldn't have been less imaginative. However, I don't give up that easily.
10th April 2010
Dear Customer Realations,
THE LYNX EFFECT
Every spring for the last few years, a family of starlings has moved into the eaves of our house where they nest, and produce lots more starlings before leaving again at the end of the summer. Every morning at 4.30am on the dot, they suddenly come to life and take their morning exercise by running up and down the length of the house within the eaves, just above my daughter’s bedroom. It drives my daughter to distraction and makes it impossible for her to enjoy a good night’s sleep.
The problem is that try as I might, I cannot find their route into the eaves. Also, because of the way the roof is constructed, there is only the smallest gap between the main loft area and the eaves so I am unable to fill the void with wire netting or similar material to stop the little blighters from getting in.
A couple of weeks ago, I had an inspired idea. It occurred to me that if I could spray something totally revolting into the eaves through that tiny gap, I might make the flying rats decide to go somewhere else. Then I thought of Lynx Body Spray. Memories flooded back of how horrible our teenage son used to smell in years gone by when he used the stuff to attract members of the opposite sex (with very limited success it has to be said). Could the potion developed to attract ‘birds’ actually be used to repel them?
Off I went to the bedroom he used to occupy and rifled through his cupboards. Sure enough, amongst the spot creams and anti-bacterial face washes was the little black can. A quick spray revealed that it was just as I remembered it – disgusting! I went straight to the loft and emptied the entire can into the eaves of the house. Result: The starlings haven’t been near the place since!
I think I may have stumbled across a new product line for Unilever. What do you think?
Yours etc,
The reply was disappointing to say the least:
21st April 2010
Lynx CaseID#940600#
Dear Anthony,
Thank you for your recent email regarding an alternative use for our Lynx product.
We welcome all suggestions and ideas from our consumers and I will pass your comments on to our Product Development team so that they can consider them in any future developments.
Thank you for taking the time to contact us.
Kind regards,
Annette Mclune
Careline Advisor
So I thought I'd try again:
23rd April 2010
Lynx CaseID#940600#
Dear Annette,
Many thanks for your reply but I'm afraid I don't think you're taking this seriously enough. You are failing to see the potential corporate growth that Unilever could enjoy with its new pest control division - and you don't even need to develop any new products!
Imagine how much money BAA must spend each year scaring birds away from our airports. Just a few Lynx Body Spray dispensers down the side of the runways and the problem would be solved forever. You could make millions. You could even get rid of the pigeons in Trafalgar Square - a giant can of Lynx on the fourth plinth and Hey Presto!
Of course, its possible that it doesn't just work on birds. Obviously, the Lynx Bullet is just the right size to fit in a rat trap. Rebadge your Peperami Minis as bait to entice the rodent into the trap and as soon as he's in there, a quick salvo of Lynx Instinct and he'll be throwing himself in the nearest river within minutes.
I think you should get your R&D Department on the case straight away.
Sincerley,
Anthony