We all know that British Telecom is crap but for those of us unfortunate enough to live in East Yorkshire, even BT would be a significant improvement.  We have KC - Kingston Communications -  and this small local monopoly has set new benchmarks in lousy customer service. 

However, I have to be fair to KC.  No sooner had I finished this letter than the notification of my refund dropped through the letterbox.  I was therefore unable to send it.

The style of the letter was inspired by B J Shone, whose pictorial letter to SouthWest Airlines was a stroke of genius.  Like BJ, I crave the indulgence of the copyright owners for the various pictures. 

Enjoy:

Now go and like the Dear Customer Relations Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/Dear.Customer.Relations 

This is the second letter submitted by Simon Cullen.  This time, he directs his pen towards the West Murcia Police, who apparently caught Simon exceeding a temporary speed limit on the M5 and offered him a 'Speed Awareness Workshop' as an alternative to a fine and an three penalty points.  As you will see, Simon was unimpressed:

West Mercia Police
PO Box 25
Droitwich Worcs
WR9 8UF

Dear Mrs Hartland,

I have recently received a fixed penalty notice through my door for speeding on junction 5-6 of the M5 on the 13th September 2011.

Let me just start by saying that I fully accept the possibility that I, and the large queue of traffic that I was following southbound, were doing 59mph as we travelled through the road works. This was at 15:05 so traffic was just starting to build up, I can only imagine several 10’s of thousands of people have received these fixed penalties. So firstly, yes, I may have been travelling at the speed indicated, and secondly, congratulations for raking in some cash for the police benevolence fund.

The Journey

What I DO NOT accept is that I was driving dangerously, or unsafely, or recklessly.  No more so than the majority of the fellow migrants that I encountered on my long journey home.  In the weekend that I committed this heinous crime, you see, I and my family (two small children, one regular sized wife) had travelled from South Wales, to Carlisle, to Fife, to Glasgow, and to Ardrossan in Ayrshire.  From Ardrossan, we had travelled down through Scotland and headed back to South Wales.

At no point in that journey did I come anywhere near endangering any other motorist’s life.  The most dangerous thing that happened on the entire 973 mile round trip, was some idiotic sewer dweller tailgating me in heavy traffic and flashing the lights of her Audi repeatedly to get me to pull out of her way.  As she passed, she took the time to have a short break in the conversation she was having on her mobile phone, to give me a filthy look.  I’m sure she drove all the way home, with not a point on her licence or a fine to her name, at about 90mph.

I, on the other hand, did my best to keep a fluid flow with the traffic, made sure I stayed at least two car lengths from the car in front and kept alert and aware at all times.  I pride myself on having an excellent ability to stay alert while driving, and have excellent perception of danger.

The Crime

So, firstly, let me examine the crime which is going to take £60 worth of food out of my children’s mouths, and cost me three points on a licence that has been clean for over 15 years.

I was doing 59mph, on a motorway, in a temporary 50 limit.  Now, firstly, as I have pointed out, the traffic was flowing, but heavy by 15:00 on a busy stretch of motorway.  I was following the mass of traffic in front, and being followed by the mass of traffic behind.  Several times that day the road had been slowed to 50, then to 60, then back down to 50 because of the terrible conditions of strong wind and heavy rain in the morning.  So if I was breaking the speed limit, I’d be quite interested to see the statistics of the number of other people caught during that 10 minute period of driving through that section of road works.

59mph in a 50mph limit, so, that’s 9mph over the temporary speed limit.  The speed of a casual jog.  Although, I am led to understand after some research, that the recommended tolerance for U.K. speed limit enforcement is 10% of the speed limit (+2mph).  So in a 50mph zone, that would be 10%*50(+2)=57mph.  In other words, what I was actually travelling at, was 2mph over the speed limit tolerance.  The speed of a crippled glacier.  I’ve moved quicker than that whilst asleep.

My Options

Still, 2mph, it’s a fair cop.  My options now are to travel all the way up to Worcester to plead my case (costing my probably £60 fuel) or to plead guilty to this terrible act of automotive anarchy, take the three points on my unblemished licence, and send you a cheque for £60 that you’ll presumably put to use oppressing the proletariat or something.

But hark!  What is this we have?  Another option?

Yes!  I can drive to Worcester (£60 fuel) and attend a course at a “Speed Awareness Workshop” – for which I‘ll be charged £80 – to be taught about speed awareness.  I was travelling at 9mph over the speed limit and 2 mph over your own set tolerance and you want to try to blackmail me into attending a speed awareness course?  That is the greatest act of condescension that I have been subjected to in my time on this earth.

Over 900 miles I travelled in 3 days on the road (in a hurricane) and I didn’t have one moment of danger.  Not a close call, barely even an angry glance.  I drove carefully and alertly, yet you want to drag me 80 miles to Worcester (a very lovely city though it is) to make me waste a day off work, and indeed a day of my precious time on this mortal plane, to have you tell me that I shouldn’t travel 2mph faster than the speed limit on a motorway!

My Response To Your Offer

I am aware of the impact my car will have if it hits a bag of toddlers at 59mph on the M5 thank you very much.  I am also aware that I could drive my car into my own toddler at 2mph and it probably wouldn’t even knock him over, and he’s none too steady on his feet.

I would like to point out that I do not participate in, or endorse, the running over of toddlers, before you send the Sweeny around to beat me with hoses.

I would like to respond to your insulting, condescending, pathetic offer of “Education” thusly:-  I would rather obtain the course fee (£80) in 50 pence coins, heat them all in a pan, and push them individually up my own backside than be talked down to on safety by West Mercia Constabulary.

Could you please send me photographic evidence of my abhorrent infraction so that I can ascertain my own guilt, before I incriminate myself unnecessarily by filling out the guilty plea.

I will then send off the £60 cheque and a copy of my (currently unblemished) driving license for endorsement.

In Conclusion

I am led to understand that the police do an incredibly difficult and admirable job.  After watching several episodes of Booze Britain, it’s certainly not a job I would relish doing at 3am in Manchester City Centre, for example.  However, it’s petty nonsense like this sort of administrative nitpickery that take money out of the pockets of average, law abiding citizens and unfortunately tarnish the good work that the police do in the eyes of the people who’s pockets you’re ransacking, thus losing respect in the public eye for decent, hard working police officers.

I feel treating a person like a naughty school boy, because they were doing 2mph over a temporary speed limit, is not the way to garnish public respect.  Especially in a time where every time I turn on my TV, I’m being told of plans to abolish the speed limit on motorways altogether.  I would hope that anyone who reads this would agree that the punishment most certainly doesn’t fit the “crime” and the whole thing is a bit of a joke.

Please respond to my letter promptly so that I am within my time limit to get the form back to you.

God forbid it should arrive on your doorstep 43 seconds late or something.

Yours faithfully

Simon Cullen

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!

This is the first  of a series of letters kindly sent to DCR by Simon Cullen.  Simon is clearly a kindred spirit.  Unpleasant things keep happening to him and he knows that the best way to get over it is to write a virulent but cathartic rant. 

This first skirmish is with Apple iTunes.  Apparently, someone hacked into Simon's iTunes account and stole £190 from him.  In their wisdom, iTunes decided that the best way to help him was to ignore him completely....

To: Itunesstoresupport@apple.com
From: ******@hotmail.com
09 March 2011

Dear iTunes

This is a short summation of what this email is about so that the lovely people at Itunes can’t say I rambled on a bit and they didn’t read it:-

I, a “customer” of yours, have had my online account with you, where you hold ALL of my relevant financial details, hacked into, by a penis jockey of unknown origin, who bought himself 19 gift certificates, using my password as a name on January 19th 2011.

I have contacted what you call customer services (with no little irony) via email (because you have no PHONE NUMBER) and have received one reply, in which I was assured by “Katherine” on February 12th 2011, that I was “important” and would be dealt with asap.

That was one month ago.

Despite REPEATEDLY emailing “Katherine”, I have been avoided more readily than a leporous sex offender. I decided the only way forward was to re-start my iTunes grievance and bypass the wonderful Katie in the hope that I could get someone who could actually reach the keyboard and type a reply.

That was three days ago, iTunes.

Please respond to me.

My name is Simon Cullen, my account name is **************

Please!

I don’t hate you, not yet anyway. I’m moving rapidly in that direction though. I’ve had £190 stolen because I used your music program. Which, by the way, ISN’T EVEN ANY GOOD. It’s bloody awful in fact. I don’t want YOU to organise my music files. I want to do it. Why is your cockamany program trying to do it for me?? Why the crapping Christ do I want 3 copies of each song on each album lined up?

So, for instance, if I listen to AC/DC’s fine Powerage LP, I get Rock and Roll Damnation THREE times. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s a great song, but when you listen to anything three times in a row, it starts to feel a LITTLE bit like you’re going mental.

Now, I know, Kate, that you’re probably sitting there, at your iTunes desk, tutting and shaking you’re wisoned head, saying to yourself “huh, you idiot, there’s an OPTION to turn that off. You just press apple/alt/ctrl/shift and four."
But, I’m not an idiot, no, I’m just lazy, and I don’t WANT to press any buttons, or fanny about with any drop down menu boxes.  I just want to listen to “Cannibal Corpse”.  Once, NOT three times.  If you listen to Cannibal Corpse three times, Kat, the Zombie Apocalypse definitely begins.

So I have to go through all my songs, and delete two in every three songs.  Then find that I deleted the working copy and NOT the one I want to listen to, so I have to purchase the LP again from Itunes....  oh no, sorry, I can’t, because you SUSPENDED MY FORNICATING ACCOUNT IN FEBRUARY!

I had money stolen from it.  So I was rightly punished, banished from my own iTunes account and ignored.  Ignored by YOU Katie.  And now you won’t even talk to me.

I’m sick of you.  I get better treatment than that from my wife.  And you’re not my wife Katherine.  You might think you are, with your cold, surly distance, but you’re not.

Stop stealing my money, and then ignoring me.  You’re not all that smart you know. You’re software is an abortion of a program.

Do you think I WANT to use that hideous clunky piece of crap? No, I HAVE to, because I bought an Iphone.

I STILL don’t know how to plug it in and charge it up, without it deleting all my aps and Podcasts.

“There’s an option.....” no Katherine, NO option. Just don’t DO it unless I ask you o.k.?

Just CHARGE UP. I didn’t ASK you to delete 4 pages of things that make my commute 10% less goddamn miserable. You JUST DID IT.

And now I can’t buy them again because you’ve suspended my account!

So, here’s the deal Katie-pie, I’ve had enough of your petulant ignorance, we’re over. We’re through o.k.?

Once I am emancipated, I’m taking my things, and moving out.  The new playstation phone is out in March, and it’s been seductively swelling its beautiful, rounded bosom in my direction recently.

I won’t lie, I want to hold it and touch it, and caress its shiny ass.

I’m sure it won’t require me to have a phd in cock-knockery just to put the things I want onto it, and I’m sure it won’t steal my money and then ignore me like a ginger-headed step-child.

I thank you for the good times, it’s been fun, but it’s also been a colossal pain in the crutch and your broken promises of “customer service” have been too much to take.

Your’s faithfully or whatever
Simon Cullen"

Don't you just hate it?  Our rail services are getting more and more expensive whilst the service gets worse and worse.  This week, I came across a particularly unhelpful member of the East Coast on-board team and so I just had to put pen to paper....

East Coast Customer Relations

Freepost RSRJ-LJCX-GHS

Plymouth

PL4 6AB

The Cretin and the Coffee Trolley

Dear Customer Relations,

Last week, I had the misfortune of travelling on the morning East Coast train to Kings Cross.  It is something I have to do roughly every two weeks. 

I must have done something really awful in a past life.

Not long after departure, I trotted along to see Mrs. Buffet for my regular bacon toastie and coffee.  I believe you call this a ‘Megadeal’ as both can be purchased for a mouth-watering £4.75.  Quite what is ‘Mega’ about paying £4.75 for a re-heated slice of dead pig and a cup of imitation coffee escapes me but I always seem to get peckish around that time and I imagine you might object if I set up a camping stove on my table back at my seat.

As it happens, this trip was arranged at short notice and so I was unable to buy a discount off peak super saver megadeal rail ticket and had in fact paid £195.00[1] for the dubious privilege of being on the train.  It seems to me that at that price, the bacon toastie, the coffee and a full body massage should be included in the price but alas, they are not.

So, £199.75 worse off, I bounced my way back along the train to my seat carrying my little paper bag containing my slice of dead pig, a sachet of ketchup, 8 sachets of sugar[2] and what I believed to be a cup of coffee.  Unfortunately, when I removed the lid from the cup, I did not find coffee, but a very pale, vaguely brown and very transparent liquid that neither smelled nor tasted remotely of any popular hot drink. What it did taste of was absolutely nothing at all.  The bottom of the cup could be clearly seen through the liquid.

As I was sat some distance from the buffet, I decided that I simply couldn’t be bothered to make a second journey to see Mrs. Buffet.  I replaced the lid on the liquid and resigned myself to doing without a drink.

Imagine my delight therefore when, just seconds later, Mr. Trolley trundled his merry way into my carriage!  “Excuse me!” I said as he squeaked towards me, “Could you help me with my coffee?  Something appears to have gone wrong with the machine in the buffet car”.

I showed him the almost clear liquid.

He explained that there isn’t a machine any more.  These days, Mrs. Buffet tears open a sachet of instant coffee, pours the contents in a cup and then adds hot[3] water.  He wearily waved a coffee sachet to illustrate his explanation.

“Oh” I said. “Could I possibly have another sachet then so that my coffee tastes of coffee?”

“No”, he said.

“Pardon?” I said.

“No.  I’ll sell you another cup if you like”

“No, I don’t like, because I have already paid for a cup of coffee and the second one might be as bad as this one anyway”

“Then take the one you’ve got back to the buffet”

“Thank you for being so unbelievably helpful” I said (sarcastically, and rather loudly so the rest of the carriage could hear).

And with that, Mr. Trolley wandered off to piss off some more passengers. 

Now I appreciate that working for an operator of last resort after their previous employer lost its franchise to operate the East Coast Main Line must be a tad depressing, especially as the staff once served excellent full English breakfasts and are now reduced to reheating slices of dead pig and tearing open sachets of excruciatingly crap coffee, but that is no excuse for being a miserable, unhelpful cretin.

So that you can identify the miserable, unhelpful cretin in question, the train was the [too much information is a bad thing] on Thursday 27^th October 2011.  He was the guy with the trolley.

You can then tell him that he should think of the consequences before he behaves like that towards a customer – especially when the customer was polite, and had a genuine problem.  That customer might:

a)       Write a letter of complaint

b)      Be the owner of a consumer website

c)       Publish the letter online

d)      Post it to Facebook pages with over a million users

You can tell him that some days; if you get out of bed on the wrong side, the best thing to do is to climb straight back between the sheets - and stay there.

Yours faithfully,

Anthony

PS  Could you also please ask your guards/train managers to stop beginning the “Thank you for putting up with East Coast” message on arrival at Kings Cross with the words: “On behalf of myself….”

It makes them sound like they’re suffering from schizophrenia.

We seem to be developing a bit of a cat theme this month so I had to feature this letter from www.mummybarrow.com  It seems that a friend of Mummy Barrow residing in the English town of Mansfield had been having a bit of a problem with cats using the back yard of her rented property as a giant cat litter tray.  It appears that the landlady was in state of denial. The tenant was at the end of her tether however - as you will see from this amazing rant. 

Needless to say, the names and addresses have been changed so I don't get sued.

Dear Ms Landlady,

Re: Public Health Hazard 8 Chipperfield Street, Macclesfield

  1. If your “not of the opinion” that the piles of excrement appearing nightly in my enclosed back yard are being produced by the cats I’ve seen jumping over the walls, what the hell kind of animal do you suggest is climbing the walls and defecating freely all around my back door?  Are you suggesting I’m using the yard as a toilet?  Because believe me, Ms Landlady, there have only been me and a load of cats in that back yard in the past 3 months.

Well, they look like cats. Maybe I’m wrong and they’re giraffes.

2. You say you’re “not of the opinion” that the piles of excrement appearing nightly in my back yard are being produced by the cats I’ve seen jumping over the walls – so bloody what?!  Do you think I’m bothered what kind of animal is crapping in my yard?  I don’t care if it’s cats, aardvarks, or bloody sugar-gliders:

There is CRAP in my yard, Ms Landlady – faeces, excrement, filth, poo.

It’s not just because I think it's cat shit that I’m leaving, it’s because it’s shit, full stop.  It’s not a question of discrimination – I don’t like any kind of faeces outside my kitchen.  I don’t like the flies or the smell or the fact that I’ve got to shovel shit every morning.

3. There is excrement in my yard. There is also an old hand shovel which someone left propped up against the wall where the majority of the faeces are left.  Hmm, strange.

4. You seem to have a problem understanding English, Miss Landlady.  Let me help you:

The back yard of 8 Chipperfield Street is full of bis.  I don’t like it, irrespective of whether it's cats or camels producing it.  Its offensive and it’s a health hazard. 

I am leaving 8 Chipperfield Street. I am terminating my tenancy as of 17th November. You can keep the security deposit -- that’s how filthy that bloody house is.

Your firm is a total disgrace.

Don’t bother sending anyone out to tell me it’s not cat dirt it’s actually an exotic kind of moss falling off the roof every night:  I don’t live there any more. 

And don’t you dare ever tell me I’m a liar when I say there’s cat crap in the back yard of that house because I’d be more than willing to send you a sample.  For now, I’ll just send you a gallery of photographs of the filth I’ve had to live in because of your firm.  You can indulge yourself making up what kind of animals you imagine have produced the various turds, and then try and explain to the new tenants why they should be pleased because – hey.....

....at least it’s not cat crap!

You stupid bloody woman!

The keys will be returned to you on 17th November.  If you still don’t understand why, get someone to read this letter to you v e r y  s l o w l y.

Enough is enough!

N Tenant.

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.

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.

As indicated on the 'About the Author' page, I work in the design business and I travel a lot with my work.  This entirely true story begins in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where I spent quite a lot of time during a period when I worked in the casino sector.  The story ends thousands of miles away in Yorkshire, almost a year later.  As a result, this is a very long tale which ought to have been the subject of a complaint letter but never was - because I didn't know which sex shop was responsible for all the trouble that followed...

The central characters of the story, at least the beginning of the story, we shall call Bill and Ben[1].   They were both English-born but both lived (separately) in California and had done so for some years.  Both had a physical age of about sixty and a behavioural age of about thirteen.  Like me, they both worked in the design business and we were all in Atlantic City for meetings about the same project.  This particular cold winter evening, Bill, Ben, myself, my English colleague Ted [2] and a few American friends had been out to dinner and had probably indulged in a few too many Yuenglings [3].  Nonetheless, we agreed to meet back at our hotel for a nightcap or two. 

As it happens, we were staying at the rather swanky Borgata Hotel and Casino, Atlantic City's newest and most luxurious casino resort.  So, Ted and I were soon comfortably installed in the bar at the centre of the gaming floor, nursing a Maker's Mark.  Of Bill and Ben though, there was no sign.  After a while, we began to get a little concerned.  Atlantic City isn't the sort of place you want to get lost in.  Some of the local neighbourhoods can be a little scary.  An hour passed, still no sign of them.

Then suddenly, the two of them staggered into the bar and they looked terrible.  Dishevelled and with their hair all over the place [4], they looked to be deep in shock.

"Man, it was terrible" Bill began.  "We were attacked outside the restaurant.  Got jumped by this huge black guy. [5] Came out of nowhere".

"But we still managed to put up a fight" said Ben.  "It was a hell of a scrap..."

"...In fact we got the bastard - look!"

Whereupon, with a theatrical flourish, he proceeded to pull from the sleeve of his coat a 16" black rubber penis, complete with two rather undersized and wrinkly testicles, with which he started to conduct the music that was playing over the sound system.  Obviously, the reason the guys were late is that they had decided to stop and take a look around a sex shop and being Bill and Ben, they couldn't bring themselves to leave empty handed.

Around us, couples who up until this point had been enjoying a romantic cocktail, stared wide eyed at the two crazy ex-pat Brits, who by now were pretending to be d'Atragnan and Aramis and were mock sword-fighting - one with a telescopic umbrella and the other with a giant rubber penis - to cries of "En Garde" and "Take that you blighter!"

Then I remembered where we were - one of the newest and most technologically advanced casinos in the United States.  The thoughts flew through my brain at lightning speed.   There would probably be hundreds of cameras, most of them PTZs [6].  The surveillance room would have at least 10 staff monitoring perhaps 80 video feeds at any one time.  Every square inch of the property is covered except the hotel bedrooms.  The fracas in the bar was not going to be missed.  I had to make the penis disappear before I got arrested (again) [7].

I made a grab for it and the sword fight became a tug of war - which Ben found equally entertaining.  Eventually, I managed to wressle the fake appendage from him.  Then it occurred to me:

"Now what the hell am I supposed to do?" 

The 300 pound, shaven-headed security boys (those guys that take you down for a cosy little chat in the basement somewhere after they catch you card counting) would be heading towards us at any second but like a complete prat [8], I had made sure that I'd be the one left clutching a giant penis in the middle of a crowded cocktail bar when they arrived! 

What could I do?  Throw it as far away as possible?  It could hit an old lady and kill her.  I could see the headlines: 'British Man kills Octenagarian with Giant Penis'.  Stuff it down the back of one of the many sofas?  They were all occupied:  "Excuse me madam, could I hide my giant penis in your upholstery?  That wasn't going to work.

I remembered my coat. 

If Ben could smuggle it into the casino in his coat sleeve, then I could smuggle it out in mine.  I grabbed my coat, stuffed the penis up the sleeve and then tried to make it look like I was leaving casually with my coat draped over my arm.  All I could do was hope that nobody noticed that my coat had a seriously impressive hard-on.

Now what?

Should I go outside and lose the penis in a trash bin?  No, that would lead to an immediate bomb alert.  People leaving suspicious packages in bins is right at the top of the casino security list of 'Reasons to Have a Chat in the Basement'.  Flush it down the toilet?  No bloody chance. God, if I was caught in the toilets with a 16" rubber penis I would be in the basement for a very long time indeed. 

I would have to take the penis to my room to give me time to think.  That meant going right past the enormous security guy in 'The Lounge' - the casino-level guest elevator lobby.  I was breaking out in a cold sweat.  Nothing to do but go for it.

I approached Mr. Gorilla in the elevator lobby and tried to smile in a way that said "I may stink of beer and bourbon and fear, but I really don't have anything concealed about my person - especially any16" rubber penises". I showed him my key card whilst keeping the rigid coat sleeve in a vice-like grip between arm and ribcage.  "Have a nice evening, Sir" he said as I breezed on to the bank of elevators.  I'd made it!

I reached my room, and stuffed the penis deep into my suitcase, underneath the dirty underwear and socks where nobody was likely to find it and collapsed on the bed.  Within seconds, I was sound asleep.

Two days later, it was time to leave.  The penis was where I had left it and I still had no idea what to do with it.  If I left it in the room, the chamber maid was going to get quite a surprise and she was certain to report it.  I would be returning here and I didn't want a note on my guest profile saying 'known to leave deviant sexual objects in his room' or even worse, the greeting at reception: "Sir, you left this in your room after your last stay with us".  No, the penis was going to have to leave with me.  That brought with it a whole new series of risks.

Since 9/11, the Americans have got very good at screening aircraft baggage (especially on trans-Atlantic flights) and so I repacked my case with extreme care.  A large can of shaving foam and another of anti-perspirant when placed in line were more or less the same length as the penis, so I arranged the contents of my case such that the two cans were aligned exactly over the offending article and then I added all manner of other metal objects over the top of those.  When I had finished, I was satisfied that it would be all but impossible to see the penis on any x-ray of my bag.

At the US Airways check in at Philadelphia, the routine questions "Are you carrying any weapons?" and "Has anyone given you anything to bring home in your luggage?"  caused a brief frisson of anxiety but the case disappeared along the conveyor belt without incident after I replied "No" on both counts.  Back in the UK, I was half expecting a tap on the shoulder at the baggage carousel but my case reappeared as usual.  At customs, I briefly thought about going through the red channel and declaring one very large penis, but as British Customs are not renowned for their highly developed sense of humour, I chose to pass unnoticed through the green channel.

I had got the penis home.  There was a surprise waiting for me when I reopened my luggage however.

On the very top of my suitcase was a standard printed letter from the TSA - the Transportation Security Administration, an agency of the US Department of Homeland Security - and it had been carefully curled around the giant penis! 

It stated that as a security precaution against terrorist activity my suitcase had been hand-searched by TSA staff and as a result, the contents might not be arranged exactly as they were at the time of packing! 

When I returned to the office, my colleague Ted had told the entire staff about the giant penis and I was persuaded to bring the thing to work so everyone could see what all the fuss had been about. 

A few weeks later, a meeting was to be held at our office about the very project hat had taken me to Atlantic City.  Indeed, some of the Americans were over in the UK and so were Bill and Ben!  Also attending the meeting was an estate agent (realtor) and part time Elvis impersonator who we shall call Shirley [9].  Now Shirley had a very large briefcase which he was in the habit of leaving open on the floor behind his seat at the meeting table.  He also loved a practical joke.  At a point in the meeting when Shirley was closely involved in the discussions, one of my colleagues retrieved the giant penis from my desk drawer and crouching directly behind Shirley's chair, carefully slid the thing into the depths of Shirley's case.  At the end of the meeting, he quickly dropped his papers back in his case, closed it, and rushed off to attend another important appointment, taking the giant penis with him.

Finally, I was rid of it.

Or so I thought.

Shirley had walked out with the penis some time in February or March and for several months, its whereabouts are unknown.  No doubt it was the subject of all manner of other stories.

That August, my wife and I celebrated our Silver Wedding Anniversary and to mark the occasion, our company Chairman bought us a bottle of Vintage Rose Champagne.  It was a very expensive bottle and so naturally, it came in a very attractive presentation box.  I was foolish enough to leave it on my desk.

Unbeknown to me, at some point in the previous few weeks the giant penis had found its way back to the office - no doubt with a little help from Shirley.  Another of my colleagues, a serial practical joker who I shall call Elvis [10], decided that it would be highly amusing to substitute the contents of the presentation box - inserting the giant penis in place of the bottle (conveniently, they weighed about the same).  Unfortunately for Elvis, the penis couldn't be compressed into the box.  Undaunted, he borrowed a hacksaw and carefully removed the bottom 2" of the penis, complete with the testicles. He eventually managed to compress the remaining 14" into the box by bending it into a sort of spiral - rather like a coiled spring, ready to hurtle into the air as soon as the box was opened.

To Elivis's extreme disappointment, I forgot to take the champagne home for my anniversary celebration.  Anyone who has had a Silver Wedding will know that you end up with a lot of champagne.  So it was not until Christmas, 5 months later, that  it occurred to me to take the champagne home, putting the box in the refigerator as soon as I arrived.

As luck would have it, it was our turn to entertain the in-laws this particular Christmas.  After we had completed the annual ritual with the presents and the turkey was safely in the oven, I was sat chatting with my father-in-law and mother-in-law at the kitchen table when my wife suggested we relax with a glass of  Buck's Fizz.

"Oh no" I said,  "I've got something very special in a box in the refrigerator"......

There hasn't really been much for me to complain about recently but a  incident in the kitchen this week was an opportunity that could not be ignored.  I was late home from work, my wife wasn't feeling very well, the cat had thrown up.  It was all a bit stressful.  Then the rice packet exploded all over the bloody kitchen.  Mr. Angry was back!

Waitrose Limited
Doncastle Road
Bracknell
Berkshire
RG12 8YA

Dear Customer Relations,

Waitrose Basmati Aromatic Rice

“The prince of rices, flourishing in the Himalayan foothills where fertile soil, snow-fed streams and the purest air combine to produce a splendid rice. Aromatic and fluffy, (it)[1] deserves pride of place on your table”.

That’s what it says on the packet and for the most part, it sounds pretty good.  It would perhaps be more accurate however to end that particular piece of marketing bollocks with:

“Aromatic and fluffy, it[2] deserves pride of place on your floor”

Because that is where most of it ends up.

You see, the packaging for your Basmati Aromatic Rice was designed by a complete and utter moron[3].

I would like to challenge you to choose a dozen members of your staff at random and ask them to attempt to open a 1kg packet of Waitrose Basmati Aromatic Rice without the assistance of power tools or laser scalpels.  If more than one of them manages to keep more than half of the rice in the packet, then you can be assured that they were cheating!

That is because the only way to accomplish this task is to place the bag of rice into a tall jug or similar vessel which will hold the bag firmly in a vertical position.  The jug is then placed into a large and sterilised bucket (to collect the shrapnel) before the top 4mm of the bag is carefully removed with a freshly sharpened pair of tungsten-carbide surgical scissors[4].

Alas, these particular instructions were not included on the packet.

I therefore made the dreadful mistake of trying to open the packet…  …with my fingers!

I happened to be preparing a Thai Red Curry so Basmati Aromatic Rice was the obvious accompaniment.  Now I’ve been opening packets of rice for over forty years now so I was foolish enough to think that I’d developed a relatively efficient technique.  Applying my four decades of experience, I carefully gripped either side of the packet between thumb and forefinger and tried to gently pull the sealed edges apart. 

Nothing happened. 

I increased the force slightly.

Nothing happened.

I increased the force a little bit more.

Then lots of things suddenly happened all at once!

The one thing that didn’t happen is that the seam along the top of the parted neatly.  Oh no. 

A tiny part of the seam opened and from that, a whole series of tears began to spread rapidly in a downwards direction immediately transforming the once homogenous bag into a series of plastic ribbons.  The outward lateral force still being being applied by my fingers and thumbs now resulted in an upward movement of the still-intact bottom of the bag.  This in turn had a drastic negative impact on the internal volume of what was left of the bag itself and a resultant positive impact on the internal pressure upon its contents – the Basmati Aromatic Rice.

The effect was rather like the activation of a fire sprinkler – only with rice instead of water. 

300,000[5] little grains began to spray in every direction!

Now it just so happened that – roughly 1.5m to my right - my dearly-beloved had, only seconds previously, opened the door to the dishwasher and said door was inclined at roughly 45 degrees to the vertical.  By coincidence, the largest tear in the bag of rice was perfectly aligned such that the jet of high-velocity rice grains struck the inside face of the door at precisely the right angle to ricochet straight into the dishwasher itself.

Seconds later, I was left holding the tattered remains of the bag containing perhaps 50 grams of the original kilogram. Another 200 grams had spread to cover every available square inch[6] of the kitchen work surfaces.  Another 200 grams had managed to disperse itself to the farthest corners of the kitchen, including an open cutlery drawer, my glass of cold beer, the sugar bowl and just about everywhere else that wasn’t hermetically sealed. 

However, half of the former contents of the bag had miraculously found its way into the dishwasher.[7]  You can imagine therefore my unbridled joy at discovering that the dishwasher was full of dirty, wet dishes to which our Basmati Aromatic Rice had now adhered itself with remarkable efficiency.

We could hardly just switch it on – that would have simply cooked the rice – so we were obliged to scrape every plate, cup and utensil one by one before we set about sweeping, hoovering and generally chasing the rice around the kitchen (and sticking cocktail sticks into an effigy of your packaging designer fashioned out of the soggy rice from the dishwasher).

Obviously, I was very annoyed - but also mystified.  Mystified as to how a company like Waitrose could allow such a mind-bogglingly crap piece of design to make it all the way to your supermarket shelves.  Quite apart from the intellectually-and-grammatically-challenged packaging designer, you must have a small army of buyers and merchandising experts who signed off on this staggering display of complete and utter ineptitude. 

I do hope that you will pass a copy of this letter to every one of them.  I would be genuinely interested to hear what they have to say.

Yours faithfully,

Anthony

PS:  Don’t try Red Thai Curry with potato wedges.  It just doesn’t work.  You need Basmati Aromatic Rice.