Dear Mr Kershaw, page 12
Finally, Olive and I once scored a ‘Perfect 10’ in the notoriously tricky ‘Popular Culture’ round of the Sunday Night Quiz at the Commodore pub. What had been on the radio while we were getting ready? Perhaps you already know, Mr Heaton!
I think you would agree that there is more than mere coincidence at work here. I am put in mind of an old schoolmate who could ‘smell’ the future; I cannot recall his actual name, but he was known as ‘Nostrildamus’.
On a more serious note, may I respectfully suggest that you concentrate on writing songs about desirable scenarios, in order to maximise your unusual talent to the benefit of others. For example, Olive and I would particularly like to hear a song which predicts the reintroduction of the delicious and much-missed ‘Toffos’, or one about a more frequent service on the 1B bus route, especially at weekends.
Of course, you are welcome to visit us at Turnbull Towers any time you are in the ‘Beautiful Southbourne’ area. If you call first I will check that we have an ample and varied supply of biscuits.
Best regards,
Wilf Turnbull
Dear Wilf,
For some time I’ve known I had this capacity to predict events, so it was with great excitement that I opened and read your letter.
You are of course correct that I cannily forecast personal happenings via the source of lyrical wizardry but I’m afraid you’re mistaken in implying that I’m the only chart act to have done so.
The expensively trousered, yacht-hopping fops Duran Duran also had the ability to look into the lyrical crystal ball. Look no further than their massive hit Rio.
Just 18 years after the song charted, I met Rio Ferdinand on holiday in Malta and the lyrics ‘I’ve seen you on the beach and I’ve seen you on TV’ even shocked him when I sung them to him. He got so spooked out by it that his wife called the police on the 4th or 5th occasion I sang it to him and to be honest I don’t blame her.
Another regular fortune teller was my old chart buddy Michael Jackson.
He foretold several things that happened to me, including Stranger in Moscow – when I went there accidentally after a few too many black cans which led to boarding the wrong train in Innsbruck,
Billie Jean – obviously referring to my chance meeting with Bill Gates when I drunkenly mistook him for Billie Jean King and, perhaps most perniciously of all, his 1988 hit Dirty Diana, which for a variety of reasons I can’t go into on these pages.
Anyway I wish you all the very best and hope you both continue to have fun long after your deaths.
All the best
Paul Hx
Dear The Divine Comedy,
In these times of something for nothing ‘PPI Claims’ and suchlike bogus offers, I was aggrieved to see you of all baritones jumping on the bandwagon on Absolute Radio this morning.
I fully concur, The Divine Comedy, with your observation that ‘no’ means ‘yes’. I refused a seat on the 1C just last week (offered by a young man in a Halfords uniform) even though my sciatica was in full flow, on the basis that I did not want to be accurately perceived as a senior citizen. I think you will find, however, that although some sections of society, such as the elderly or those on certain benefits, are entitled to fee-waived sight tests and vouchers to help cover the cost of lenses and frames (which qualify as a discount and NOT a transaction devoid of charge), heavily subsidised borderline complimentary spectacles are usually refused to most other NI contributors. Don’t be unkind, The Divine Comedy: ‘Everybody Knows’ this, and you are to be thanked for keeping your misleading gratuitous optical correction aid ‘post-Britpop croonings’ to yourselves in the future. Stating that glasses come free on the NHS is not only falsely raising the hopes of those whose earnings fall within the threshold of Personal Allowance for income tax purposes, but conceivably catalytic of bellicose abrasions at doctors’ receptionist’s booth counters nationwide and, specific to ourselves, Vision Express on Commercial Road.
On an extraneous matter pertinent to your advert about the coach, I am quite confident that if my sentience were compromised by multifarious variegated pitfalls I would personally draw up a list of all setbacks and do my utmost to prioritise and address each according to its existence impacting magnitude. Unless purchasing a one way ticket to a situation of improved circumstances, one’s temporarily shirked misfortunes, from which a fleer can admittedly distance himself both metaphorically and unfiguratively, could very well be at risk of exacerbation. If, for example, an outstanding debt with a pay day loan provider has been referred to bailiffs who have visited the property in one’s oblivious excursion-derived absence. Or, if in an instance of apprehension-fuelled absentmindedness, the gas has been left on.
Your suggestion therefore that I take the National Express when my life’s in a mess because it will make me smile is both extremely irresponsible and no laughing, or indeed grinning, matter.
Furthermore, some years ago I went on a beano to Brighton in a work colleague-filled charabanc, and to lighten the mood on the return journey after perhaps a few too many tankards of Worthington E on the pier, I attempted to initiate a comradely rendition of Three Hundred Green Bottles, only to find myself the only employee in full voice, followed by being instructed by my erstwhile foreman Willy ‘Won’t He’ Wallace to ‘put a sock in it, Philpott’ when only 11% along the wall. I was then temporarily ejected at Chichester Services. Therefore, contrary to your choral exhortation, you will hopefully excuse me countering that from personal enforced forecourt-alighting experience it is preferential that nobody sing whilst the single-decker is in motion (as also laid out under Section 8, paragraph 1 of the referenced operator’s General Conditions of Carriage which clearly prohibits behaviour which causes discomfort, inconvenience, damage or injury to other persons).
I am also befuddled as to precisely how a feeble old dear, a screaming child, a student and a family man manhandling a pram could possibly be construed as ‘all human life’ (I have passed my concerns onto David Attenborough), and how, if the jolly hostess is the unfortunate bearer of a posterior of the principality-scaled proportions that you infer, she has managed to prise said nether quarters into a Scania K340 cabin measuring a mere 12.8 x 2.55 metres and not been previously brought to my attention through the medium of Channel 4’s Bodyshock documentary series.
Notwithstanding the glaring disparities above-outlined, Jean and I, on the whole, ‘love what you do’, The Divine Comedy, and consider you to be the best turned out pop star we have encountered since the equally very clean Mr Clayderman, and vocally on a par with Tony Monopoly at his peak.
Well done!
Yours,
Derek Philpott
Dear Derek,
Thank you for your letter. I am sorry if some of our songs contain certain statements or analogies that you consider false or misleading. Please let me assure you that we take your comments very seriously, and that all customer feedback is immediately passed on to the relevant members of the Divine Comedy team for rigorous analysis. The systems our experts have designed for the creation, manufacture and delivery of our products are, we hope, of the very highest calibre. Divine Comedy composition specialists are drawn from all the great centres of learning across the globe, and are generously rewarded for their creativity and problem-solving abilities. Our state-of-the-art facilities in Hemel Hempstead have been designed to be the perfect environment for the production of unnecessarily orchestrated pseudo-intellectual post Brit-pop music, and have won many prestigious awards.
We recognise the high expectations you have of our products – expectations we struggle daily to fulfil. And we will continue to labour to reach, if not raise, the level of excellence for which we are rightly renowned throughout the world. It goes without saying that we value the needs of the consumer above all else. Therefore it is of the upmost concern when some of our recordings fail to attain the high standards that you, our highly valued customer, have come to enjoy over the years. Be assured we will endeavour to correct the textual inaccuracies that you have most diligently brought to our attention, and strive to prevent any recurrence of the fault. Please accept our most humble and sincere apologies. In acknowledgement of the trouble you’ve been put to, please find enclosed a £10 DC gift voucher*.
Yours sincerely,
Neil Hannon
Head of Customer Relations
* Voucher redeemable at any unnecessarily orchestrated pseudo-intellectual post Brit-pop music outlet. This free gift does not imply any guilt or wrong-doing on the part of the company. Must be used by 31/8/14.
Dear Messrs. Box,
Re: Your recent statement ‘I’m a-Living In A Box’
We regret that we have been unable to ascertain your exact current whereabouts. However, while many habitable structures are indeed ‘box-like’, or cuboid, in shape, we feel that it is extremely unlikely that your place of residence can be described as a ‘box’ due to its primary building material (probably not ‘cardboard’) in addition to its dimensions and presumed contents.
Indeed, we were under the impression that ‘pop stars’ such as yourselves were awarded extremely generous salaries which would no doubt facilitate the purchase of luxury abodes. As you claim to ‘know what’s going on… in my mind’, we suggest that a lexical misunderstanding, rather than a hallucination, has occurred.
Should, however, you have found yourselves financially inconvenienced, and are indeed living in an actual ‘cardboard box’, we are frankly surprised that you have made such a statement, as this unfortunate situation would appear fairly obvious. We trust that our time is not being wasted on this matter.
It is hoped that the above comments have been constructive, and look forward to the release of the ‘follow-up’ single, which we are sure will also reflect the style and glamour of the modern age.
Yours,
Wilf Turnbull and Derek Philpott (neighbour)
Dear Mr Turnbull,
On behalf of my fellow Boxians, I thank you for your correspondence.
We are quite excited to report that we all continue to reside in boxes of various sorts. None, I’m pleased to say, are constructed from Binder’s board, card stock, corrugated fibreboard, display board, paper board, container board or any other sort of cardboard. We, sir, live in boxes which one could only describe as lavish beyond the imagination of the common man.
Living in Chiswick, West London, however, we were recently most concerned when the route for the Cross Rail Project was announced. It appeared that it would threaten our well-insulated serenity and tunnel directly under our posh boxes! Taking pertinent advice from our own great song, Living In A Box, ‘life goes in circles, around and around circulating, I sometimes wonder what’s moving underground, I’m escaping…’ we thought we might be in need of the services of a removals company and be on our way. Fortunately, this never became necessary as the planned Cross Rail tunnel route was changed at the last minute to go via Acton.
I remain faithfully yours,
Marcus Vere
Living In A Box
Dear The Pussycat Dolls, Please allow me to state that I am happily wed and have no need of a girlfriend. My wife Jean’s bodily temperature has just been assessed at a constant 98.6 degrees, denoting normality. Were she to be hot like you I would diagnose ill health, hence urge that you consult your GP without delay
Dear Toto Coelo,
Re: I Eat Cannibals
I regret to inform you, Coelo, that I am most disturbed by the lyrical content of your quasi-tribal musical offering. Despite the admittedly pleasant melody and rather hypnotic ‘drum beat’, I must object to your avowed pride in your macabre diet.
Moreover, cannibals are the diners of human flesh, rather than the dinees; they are by definition likely to eat you, and not vice versa. If, however, your claim is correct, I would like to point out that two wrongs certainly do not make a right!
Aside from my objections concerning the legality and ethics of your actions, I would take issue with comments such as ‘Healthy recipe, what you got it’s good for me’ and ‘Looks trim, vitamin, forget the dietin’ ’. I am by no means a qualified doctor, but I have heard that human meat contains certain bacteria which are harmful, and feel that your claims to its nutritional benefits are frankly abhorrent.
Perhaps ‘Ros Holness’, a member of your savage cult I believe, recalls her father, Bob, hosting an unusual quiz on television in the 1980s. If Ros and her vile tribe are feeling peckish in future, I suggest they avail themselves of the delicious and morally neutral substance of honeycomb, which the Blockbusters board evokes so clearly.
I look forward to a considerable improvement in the quality of your lyrics, and eagerly anticipate your forthcoming release, Mucho Macho.
Yours,
Derek Philpott
Dear Sir,
Thank you for pointing out the dangers of our plight!!!
I was a vegetarian and suffered greatly with I Eat Cannibals. The fact that I succumbed to an illegal act which was celebrated all over the world had me awake for many a night (that and the rustling sound of the plastic bin bags we wore). Roastin’ vitamins took me back to a vegetarian state of mind! But the power of ‘eating cannibals’ was so great that sadly I returned to being a carnivore, and life has never been the same since.
Anita Chellamah (Toto Coelo)
Dear Mansun,
In my younger days, far from clandestinely quaffing R White’s, I was not unimpartial to stronger intake. My idea of fun, or should I say, that of me and the boys in the local football team, was to repair to the local bar after the match for a pint, even if the pre-game ‘Everyone Must Win’ pep talk had resulted in us being thrashed 14–0 by a squad of off-duty policemen.
One such excursion occurred on one of these days, after our central midfielder Tony Beasley had, like a fool, left a wide open space for an opposing Detective Constable to put the first of many past us with just a couple of little kicks, leading to our victory slipping away. Obviously feeling negative, he so much wanted to make amends that he insisted on paying for all drinks for the whole side until the bar was closed for business.
I am sure that it comes as no surprise for you to learn of my fragile state and fall out of my bunk the next morning, replete with hopes that my then fiance Jean would forgive me for my disgusting state and not check under the bed, whereupon I foggily remembered having been quite ill.
Needless to say, I had imbibed more than I’d had before and more than I really needed. The special drink that knocked me for six, however, was a most peculiar concoction whereby one was required to lick some Saxa off of one’s hand, quickly drink the clear contents of (from memory) an egg cup and then immediately chomp on a citric slice. It is imperative to relate that at this point of the evening we had been joined by one of the barmaids at the end of her shift, and that the slight grimace at the sharpness of the beverage’s conclusive act was displayed by all, irrespective of gender, and not exclusive to masculinity.
Therefore, and notwithstanding the immaterial variant of biting into said fruit segment as opposed to the administration of a partial vacuum upon it, I am compelled to write this letter in the hope that you may soon be able to outline exactly how being a boy is like sucking on a lemon.
I also write with good intentions relating to your predicament of being situated within a vast expanse and gazing fixedly at thin air at the precise instant of a structural catastrophe. It is surely apparent from the very disclosure that the commodious area is shoddily canopied that you must be transfixed in a warehouse, aircraft hangar, shopping centre, pop concert arena or covered market. Although confused as to quite how a roof may crash in a daze, given that to the best of one’s knowledge an architectural sheltering is incapable of experiencing bewilderment upon fragmentation, it is recommended that the insurers of said complex be contacted if you may have been harmed in any way as a result of said event, if indeed it can be proved to be resultant of inadequate workmanship.
Finally, as regards your alarming impartation that she makes your nose bleed, although I am somewhat befuddled at her ability to instigate your nasal haemorrhage, it is advised that you distance yourself from this unnamed female in social situations. If this is sadly not an option, make sure you’ve got a red hanky.
I have to go now chaps, as I’m expecting the electric man and he has not been here before so I keep looking out of the window in case he has got lost. I doubt that he will be ‘bringing his sunshine to me’ (no doubt inspired by Morecambe and Wise), however, but it’s OK; I may well look at solar panelling at a later date but for the time being we are just having the meter changed to a different tariff.
Yours sincerely,
Derek Philpott
Dear Derek,
Thank you for your letter. I see you refer to many Mansun references in your correspondence; from R White’s lemonade (from my long lost B-Side Lemonade Secret Drinker), to My Idea of Fun, a song about a psychopath – quite apt for the band Mansun. I’m impressed with your knowledge of the band’s back catalogue, particularly the fact that Wide Open Space is a football reference, and not a tale of teenage alienation. Your knowledge of the band’s songs is certainly far greater than most of the band themselves, and I’d be impressed to see how many Mansun fans spot the references to the songs in your letter. I’m not sure I know all of them myself!
I’m most impressed by you spotting that the lyrics from the chorus of Electric Man are indeed the theme tune from The Morecambe and Wise Show (I don’t think I’ve actually made that public before, and it was quite a bone of contention in the band, I believe), but a girl once told me I was like a miserable version of David Bowie, and started sarcastically singing the theme tune from Morecambe and Wise at me, so I said I’d put together a song for her about it, and Electric Man was born; a cross between Morecambe and Wise and a miserable David Bowie. The odd thing is, you look more like a miserable version of David Bowie than I do these days, Derek…
