14 Comments
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Mister Brainpea's avatar

Your footnote seems to imply you have readers that are unintelligent. Count me amongst them.

Buddy Brown's avatar

It would seem I’m so unintelligent that I missed that implication. That’s why I decided to subscribe.

Caroline Brennan's avatar

As someone born on 12 January, I feel truly seen by this post. Thank you for celebrating today with me, and for sharing such beautiful words of love, respect and laughter.

Theresa Greene's avatar

January 12 is my birthday too. Lovely letters!! Thanks !

Ana Onatah's avatar

A super collection today, all worthy of note and yet wonderfully disparate in tone. It's always invigorating to be reminded how very different we all are at heart, however similar we may appear in day to day conversation.

Cate Salenger's avatar

Each one is wonderful but I always love Dalton Trumbo and Eric Idle. Both hilarious.

Tony Heath's avatar

"I have always been interested in the morbid aberrations which drive persons like yourself so pompously to seek correspondence with strangers. In this respect your letters have been illuminating. But they also reveal you as a witless and meddlesome old ass, self-deluded and full of vapours."

How rude Dalton. There are many reasons a person might contact a stranger; respect for them, loneliness, edification, etc., etc. Perhaps a little altruism and a polite letter might have been more humane, ended the correspondences, and even lowered your blood pressure. Well!

Tony Heath's avatar

Trumbo, I feel confident in saying this person must have been a piece of work and likely deserved your expressive barbecue. As a film fan and not particularly fond of capitalist pigs, I will forgive you after the fact for your vitriol. I am simply a person that believes in good manners amongst strangers, but in your case, I was not in possession of all the facts. Rest in peace.

ChrisK's avatar

I realise now that I am either hopelessly unintelligent or wise beyond my 66 years, and I'm unsure which, because I immediately pictured the act of checking my Barclays account on my banking app, with not a thought of rhyming slang. P.S. I had less £££ than I expected.

Terry Freedman's avatar

Did Eric Idle receive a reply? It reminded me of The Henry Root letters

Shaun Usher's avatar

From Idle's (brilliant) autobiography, 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life':

"He wrote me an amusing reply about how his cricketing friends always said the first fifty was the hardest, and invited me to 10 Downing Street, but sadly the newspapers found out and had a go at me for being too old."