London Midland

Dear Sirs,

Firstly I would like to express my intense fury at the latest instalment in a long series of deplorable price hikes in fares. To increase the fixed costs of commuters’ travel when wages are barely even rising with inflation is both insensitive and cruel, especially when other costs of living are too increasingly at alarmingly high rates. I am retired, and I consider myself extremely fortunate that I do not work in London and live at the mercy of your laughably poorly-run organisation. The most diabolical part of your price hikes, though, is that the service is still as odiously dreadful as ever. Where is the value for the train-user? Trains are poorly staffed, dirty, unreliable and filled with screaming children and scum whose antisocial behaviour isn’t kept in check by overstretched employees. I somehow doubt that these problems will be eradicated even with a 8% increase in revenue.

My good lady-wife Agatha and I don’t commute, but we did travel to London by train last week to see the Titanic exhibition at the architectural monstrosity that is the ‘O2 arena’. Although the off-peak price was not unreasonable, the conditions of the train were worse than those of a concentration camp. The seats were filthy and every carriage reeked of human defecation and despair. We came home late and discovered to our dismay that all three of the lavatories were out of use. I am an old man and cannot be expected to wait fifty minutes to empty a brimming bladder, so I asked an attendant to unlock one so I could use the facilities. It soon transpired, however, that the lavatory was closed with good reason as the bowl was overflowing with tepid pisswater and nuggets of human excrement. Clasping a handkerchief to my face like a gasmask and clutching Agatha’s travel-size bottle of doorknob sanitiser, I ventured into the water-closet with an air of trepidation. Like a fireman running into a burning building filled with noxious gas, I was acutely aware that if I did not make sufficient haste the fumes would overcome me and I would quickly succumb to unconsciousness. Fortunately, on this occasion I was lucky and escaped with nothing more than scandalised nostrils and wet shoes. I was able to save them, however, with some cobbler’s shoe cream (£3.25), which I fully expect to be reimbursed for.

The one concession in the whole nightmarish experience was your staff; there was one lady in particular called Mary who was charming, courteous and an all-round shining example of how ticket inspectors should be. In comparison to the rest of your service, she was a gleaming beacon of loveliness, and if anything good is to come from these heinous and rapacious price hikes, I hope Mary is given a raise and a Cadillac as a reward for her excellent customer service.

I look forward to receiving your compensatory cheque for my urine-sodden shoes.

Yours disgruntledly,

Derek Haselhurst-Horton

Tesco II

In response to this charming letter Pat sent me in reply to this letter of complaint, I sent the following:

Dear Pat,

Firstly, I hope you have had a lovely bank holiday weekend. You will be pleased to hear that Agatha's gout has cleared up significantly since I last wrote, so we spent the weekend in the local woodland indulging in a spot of bird-watching. Unfortunately, the idyllic pleasures of the weekend were marred slightly by our stumbling across a young couple necking in the forest. Initially we thought we had heard the distinctive cry of a Red-backed Shrike, which I'm sure you're aware is an extremely rare and endangered species. Our excitement soon turned to dismay when we realised it was the sound of a disgustingly public display of hokey-pokey, but I am proud to report we did our duty as public citizens and thwarted the pair's licentious enterprise. Agatha, who plays the position of Goal Attack in the local over-65s netball team, placed the lubricious duo under citizens' arrest while I ran for the local constabulary. The miscreants were apprehended and Agatha and I resumed our bird-watching trip without further incident, although sadly without spotting a Red-backed Shrike.

To business: may I convey to you my appreciation for your timely reply. Despite Tesco's reputation for employing mindless automatons, you have proved to me that in fact corporations such as yours need not be completely faceless. For that, dear Pat, I applaud you. I would also like to extend my many thanks for your heartfelt and sincere apologies for the inadequately seasoned garlic bread I bought last week. I appreciate its deficiency was not anything to do with you, but I would like accept your gracious offer for a compensatory £5 moneycard. Agatha and I would be delighted to resample your garlic bread and, hopefully, this time we will not be disappointed.

Please find my address attached.

Yours appeasedly,

Derek Haselhurst-Horton

Tesco Reply

In response to this letter, Pat at Tesco customer services sent me the following apology and extended the olive branch with a £5 voucher:

Dear Mr Haselhurst-Horton

Thank you for your email. I’d like to apologise for the delay in replying. Normally, we can get back in touch with you within 24 hours and I’m sorry that we haven’t managed to do this for you on this occasion.

I'm very sorry to hear that you and your wife had your Pizza meal spoilt due to the lack of butter and garlic in your garlic bread. I can understand how annoying and disappointing this must have been for you both. We set very high standards for our suppliers and this helps to make sure that every product has the correct balance of ingredients. However, due to the speed of production, our Quality Assurance staff may occasionally overlook a product that doesn't meet these standards.

To say sorry for you meal being spoilt, I'd like to send you a £5.00 Tesco Moneycard which you could perhaps put towards another Pizza and maybe the Garlic Bread again which should be up to your expectations on the next occasion. I like to eat this as well so know that it should be nice and garlicky. If you could get back to me with your postal address, I'll be happy to arrange for this to be sent out to you.

It's good to hear that apart from some shortcomings in our stores, that you are generally very happy with the service we give you and particularly our Clubcard scheme. It's our way of saying thank you for your loyalty for shopping with us so I'm glad that you're both enjoying going to Pizza Express when you can. I'm sorry to hear that sometimes your wife's gout prevents this.

I hope that you'll be able to enjoy another night in with the Pizza and Garlic Bread. It sounds like a really good night especially if you can watch Midsummer Murders at the same time. Of course you can use the Moneycard to purchase other items in the store which you may like as well.

Thanks again for contacting us and please pass my apologies on to your wife as well for the disappointment caused.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind Regards

Pat C
Tesco Customer Service

House of Fraser

Dear Sir/Madam,

I don't know if you're aware that a recession is still raging through the country, but everyone, including your middle-class target demographic, has been cutting back and denying themselves the pleasures they once took for granted. I, for instance, used to be a leading British plasticine sculptor, but the rising costs of both plasticine and additional materials such as petroleum jelly have forced me to cut back and not indulge myself as often as I did. We are in the midst of hard times, sirs, hard times.

Regardless of the sad stifling of my potent creative juices, I have taken offence to your cruel mocking of the British public's terrible plight. My good lady-wife Agatha decided to treat herself to a new lipstick after recovering from a severe case of gout and, because we are trying to be more economical, perused the sale section of your website. When she saw your BellaPierre lipstick was on offer she was delighted...until she saw the generous reduction you had set upon it: a penny. A penny, sirs! This discount actually equates to 0.007%. As a long-term House of Fraser customer, I am appalled at your insensitivity. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Yours disgustedly,

Derek Haselhurst-Horton

Tesco

Dear Sirs,

I would like to begin by stating that although your chain has many shortcomings – detestable in-store baked goods and an irksome habit of changing stores’ layouts every six months, for instance – it also has many sterling qualities that make it my supermarket of choice (aside from Waitrose, obviously). Your Clubcard scheme is particularly commendable; it frankly leaves the loyalty schemes of other retailers looking extremely sub-par. I shopped in Sainsburys for three years before Tesco moved in and earned precisely £15.33, which I spent on a Jeffrey Archer novel and a cheap bottle of wine. With Clubcard Rewards, however, my good lady-wife Agatha and I have enjoyed many sterling meals out with minimal expense. Our current favourite is Pizza Express; although we are usually opposed to continental food on the grounds that it is filthy foreign muck, we have developed quite a fondness for the cuisine of the Italian people. Although I hear their attitude to driving is quite deplorable, their pizza is quite delectable.

As my good lady-wife Agatha and I have discovered such enthusiasm for the culinary delights of Pizza Express, we made plans to go out for dinner there last night. Unfortunately, Agatha is suffering from a particularly severe case of gout, and we eventually elected to stay in and watch one of our old Midsomer Murders video tapes instead. To ease her disappointment, and also to get out of the house as Agatha is prone to sudden bouts of savage rage when her gout plays up, I went to my local Tesco to purchase some of the Pizza Express home-cook pizza and some garlic bread. You’ll be pleased to hear that the pizza was delicious; almost as good as it is in the restaurant. The garlic bread, however, was a crushing disappointment.

The Tesco brand garlic bread was drier than a cork leg and, as far as I could tell, completely devoid of any butter or, indeed, garlic. I myself am partial to the distinctive flavour of allium neapolitanum, and I believe I am personally capable of excreting more garlicky artefacts the morning after indulging in a late-night chicken Kiev sandwich. The ludicrous absence of anything even remotely resembling garlic in the product was not only wildly distressing, but also potentially very dangerous to those looking to consume it for medicinal reasons.

I do hope you rectify this problem as soon as possible; it is simply unacceptable and I will not be purchasing it again.

Yours hungrily,

Derek Haselhurst-Horton

Abercrombie & Fitch

Dear Sirs,

I entered one of your stores this weekend whilst on a shopping trip with my dear lady-wife Agatha. The trip was principally so she could invest in a pair of ‘control pants’ from Marks & Spencer that she had seen advertised on an abhorrent piece of programming called Loose Women. The premise of the show appears to be a group of wizened and barren old hags publicly discussing their cervical smear tests and their teenage sons’ masturbatory habits. Because we are going to the local bridge club’s annual charity dinner next month, she understandably wants to ensure she looks her best, although personally I can’t understand how a few yards to elasticated girdle will make one jot of difference to her womanly bulk.

I digress. I am actually writing not to furnish you with the details of Agatha’s undergarments but to lodge a complaint about the state of your store. As its exterior presented a welcome change from the glaring bright lights of other emporia, I assumed its target demographic was not the trendy young whippersnappers of ‘Generation Y’, but the older, better-dressed generation. Lamentably, the assumptions of this poor, misguided old fool were wildly inaccurate.

As I stepped over the threshold, I was appalled that there was no emergency lighting in operation as there had obviously been some sort of power cut. This posed a terrible heath hazard and I consider myself fortunate that I didn’t trip and break my neck. Not only was the entire store swathed in darkness, but the air was so heavily fragranced I felt like I was entering an opium den or a whore’s boudoir. I was greeted by a dead-eyed blonde who seemed to be there on some sort of Care in the Community programme; the poor girl was clearly soft in the head as she seemed to have forgotten her blouse. Despite her sad state of intellectual incapacity, she flitted from room to room so stealthily I never even saw her move. Indeed, it seemed almost as though the entire store was filled with her clones; every time I turned around she was there. It was most unnerving.

It soon became apparent that Abercrombie & Fitch is not the kind of store designed for discerning gentlemen such as myself. After blundering deeper in the labyrinth of the store, eyes watering with the fumes and ears near bleeding with the constant thump of mindless bass, I finally espied daylight and made my escape.

Frankly, I’m grateful I lived to tell the tale. Your store is a tasteless death trap and even if it were the sort of place I would normally frequent, it was near-impossible to find anything as it was so sunken in gloom and darkness. At one point I picked up a garment thinking it was a pair of formal black trousers when in fact it was a red and pink tartan brassiere. Quite a difference, I think you’ll agree!

I do hope you’ll take my comments on board and rectify the issues – of which there are many – immediately.

Yours outragedly,

Derek Haselhurst-Horton

Vaseline

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to commend you on your excellent product, Vaseline. It is, in my considered opinion, the most underated product of the three centuries its production has spanned. Around the home I've found use for it in all manner of things - chapped lips, hardened cuticles and, of course, softening plasticine. I do not mean to brag, but I am considered in various circles to be one of the best plasticine sculptors in the British Isles. I would not have reached these higher echelons of acclaim without your innovative and versatile petroleum jelly, so from the bottom of my heart I offer you my deepest gratitude. In addition, I have found it to be an excellent personal lubricant. When I walk long distances I have found the chafing sensation on my inner thighs to be most unpleasant. A quick dab of your inestimable jelly eradicates the problem, however, and I have enjoyed many long rambles through the glorious English countryside because of it.

It is also indispensible on the rare occasions my good lady-wife Agatha is receptive to my amorous advances. Fear not, good sirs, I am well aware of its incompatiability with latex contraceptives. They are not in fact products I consume regularly - nay, ever! - as the undercarriage of my good lady-wife Agatha is drier and more barren than Chenoybyl post-'86. Whenever I see a young lady in the street, however, I always take the time to stop and explain its corrosive nature to 'Johnnies'. Although she may only be using it to balm her lips, it is the sad nature of society today that the young are quickly and often without warning initiated into the world of illicit hanky-panky. Although the issue troubles me deeply, I would much rather these young sluts exercise proper caution than plunge the country even deeper into a detestable cesspit of unwanted crotch-spawn.

Yours lubriciously,

Derek Haselhurst-Horton

Wagamama Reply

In response to this letter, Wagamama graciously sent me the following reply and £20 worth of vouchers. I applaud their efforts to adapt to Western values, but I fear they still need some more guidance in how to correctly use full stops and capital letters.



dear derek,

thank you for taking the time to inform us of your experience at wagamama spitalfields. we pride ourselves on the highest standards of food, service and customer care. I was therefore upset to hear that you had a negative experience on your recent visit and for this I sincerely apologise

I can appreciate how disappointing it must have been not to be able to eat the delicious chicken katsu curry as quickly as you desired using our chopsticks and for this I apologise. on a positive note, I am pleased to advise you that a portion of our stores already offer western cutlery as an alternative to chopsticks and that over the next three weeks these will be available in all wagamama restaurants across the uk

further to your enquiry about purchasing wagamama sauce, we do sell a selection of sauces in large supermarkets but unfortunately the katsu curry is not one of those as it remains exclusive to our restaurants

I have enclosed some complimentary vouchers so you are able to revisit wagamama and dig into the chicken katsu curry with full force using cutlery. these vouchers can be used in any of our uk locations. once again please accept my apologies and thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback

Easyjet

Dear Sir/Madam,

I have never flown abroad before as my good ladywife Agatha has never had any truck with foreign languages or alien foodstuffs. However, we were recently persuaded to visit the Costa Brava by Amanda Lamb from A Place in the Sun, the only programming effort that has challenged the supremacy of Midsomer Murders on our television in the last fifteen years.

Spain turned out to be a mistake; although Ms Lamb had assured us that the Spanish are very much acclimatised to the manner of Britons, we found them to be loud, obnoxious and incomprehensible. Several times we had to ask for directions and were subjected to nonsensical babble; no amount of shouting or pointing seemed to penetrate their sun-shrunken skulls. In addition, the food was filthy muck; I quickly learned not to order prawns as they were served to me with heads still attached. On the first occasion this barbarianism offended my sensibilities to such a degree I had to go and lie down in a darkened room with a cold flannel for 45 minutes. The second time I hoped would be different, but still the wretched shrimp was presented to me with all its appendages intact. Rest assured I will be contacting the Spanish embassy to lobby against this vile and distasteful practice.

Regardless of the uncouth ways of our European neighbours, I found the Easyjet experience to be a pleasant one, regardless of its unfortunate colour scheme. The cabin crew were all excellent, but it was the lady on the ground who really cemented my regard for your organisation. Her name was Fiona, and she was truly a reincarnation of Boadicea, the glorious leader of the Celts. Although lacking in the fiery red hair department, I could clearly envision her clad in an iron breastplate and riding a spiked chariot. I am talking about queue-jumpers, sirs! It has pained me that respect for the practice of queuing in the British Isles has declined in recent years and numerous people - some of them my fellow countrymen as well as ill-mannered continental types, I am ashamed to say – tried to push to the front of the queue at the gate! Of course I was bristling; my good ladywife Agatha and I had been waiting patiently for 35 minutes in order to secure ourselves window seats and now a legion of self-entitled crusties were trying to get in front of us. Fortunately – and thank goodness, because although a pacifist at heart I have a very low tolerance for queue-jumping ne’er-do-wells – Fiona clearly shares my views on waiting one’s turn. With poise and professionalism she in effect told the blights to sod off to the back of the queue, to my immense gratification and delight. When they protested, she told them everyone had to wait their turn.

What I mean to say, sirs, is thank you for employing such wonderfully fair-minded staff. In such an increasingly impatient and ill-mannered world, it was deeply refreshing to see someone upholding the pillars of respect and civility in your organisation, and I salute you.

Yours admiringly,

Derek Haselhurst-Horton