Andrex

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to commend you on the softness, strength and astonishingly pleasant aroma of your new Shea butter lavatory paper. I’ve not experienced such a delightful sensation across my buttocks since I was seventeen and the pastor’s wife took an unexpected shine to me. This was back in the day when the seduction of minors was commonly accepted if not actively encouraged, and I spent many happy Sunday afternoons learning the art of love from a patient and kind woman. I attended a single-sex boarding school in my youth and at an age riddled with sexual frustration, I was extremely grateful not to have to satisfy my hormonal desires by abusing myself while watching Matron, who had the figure, complexion and charm of a London bus, getting undressed through a knothole in room 3B. When the pastor’s wife eventually lost interest in me and moved on to one of my contemporaries, a repulsive and chinless young blister by the name of Harry Futtock, I was utterly heartbroken and vowed never to accept the illicit advances of middle-aged women again. 

Regardless of the tumultuous events of my boyhood, I really feel I must reiterate my esteem for your new innovation in bum-wiping. I’ve never known something which is essentially there to remove remnants of faeces to be not only to be so luxuriously thick but also so sweet-smelling. It is actually of superior quality to the bedding at school, which was so itchy and uncomfortable that I barely got a wink of sleep in fourteen miserable years. My only complaint is the packaging; I know the Andrex brand is famous for its golden Labrador puppies – and incidentally, what happens to them once they’ve grown up? Do you sell them on to laboratories? – but I really do find it quite discriminatory towards cat-lovers. Our own cat, Throgmorton, is very territorial and becomes extremely distressed with even a printed image of a dog in the house. There have actually been a few incidents where he has attacked Andrex packaging and utterly destroyed several rolls of lavatory paper, which, although worth every penny, does not come cheap.

So, to summarise, I think your products are wonderful. To my mind they are the equivalent of a thirty-second spa experience, but please do away with your puppies. It’s unfair to those of us who aren’t dog people.

Yours obsequiously,

Derek Haselhurst-Horton

Tesco (Avocados) Reply

Dear Derek,

Thanks for your very entertaining email. I'm sorry that I haven't managed to reply to you sooner.

I do indeed converse with many customers in my role but don't normally have such amusing emails such as yours to read.

I'm sorry that you've had such a hard time whilst visiting your godchildren. It sounds like it was a very traumatic experience. Of course, this wouldn't have been helped by the fact that the avocados were of such poor quality and 'minging' as described by Honoria. I can see by the attached photos that she was quite right.

As one of our most loyal customers, I'm sure that you appreciate that this certainly isn't the standard of produce we usually offer to our customers and are horrified that these were for sale and bought by yourself.

Regrettably, it's not possible for me to send you replacement avocados in the post but I've instead sent a £2.00 Tesco Moneycard to your home address for you to spend as you please. I hope that if you purchase some more avocados, they will be of excellent quality and Honoria and Augustus may enjoy them.

Thanks again for getting in touch and please give my best wishes to your wife, Agatha.

Kind Regards

Pat Cronin
Tesco Customer Service

Tesco (Rotten Avocado)

Dear Pat,

I hope you are well; it has been some time since we last conversed. I’m sure you correspond with many people in your role as a customer services representative but you may recall that some time ago I had a near-traumatic experience with some garlic bread that was nowhere near as garlicky as I had been led to believe.

Since we last spoke, I have been forced to spend a lot of time with my detestable godchildren, Honoria and Augustus. They are the foul spawn of one of Agatha’s old school friends and I loathe them with the intensity of one thousand suns. They are loud, obnoxious and ill-mannered and frankly when I was their age I wouldn’t have been able to do half the things they get away with without feeling the buckle end of my father’s belt. Spare the rod and spoil the child, say I, and these two young blots on the landscape are nothing but spoiled. Quite frankly I’d like to find quite a large rod – a curtain pole, perhaps – and bring it down over both their reprehensible little skulls.

When Honoria and Augustus are at the Haselhurst-Horton residence, which is far too often as their mother is an idle alchoholic whore, I take a perverse pleasure in exercising my authority as master of the household over them. To date I have issued no fewer than 122 directives, which include the banning of spitting, swearing, sweating, breathing or laughing too loudly, chewing gum, slurping, passing wind, belching, scowling, smiling and getting in the way of our cat, Throgmorton, who has priority seating privileges at all times. As Agatha is bent on constantly indulging the little brats and refuses to deny them anything they want (this is grossly unfair as I, a fully-grown man, am only allowed half a chocolate digestive with my afternoon tea) the role of nutritionist has fallen to me. Loathe as I am to prolong the pint-sized bastards’ lifespan any more than necessary, there is an illicit thrill to be had from forcing vegetative matter down their throats, particularly Augustus, whose corpulence is such that I suspect he may soon be the proud owner of his own gravitational field.

Yesterday I stopped by at the my local Tesco to pick up some new and exciting vegetables with which to torture Augustus and picked up a packet of organic avocados. I very much resent paying £1.97 for a pack of three but unfortunately there weren’t any alternatives. Now, I know that avocados have a notoriously short window of optimal deliciousness, but the first one I cut up was more rotten than Augustus’ back teeth, which have already needed five fillings even though he is only nine. As you can see from the attached photograph, it certainly wasn’t in an edible state even though its best-before was before 5th November.

Honoria, who normally is as capable of as intelligent remarks as a rabid weasel, described the avocado as 'minging', which I believe in this instance means a deplorable disregard for health and safety on the part of Tesco supermarkets. Who knows what this festering piece of vegetation was harbouring?

I would be very appreciative if you would arrange to have a new avocado sent to me immediately.

Yours disgustedly,

Derek Haselhurst-Horton