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tina
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PESTER SIDE |
stalking
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Every now and then, when the boredom takes me, and everyone I know has started screening their phone calls again, I watch television and think how much more thrilling it would be if it were somehow more interactive. Phone-ins? Piffle and arse, I thought, I wanted hands-on involvement, and the only way you get that these days is by stalking.
And old second rate obsessive can stalk, though. Following then around, waiting outside houses all night, it's all so... done. I wanted to get a reply. And with the same thought that millions of other students have had, I wrote letters to famous people.
Jimmy Saville (1984)
My first effort at being pen-pals with the stars was fairly primitive, but please, take into account the fact that I was ten years old. "Jim'll Fix It" taught children to believe that their very basest fantasies could become reality. Sadly, none of my fantasies seemed fulfillable by old Jimmy (unless those rumours are true, but that wouldn't have made good television).So, with the grim determination of a child who wants something, I wrote this letter.
I got no reply. Disheartened, I ate my greens, lived my life, and tried to forget the other life that could have been. It was ten years on before I plucked up the courage to write another letter. This time, the Gladiators were my quarry, and Hunter.... became the Hunted.please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please pleeease could you fix it for me to fart glitter
Hunter (1994)
Hunter, eh? Phwoar! Imagine licking the end of his nob! Eh? So, old enough now to have the real but unrequitable sexual feelings that drive every class compulsive, I wrote this letter to him in a thinly veiled attempt to get onto his lap. I had friends who were studying medicine, so I could get hold of some ether, so once I was on him he wouldn't stand a chance. This was my letter.
Dear Mr Hunter,And as if by magic, that cunt didn't reply either, let alone come round and go "dubba dubba dubba" as though he was a crane. I realised that I'd have to play dirty. This called for even fewer capital letters, and a letter to the maternal "conscience of the Gladiators", Lightning.
When I was young i used to sitt on my granndaddys leg and he would lift me up and go "dubba dubba dubba" like as if he was a crane. Mummy says that he cannot do this anymore, as has gone to live in Skye, and as i am now twennty years old and thirteen stones heavy i need a bigger leg. you have very big legs and i was thinking if you lifted me up and go "dubba dubba dubba" as if you are a crane then it would make me happy and let my grandadddy's ghost rest in peice and go up into the light.i watch gladiators every day and you are my favourite. i am studying law at manchester university so one day i may be rich and stuff.
love, jonathan blyth
Lightning (1995)
dear mrs lightning,
i rote to mister hunter saying that i was dying and could i please touch his leg and pretend he was my grandad and he said no he didn't care. he said that i was deserved to die and that god gives bad children cancer so that they can't grow up into murderers. please tell him that i am not bad cos my mummy read his letter and now she thinks i am evil and hits me. i cannot write much more because my hands hurt and i am bleeding.No phone call, no letter, nothing. I was rapidly losing faith in the whole celebrity world, and decided to turn to the people we trust, the people who run our lives with impeachable standards and unrelenting commitment. Politicians.love, jonathan blyth
Dear Prime Minister,
Have you walked down the street recently? I have, and it's not a pretty sight. Street crime, roadkill, old women with faces like slapped arses. It's time someone did something about it, and I've invented a car - called the "Q-Car", which will promote general happiness and put everything back to rights, like it was during the Crimean War.
The "Q-Car" takes in cold air from the front, and chugs out warm, perfumed air from a special pipe at the rear. This air can be directed at old ladies, perhaps to go up their gusset. With a bit of a commotion up their chuffs, they'll perk up no end, the dirty cows.
Furthermore, if you're distressed like I am by the sight of ripped open badgers spewing gut into the kerbside, a special attachment will scoop them up and drop them to safety, but not before delivering a swift tap on the nose to let them know that they are naughty badgers. Very naughty badgers indeed.
The car will be driven by a smiling man and woman. They will have a megaphone over which to shout feelgood messages from popular "Happy House" tunes, and at very little extra expense, a telescopic kisser will randomly shoot out and snog someone, with tongues.
Thank you for your time. I hope to hear from you soon, and will accept any payment starting at three billion pounds for the "Q-Car" patent.
Hugs,
Jonathan Blyth
And Zim Sala Bim, I was graced with not a fucking toot. Is this a democracy? I was beginning to wonder. I was also beginning to wonder whether John Major actually read my letter at all. Still, where is he now, eh?
What Next?
I have decided that this is too worthy a venture to merely abandon to the correctness of adulthood. I owe it to you, my bastard offspring, to keep trying, and when I finally get the respect I deserve from these people, you will all be the joint first to know.To begin with, I came back, as I always do, to The Gladiators. I had a bone to pick with these chaps, and I intended to wreak my revenge.
The Owner of The Gladiators
(21 May 1997)
Dear Owner of the Gladiators,
I have kidnapped Wolf. He is in my basement and I am feeding him old beefburgers. If you want to see Wolf again in shape for the next series of the Gladiators, please send me £12.50 in unmarked ten bobs to the above address, with a receipt for tax purposes.
If you wouldn't mind, I would also like to sit on Hunter's leg. I wrote some time ago concerning this matter and I got no reply. It is probably this incident that drove me to kidnap Wolf.
If you can't stretch to £12.50, I am open to negotiation. To be honest with you he's a bit scary, and he tried to bite me the last time I took down his beefburgers.
Hugs,
Jon Blyth
I await the reply with a dull heart.