TELL SOMEONE!
Perhaps you have a funny story? Perhaps you’d like to raise an issue that intrigues you? Maybe you have a strong view about something. Whatever your reasons, why not share your thoughts & views with the CT in our tailor-made thoughts & views section?

Peninsular Pretensions

Dear Sir,

I can’t get enough of the adventures of Major Richard Sharpe and his elite band of Chosen Men, in their fight against the evil dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte. Their exploits are so heroic I always have to jump on the sofa and cheer!

Richard Sharpe wasn’t always a Major. He had to rise from the ranks. In one of my favourite episodes, Richard Sharpe is insulted by an officer who says, ‘you’re not a gentleman, Sharpe’. Richard Sharpe hit him on the nose, which made me laugh! Another of my favourite episodes involved Richard Sharpe and a mysterious Spaniard.

My favourite Chosen Man is probably Sergeant Patrick Harper, because even though he is quite a rough character, you know he will always be brave and loyal to Richard Sharpe and the Chosen Men. I like Harris as well, because he’s quite a clever person, who’s always able to decipher secret instructions so that Richard Sharpe can beat Napoleon. When I’m at home watching Sharpe, I like to pretend I’m Richard Sharpe. I pretend the cushions are Napoleon and his evil army, and I throw them out of the window! Also, I get on the drinks trolley and ask my wife to push me around.

I’d love to meet Richard Sharpe and the Chosen Men. I think I’d be a good Chosen Man because I always knock the coke cans off the wall, just like they would, and I’ve got a green jacket that I bought from Country Casuals. I wear it in the Park when I’m playing Richard Sharpe with my friends.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Blair.

Can’t Bear It

Dear Sir,

I have always had a horrifying fear of bears. It doesn’t matter how big or how small they are; I simply can’t abide bears. I am fully aware that there are no bears in Stotfold, but an irrational fear is a fear nonetheless.

My complaint is this: many people seem intent on making a mockery of my pain. I sprained my ankle last week, and the doctor asked me how I was bearing up. I had no electricity or running water for a month, and my neighbour told me I had to grin and bear it. I saw my grandchildren at the weekend, and they were running about in the garden completely bare. This may seem trivial to someone who likes bears, or doesn’t mind them, but to someone with my condition it is pure torture. And I am sick of hearing jokes about Old Mother Hubbard and her empty pantry. If I have to endure this misery for very much longer, I will knife someone.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Gladys LargeCarnivorousMammal-CommonlyFoundInCanadaAndInManyPartsOfThePolarIceCaps

No Nuts for Me   

Dear Sir,

I am allergic to nuts, and have been for a long time, in fact since before I was born.

It can be a terrible affliction. Last night I went out to a restaurant, and nearly ate a nut by mistake. It had somehow got into my Mango sorbet. I think the waiter was carrying the sorbet and some sort of nut-pudding in the same hand; one of the nuts must have worked it’s way loose and been transferred across the gap between the two puddings, perhaps on the back of a small fly. I spotted it just in time, partially concealed beneath a sliver of imitation lemon rind. I didn’t blame the waiter, because I felt it was an accident that could have happened to anyone. But perhaps more care is needed when dealing with nuts and people who don’t like nuts?

I avoid watching adverts on the television in case one comes on for Snickers. I saw a Topic wrapper in the street last July and screamed.

Yours sincerely,

Commander Alwyn Cranberry (OBE, KCVO, NUTS)

Monkeying About

Dear Sir,

I write in the hope that one of your readers can help me; I am at my wit’s end. Last Christmas my wife and I purchased a monkey from a travelling gypsy. The vet told us that, whilst the money would be fun for a while, when it grew older it may become savage. We laughed this off, thinking that the vet was jealous that we had a monkey and he didn’t.

The monkey went savage last Saturday. It pulled off my wife’s arms and now carries them about in a Gucci bag. It drowned all of our children and flushed the cat down the toilet. Then it sent me out to buy ice cream.

I’d forgotten that we’d invited Ken Jones and his wife around for a barbeque. The monkey let them in, invited them to sit down while it got some nibbles, pretended it had to go to the toilet, and then poisoned their Pims.

It’s sick!

I am hiding in the airing cupboard as I type this; I think I may be able to plug my laptop into the telephone port if I can hook the cable with a coat hanger…I can hear the monkey!

The monkey’s coming! Someone hep me!

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