And we’re back and it’s with almost indecent haste, barely a month since the last letters event. Our read count last time was dramatically down, so in the tradition of ‘Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em’ we proudly present the Lettersentertainyou
BATTLE OF THE LETTERS
Yes, in a totally original format we are going to decide, once and for all, what is the best letter. We’ve all enjoyed the preliminaries, but we are down to the pure breeds now. The Beast random number generator has come up with the following pairings:
Letter from Grandma Vs.
Overdue gas billGraphic Novel from Tharg Vs.
Confirmation of your sex offender registration numberReader’s Digest notice that you have won a prize Vs.
Laithwaites wine catalogueLove letter from that girl you still think about from School Vs.
Hospital test resultsExcitement she wrote.
Before we get to the main event we better have a look at the three letters printed in Prog
2197. Only three, but they are long ones. Maybe edit down the twaddle and get five in? We have it on good authority that Tharg had at least another 3 letters in his inbox, but we digress.
First up, in the Letter of the Week slot, is debut writer
Neil Scott of Glasgow. We don’t know Neil, but have probably crossed paths in Forbidden Planet or at that Convention where we were too scared to say ‘hello’ to Carlos. And then he died. Never have regrets kids - badger that creator, because they won’t always be there. Neil has no letters history of his own but his two names are shared by two celebrated Scottish Scribes.
Neil Colquhoun of Edinburgh who sits on 16 Beast entries and
Scott Ferguson of East Kilbride who has 24. Both lag behind some other Cal-Habber.
Neil’s letter is a right old ramble but none the worse for that. It starts off in Schoolboy fashion with “Your mighty organ” mentioned twice in the first two sentences. He also goes on about ‘erections’ and his ‘difficulty to rise’. To be honest we were losing the will to read further as it was looking like a column and a half of smutty innuendo. Then there is a tonal shift and the remainder is a heartfelt love letter to Tharg, charting his positive Prog experiences. You could say it was a bit disjointed and jarring. Just like I did there.
The Quarter Finals
The votes are in and
Letter from Grandma kicked
Overdue gas bill into the long grass. Although not actually read all the way through, the £5 Boots gift token sealed the win for the pensioner.
Graphic Novel from Tharg was a strong favourite but it lost out to
Confirmation of your sex offender registration number when it was found to be an IDW offering.
Reader’s Digest notice that you have won a prize knocked out
Laithwaites wine catalogue in a close run thing, but that offer to join a £1m raffle for free if you buy a £29.99 book on the History of Armchairs was just too tempting.
Love letter from that girl you still think about from School won against
Hospital test results but withdrew from the competition when it learned that the test results were positive for a nasty yeast infection. Of the balls.
The semi finals look like this:
Letter from Grandma Vs.
Hospital test resultsConfirmation of your sex offender registration number Vs.
Reader’s Digest notice that you have won a prize Letter two was from
‘Samuel’ L. Jackson of Aylesbury. We know his full first name is
‘Lewis’ as he wasn’t so embarrassed about it when he was first published in Prog 2153 in 2019 when he gained the Letter of the Week laurels. These two hits place him just one behind all time ‘Action’
Jackson, Ed of Sheffield who was last seen in Prog 1350 in 2003.
Lewis, sorry L., runs through the Prog, liking most stuff before showing off his Billy bookcase full of Tharg tat. This man is barking up the wrong tree if he thinks this audience will be impressed by that offering - he doesn’t even have matching custom spines for goodness sakes.
The Semi Finals
Letter from Grandma won against
Hospital test results but alas the results were Grandma’s and told her she had ten minutes to live, so it’s Hospital test results who proceed to the final where they’ll meet…
Confirmation of your sex offender registration number which trumped
Reader’s Digest notice that you have won a prize when the £1m prize was found to be an instalment plan that paid £1 a year for a million years.
Confirmation of your sex offender registration number also gained points when the number was found to be the same as that young women’s finishing school up the road.
The Grand Final Looms:
Hospital test results Vs. Confirmation of your sex offender registration number
But first letter three from veteran scribe
Luke Williams who nears his own Beast identifier code with this, his 9th offering. Luke did toy with calling himself ‘
Lucas’ when he appeared in Meg 377 but has wisely reverted to ‘Luke’ for all his other offerings. He lives in
Llanelli…sorry, just wipe down my screen there, and his last offering was in Prog 2030 when he submitted a photo of a Japanese Mechanismo robot.
Luke may also go under the guise of ‘Mrs Dan Abnett’ as he can’t talk any higher about the cherished droid. He lists all of Abnett’s recent hits, but it falls to Tharg to mention the never popular ‘Sinister Dexter’ (unless you are Neil Scott from letter 1).
The Grand Final
A mood of anticipation gets
Hospital Tests results over the line for a famous win. But alas, the news is bad. In fact, terminal. Any last words? Na.
