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My own rip of The Imagineers doing the Late Late Show theme for Craig Ferguson's recent shows in Scotland.

Basil the Rat was the name given, Pontypridd was the town, and it would have been a prog sometime between July and November in 1991...or 1990...  Or possibly 1992.  I hope that narrows it down a bit?

The Beast triumphs once again despite some questionable input - it was in fact 1993 and 'the Rat' doesn't appear anywhere. Here is the letter from Prog 843 in all its glory :

Extensice searches of the Beast's database shows no matches for the string of 'Basil the Rat' or any variations thereof. Can you conform the reader's real name, town or approximate issue number?

[DR]

Yes we're back to indulge in this weekend of Diamond celebrations - yes we managed to snag 3 litres of  Diamond White cider while the shop keeper was distracted (read : unconscious) so it's all go at Beast Towers.

The celebrations continue as the new digitised Beast now has images, although even our high tech scanner wouldn't  read the pishy bits that comprised 'Middenface McDredd'. We enjoyed the first Input page since Prog 1782 and only the third since Prog 1773 - that's barely one a month!

Well we'll work with what we've got so say hello to Prog 1786 and it's 4  large letters. We do like the odd witty one liner but let's see what the non-concise correspondents have to say.

First up it's 'Check my credentials' DR Richard Evans of Colwyn Bay. He may have spent 8 years at university but the dawdling Doc scores only his first Beast entry with this offering - that's assuming he's not the Richard Evans (no 'Dr') of Merseyside of Progs 2005 and 1386 fame.

The Quality Quack gets the Letter of the week berth and waxes lyrical about all the good stuff presently going on in the Prog. He does prophesies the death of Dan Francisco - that'd never happen unless the Mega-City Doctors went on strike - they'd never do that! He loses points for advocating Dredd taking illegal Stookie to keep his youth, but I imagine he'd be forthcoming with the prescription.

Overall this is a lacklustre 'Letter of the Week' but no doubt Tharg is doing a Basil Fawlty and pandering to the educated classes. This is the first letter ever to come out of Colwyn Bay although we did once have a drawing - 'Tharg's Got a Lotta Bottle' from Matthew Miller in Prog 314. Do you want to see it? OK then :



Hardly worth it was it? Still tough turkey Lottery Funders!

Oh Joy! Next up is Richard Joy of Liverpool whose happy name belies the dull content of his letter. He has an excuse of course -  he's both snagged and impregnated a woman! And we though 'Zaucer of Zilk' was far fetched! This ardent fan hasn't read a Prog in two years but is surprised the characters are ageing. Maybe if he cracked a Prog every 100 weeks or so he might have an opinion worth hearing!

This is the happy fellow's first ever letter and he joins the Joy jamboree on one with his chums Shane of Hastings (Prog 451) and Maurice of London (Prog 546). The narrow window of Joy included Joy Wheeler of Kington of Prog 442 notoriety - if she married Robert she'd probably still be Joy Wheeler - chicks these days eh?

Next up is Neil Colquhoun who is our favourite Edinburgh pensmith. In truth he's the only one, as that other guy uses a stolen Argos pencil for his ramblings. Neil gets his football colours here with his 11th offering in a career stretching back to Prog 803 in 1992 when he was living in Stevenson. In truth 11 letters will rank as his 2nd greatest achievement after getting out of Stevenson. Neil has been a consistent correspondent missing out on only 2011 in the last 5 years. He has 1 Meg letter (Meg 281) and is the only Colquhoun to trouble The Beast although we do have 104 'Neils'.

Neil starts his letter with a bit of Dickens  but it more like a 'Tale of Two Titties' as he rambles on two fronts, attempting to praise and criticise in equal measure. He 'imagines' the Zilk is dividing readers but chooses not to research the matter by straying to the Message board, resulting in a humiliating '0' for the Board population this week. The rest of the letter is a bit of a ramble and clearly not worth the full column it is allocated. He does get a bit of unfair censure from Tharg who rubbishes his assertion that 'Helter Skelter' is better than 'The Pitt' even though he never said such a thing.

We go to manual for the last letter, in the company of Chris Haynes of West Yorkshire. This cements Chris' place in the 'Half Dozen Club' in a slow process that started so promisingly with the Letter of the Week in Prog 1162. He was last seen in Meg 228 back in 2005 so it's good to have him back in the fold doing the value work. He admits to his lax letter policy by saying it's been a while since he'd written, but was it worth the wait?

Hmmmm. No. He likes the 'Zilk' which is fair enough but 'Flesh' ? Seems a long shot at best. He does offer love for the lovely Denise and encourages Tharg to go into one of his celebrated letters page rants. Lovely stuff.

Although just a foursome we enjoyed this outing that takes our totaliser to 9855 - not long now! (until the 9870s are breached).

Can't wait for the July 15th opener. Speculation : [spoiler]Walt sets up a lab in the car wash and teams up with Mike to take on allcomers. Should be epic![/spoiler]

As our six readers are aware LETTERSENTERTAINYOU recently relaunched with a frankly breathtaking competition where the prize was a life changing copy of the 'Droid Life' book. Obviously this massive prize meant an influx of mail that made Blue Peter appeals of the 1970's look frankly shit.

We managed to pare down the entrants to two - the mighty and impressive Emperor and <titter> Proudhuff.

Let's reaquaint ourselves with the question :



Hmm toughie.

Emperor came up with what must be the right answer 'Nestor'. Great stuff what's the postcode there at your mansion of intellect?



Oh farts.

Still there's no way Tom will chance upon the correct answer...

Buggeration - send us your address Tom. Well done...

[No. 643 : Lee Carter, Prog 758]

No. 643 : Lee Carter, Prog 758



No. 644 : Lee Carter, Prog 822

The Sisters of Death were drawn to PJ during Necopolis so it's not too much of a stretch that the Dark Judges would be pulled in too, albeit on a subconscious level. Next speculation is where PJ plans on sticking that bottle.

Letters too including one from a literate Edinburgher, for a change.

[No. 807 : Al Ewing, Prog 1227]

Yes! It's time for another round of our never popular feature...



No. 807 : Al Ewing, Prog 1227

Were you not instructed to go fook your mother last year?

Bah! Looks like Photobucket has added a taste filter to go along with their no-porn one. Try this for now kids and indeed Mr Tharg.



Voting wise I'll go for :

1) Albion - genuine laugh and a few nuggets down the page.
2) Bolt01 - Excellent as always
3) Emperor & Jon - points lost for being a bit too professional - meant to be amateur hour you know!

Competitor number two - Emperor.

It appears we have a Nerve Centre based contest.

Don't dis the brown nose letter - without them Proudhuff would be among the nonletscrot readership!

[Board at Work]

It's time for another new feature (I know, Groan!)

                        Board at Work

Each week, or possibly never again, we'll have a look and see what the contribution this board makes to the letters page. This week the contribution is MASSIVE with only Michael Renehan of Indonesia being unknown around these parts - Unless you know different! Our chosen few with board names are :

MATT    CROSSMAN   MATTOFTHESPURS
ZACH    HAWKINS   HAWKMONGER
ALAN    HOLLOWAY    ALSKI
TOM    PROUDFOOT    PROUDHUFF
STEPHEN    WATSON   BUTTONMAN

[BLAM]

We promised added value with this relaunch and <BLAM> here we go already!

We have received an anonymous donation of the excellent 'Droid Life' book that a lucky correspondent received from Tharg for having a letter printed. He's not ungrateful but he's now read it and isn't allowed to have any more stuff cluttering up the shelf in the bathroom.

We respect the donator's right to privacy but he has agreed to post the question :



Mmmm! Good question - remember there's more than one way to appear in the Nerve Centre!

All correct replies in this thread at the time of the next LETTERSENTERTAINYOU will be put in a draw or rock, papers, scissors play off. We'll see what happens.

I got 'Droid Life' - good choice as it's one of the few that I don't have. Restricted Files 3 next time please!