Dear Jerry Hall…

Dear Jerry,

I adore the fact that you chose a stage name based on your favourite area of the home. I’m a big fan of the hall myself and see it as a much undervalued area. People always comment on a nice granite kitchen surface or storage solutions, but do they ever highlight the loveliness of the hall? Rarely. Rarely Jerry. I just wanted to drop you a note to doff my cap to you on this matter and thank the good Lord you did not end up being know as Jerry Attic.

Yours,
—
H. Rumbelow

Dear Jimmy Carr…

Dear Jimothy,

Have you ever questioned the triumvirate of spoon, fork and knife that so rules our dinner tables? The Chinese have their chopsticks, the Japanese, their chopsticks and the Koreans probably use chopsticks too (for eating). Why don’t we? Or more importantly, why don’t we spearhead our own solution? Jimmy, I would like to invite you to join me and my friend George (he’s ambidextrous) in a bid to shun the SFK mafia from tea time. Current ideas we have are a system based on string, training a small rodent to ferry food between plate and mouth and origami tools. However we haven’t committed any of these to post-it notes so there’s stil time for you to input.

Yours,
—
H. Rumbelow

Dear Yohan Blake…

Dear Yohan,

Have you ever engaged in taxidermy? Being known as ‘The Beast’, it seams natural to me that post sprinting career you would set-up a store with a name such as Blake’s Bestiary, Yohan’s Yaks and other animals or The Beast’s Bazaar , subtitled ‘Home to amazing wonders of the animals kingdom*’ (the asterisk would then lead to a footnote that would say ‘*stuffed’). I’m emailing now to suggest you may want to buy these domain names and secure yourself a future . If you don’t, I will. But not until November, so you’ve got time. 

Yours,
—
H. Rumbelow

Dear Rupert Penry-Jones

Dear Rupert,

Are you a master of Boggle? I myself am not, but my friend George (and wizard of wordsmithery) is, and he is intent on producing Boggle related artworks for all prime-time TV actors who have even a passing interest in the game. If you would like one (it will be delivered as a photocopy of a photo that will be taken of a painting that George will do from still life) then simply respond by return of electronic post with a pithy phrase or quotation that you would like to be built from boggle bricks (the official term, I checked*)

Yours
—
H. Rumbelow 

*I was going to check but didn’t

Dear Marcus Wareing…

Dear Marcus,

As a masterful cook extraordinaire I would like to ask you what breakfast cereal you prefer to scoff of a morning? I myself am a fan of the more fibreful cereals – All Bran, Shreddies etc – while my friend George (who has been known to have a muffin in the morning) goes for the chocolately staples – ‘Pops, Wheetos and so on. Oddly, he never takes milk (opting to instead eat the dry cereal with a fork).

I imagine you enjoy a classic such as the classy Raisin Split, or Shredded Wheat.

Yours,

—
H. Rumbelow 

(PS. Is it porridge?)

Dear Roberto Mancini…

Dear Roberto,

My friend George, a cat called Nemesis (he is owned by neither of us) and myself have just watch your Manchester City side win the League. WELL DONE. You must have yourself a celebratory fist pump when you get a moment alone. In the mean time however, I do hope you’ll consider a nicer tie.

Ciao,
—
H. Rumbelow 

Dear Jessie J…

Dear Jessica,

My friend George and I have spent the last few weeks locked in a holiday cottage in the Quantocks sifting data from the last 10 years of Daily Telegraph crosswords. You may be saddened and surprised to hear that ‘J’ is the least used letter across all these puzzles. ‘Gutted’. Our methodology for this was sound (we counted, but in our heads) so you should take this information unseasoned (i.e. without a pinch of salt). 

Yours
—
H. Rumbelow 

Dear Dr Brian Cox…

Dear Doctor Brian,

The cougar or the ocelot?

Yours
—
H. Rumbelow 

Dear Nico Rosberg…

Dear Nico,

To what extent do you consider yourself a ‘kidder’? I would like to send you a joke (it’s about Kumquats) but my friend George says you should never kid a kidder. So I thought it prudent to double check. 

Yours,
—
H. Rumbelow 

Dear Steve Buscemi…

Dear Steve,

I have long collected receipts from all manner of commercial transactions (both my own and other people’s) – I keep them in a series of floral photo albums on the bottom shelf of the bookcase in my dining room. Recently however I have begun to wonder whether more could not be done with these pieces of collateral to make them more appealing. I am, as I’m sure you can guess, thinking of the addition of quotes to the bottom of each receipt, possibly relevant to the purchase, posibly relevant to the date of purchase. For example, if I were to buy a bag of carrots on the 14th March, the quote might read “You’ll sure be able to see the daffodil’s clearly when they bloom!”. That sort of thing. 

I was wondering if you might like to provide me with a list of quotes from your good self, your celebrity friends or your yoga class mates (do you do yoga?) to use as the base of a database that might be drawn upon by the world’s top producers of receipts? 

Thoughts?

Yours,
—
H. Rumbelow