During the Christmas break I was approached at the pub by a raggedy little Englishman with no chin and a school blazer, who asked me to send on the following missive to his old friend Giles Coren.
He apparently wanted to reply to an article that Coren had published in the Daily Telegraph yesterday, but didn’t know Coren’s email.
Since it appeared that he and soap were strangers, I hastily agreed to let him email the letter to me, and that I would post it here for Coren to see.
Giles…this is from your old school pal Jeremy. You can contact him c/- the Coogee Beach Backpackers, Arden Street, Sydney,
Australia. Oh, and he asks if you could slip him a few quid in the envelope, but don’t tell pater.
Best regards,
Loges.
———-
Jeremy Cartier-Blunt
c/- Coogee Backpackers.
Dear Giles old boy,
Read your piece in the local rag down here in Sydney Town and I have to say…what a typically smashing stroll down chemin de la memoire! Nothing like sticking it to the convicts eh what? I could almost hear your ruined British teeth rattling away in their sockets as you brayed to your old Keble College chums about how ripping it was that the English have once again found a backward race in the world that they can bully. Must be just like reliving the good old days of the Raj don’t you know!
Such a shame really that Mountbatten made all those punkah-wallahs independent after the war, otherwise you might have been able to take off to the subcontinent for a few years as an Aide to the Viceroy or something, instead of having to work for a living. Damned hot of course, but at least those coolies know their place don’t they, unlike the Australians, and your editor. Good God man, how do you stand meeting a deadline for some uppity little East-ender with a combover?
Anyhoo, the way you reeled off all those hoary old cultural stereotypes had all of us expats down here at the arse end of the earth guffawing into our Fosters. Dannii…Kylie…Jason….oh God, the wit of it all. You haven’t changed a bit since those naughty little ciggy-and-chortle sessions we used to have in the bogs at good old Westminster.
Of course old bean, I was a bit surprised you didn’t lay the boot into some of the big guns while you were at it, Dame Joan Sutherland for a start. Screeching old bat really wasn’t she, and who cares what Pavarotti thinks? Voice of the century my bottom.
Speaking of bottoms, and arse ends, you must be freezing your rear bumper off over there right now old fruit. Snowed in I’ll wager? There’s nothing like a traditional English Christmas I always say, and being stranded down here for the duration by the fifteen feet of snow at Heathrow, it’s been nothing like a traditional English Christmas.
In fact, our old pal Tristan la Grognement and I were lamenting that very fact on Boxing Day, as we watched the start of the Sydney to Hobart from a stonking great yacht parked right in the middle of sunny Sydney Harbour. Sipping thoughtfully on a workable little Margaret River sauvignon blanc, I thought to myself that these ignorant Aussie bigots just don’t deserve this. Honestly Giles, it really is wasted on them and as a food critic and part-time wrist-spinner, you should come down here and get stuck into them just as soon as Heathrow thaws out, and the leftover Yorkshire pud is gone.
For Gods sake man, one of them even called me a bastard, which for a moment made me wonder if he had met Mummy. Eventually it became clear that it was just a figure of speech, which was surprising. After all, these people are so desperate to be liked (as you so astutely pointed out), I thought they would have been falling over themselves to ingratiate themselves with their betters ie Tristan and me.
Unfortunately they were just falling over Tristan, after he “got in a shout” (quaint expression what?) with some “brickies labourers on a bucks show” and they “did a number on him” whatever that means? Anyway, he finished up lying on the floor half in and half out of the bogs, just like that year at Ascot when they spiked the Pimms.
Beastly show really, but at least we won the cricket.
Ah yes, the cricket! That’s how all this started wasn’t it. You’re right of course, the Aussie male is just too macho for words. Good God, the likes of Shane Watson and Ryan Harris look like they could put me over their knee and give me a spanking. It’s not a question of whether I’d enjoy it you understand, more a question of what is attractive about such a lack of refinement, such rawness, such animalism…
Sorry old fruit, did I drift off for a moment? Anyway, I can feel that you are, like me, all a-quiver at the thought of the Australians being beaten like dogs.
Its about time too really after so many years of humiliation and damned cheek being meted out to us from those southern proles. I mean really. Take the Olympics. They have been simply horrid for years, because we haven’t had a decent athlete since Linford and Daley, and we can’t swim for nuts.
What truly frightens me though about these muscular pioneers with their straight teeth and tans, is the way that they look at me when I give them a bit of the old school tie, you know, the old Eton cheer to just make sure they stay in their rightful place?
I say. If I hadn’t been brought up knowing how superior we British really are, I’d swear that these lamentable Aussies couldn’t care a whit for my opinion. It really is just too bad, the way they just look pityingly at me and then put their arm round their Megan Gales and Jennifer Hawkins’ and leave me in their wake en route to the bar.
Didn’t you say they were desperate to be liked? It really is very perplexing. Anyway, I must close as I’ve used up the 20 minute time limit on the computer thingy at the backpackers. It’s only temporary of course, but my long-lost second-cousin Nigel has gone native and he kicked me out the other day after I let fly with an unfortunate high-pitched giggle at the Aussies first innings score.
A f—ing mincing little prat he called me. Can you believe it Giles? Honestly, bring back the British Empire I say.
Toodle pip old bean, and love to mother.
Jemmy.
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