LETTER BOCKS
LAST NIGHT I dreamed that I worked for Boris Johnson, and when I handed in my notice to go and work instead for Hercule Poirot, the Prime Minister gave me a really lovely, written reference even though at the time he was being pursued by a very angry man who I’d accidentally let into the building. When I woke up, I was touched by the sentiments in the reference and wondered if, just maybe, Boris Johnson isn’t really that bad after all. Have any of your other readers been momentarily swayed by the actions of the Prime Minister in a dream?
Joe Smith, Exeter
*What a nice thought from Mr Smith. It seems the media are constantly giving our PM a hard time simply because of the way he behaves. Write in with some of the nice things that Boris has done in your dreams and we’ll redress the balance.
I’VE JUST watched a porn vid where the lead actor lifted the leading lady onto a wall-mounted wash basin in the bathroom before having sex. Could I advise anyone thinking of doing the same to take care. These kinds of wash basins are not meant to take any great weight, and for reasons of safety, I would recommend only attempting this act on a pedestal-type basin.
Billy Whiffles, Tooting
I CAN’T be alone in thinking that whilst Ming the Merciless’s huge and ornate collar is impressive, it is also extremely impractical. I imagine that when he first started wearing it in the 1930s, it was to detract attention from his baldness. These days however, attitudes have changed and a completely bald head is considered fashionable and attractive. Perhaps it’s time for Ming the Merciless to face up to his insecurities, lose the collar and learn to be accepted for the person that he is.
Phil Kitching, Isle of Jura I WAS just wondering if any of your readers could answer a question for me? We are all used to bikini-clad young ladies walking around the boxing ring holding up the number of the next round. But what happens to those who don’t a chance to go on? If, for instance, the fight finishes in the third round of a tenround fight, do the other seven bikiniclad young ladies get paid, or do they just get their bus fare home? There’s not much else going on in the world at the moment, so perhaps some MP could raise this in the house.
Gordon Bennet, Aukland
I IMAGINE that most Viz readers are over-50s males with unhealthy lifestyles, which means that realistically, most of us will have pegged it in twenty years’ time. In order for Viz to survive, therefore, you will need to start appealing to a much younger demographic. With that in mind, how about a picture of a rare Pokemon kissing that bird’s arse?
Dr Hugh Munster, Edinburgh
SOME PEOPLE say that two wrongs don’t make a right, but any mathematician worth their salt will tell you that two negatives make a positive. I think it’s high time folk put less faith in this sort of old wives’ tale hokum and started using a bit more mathematical logic.
Wythenshawe Lineman, Manchester
STARTING the drive to Edinburgh last week, my satnav told me I would arrive at 18:06. An hour later, I was in Paisley and the thing still said I wouldn’t get there until 18:05. So after driving for an hour I was only 1 minute closer to Edinburgh. What a waste of time! Next time I’ll just leave from Paisley.
Mike Harris, Gourock
I KEEP receiving random e-mails with photos of beautiful young girls telling me they find me attractive. All I can say is that I am not surprised. I’ve cut back on booze, narrowed the amphetamines down to weekends and I’ve got my own dartboard.
Les Lloyd, email
THERE are all these cookery programmes on every channel, but not of them is aimed at lazy bastards like me who only ever eat microwave meals from Iceland.
Les Lloyd, email
I HAVE been a reader of your magazine for over three decades now, having first come across Viz in about 1989. In fact, I’ve enjoyed it so much that I’m considering buying another copy very soon.
Dave Winter, Paris
ISN’T it about time you started offering Willy Wonka-style tours around the Viz factory? You could put ‘brown tickets’ in a handful of comics before they get distributed around the country. Imagine the excitement! Then a small group of lucky brown ticket holders and their ageing relatives could visit Newcastle and see all your wonderful machines and meet some of the characters. No doubt some of the less restrained winners would get sucked into various pipes and chutes, but I think it would be a risk worth taking.
Micky Bullock, Bristol
MY WIFE once shouted at my son for farting when he was actually on the toilet enjoying a shit. Have any of your readers experienced a more unreasonable admonishment for releasing an audible flatulisation?
Kevin Caswell-Jones, Gresham
IT OCCURRED to me when reading the adverts in your latest issue that Mrs B from Essex has aged remarkably well considering the many years that she has been endorsing products and services in Viz. Maybe she should advertise whatever skin products she uses to keep herself young as I’m sure it would be a ‘boon’ to others.
Alizundy, Brisbane
WHEN YOU think of the unfathomable size of the universe, aren’t all football matches ‘local derbies’, relatively speaking? If we accept this as true, it would raise the excitement of every game immeasurably and increase the level of hatred amongst rival fans the world over.
Lee Nover, Clifton
ISN’T life a strange and mysterious thing? It couldn’t have been more than 20 years ago today that I remember passing little Jimmy Krankie on the escalators in Newcastle. And here I am today, looking at my own picture in the Evening Chronicle for throwing cat shit at my neighbours. Life and fame, eh? What a strange and marvellous journey.
Prof. Mick McClanger, Gateshead
ENGLISH football’s second highest scorer, Alan ‘Buzz’ Shearer, recently stated that a player “struck the ball too well” when he hit the post and missed an open goal. I wonder how Alan would feel if, after having his car serviced, the fucking thing exploded on the A167. Would he say that the mechanic serviced it “too well”?
Chuck Diecko, Maghull
IN 1982, I met the actor Dennis Waterman in a cafe in Folkestone. That is all I have to say about the matter and I would prefer to keep the details of what was said private.
Jakey Skippen, Folkestone
THESE bags of ice cubes need to have a ‘use-by’ date. I paid £1 for a Sainsbury’s ‘party pack’ and the contents all turned to liquid after just one day in the cupboard. What a rip-off.
Neal Bircher, Ickenham
ON A recent trip to a watery wildlife place, I noticed a heron, two swans, two oystercatchers, a crow and two seagulls, all within a very short distance of each other. Can anyone else recount a more diverse feathery gathering?
Dwayne Hickman, Telford
*What is the most number of birds you have ever seen in the same place? And by that, we mean the number of species, not the number of individual birds. We’re not interested in the number of individual birds you have seen. Or indeed the number of species, come to think of it. Just forget it.
WHY DON’T we hear swannee whistles any more? You used to hear them all the time in the 1970s, when a man’s trousers fell down or when a woman driver accidentally reversed a car into a duck pond. Now that we have left the EU, it’s about time Boris Johnson brought them back to accompany his comedy antics in Downing Street.
C Hawtrey, Deal
WHY ARE priceless antiques like Ming vases and Fabergé eggs always made from really fragile materials like porcelain and bone china? If I was making stuff which was that valuable, I’d have the common sense to use something more durable, like tyre rubber or cement.
Ben Nunn, Caterham
CONSIDER this if you will. You can use your mobile phone as a torch, but you can’t use your torch as a mobile phone. Yet both are battery-powered instruments. Once again it’s one rule for one thing and one rule for another.
Nevets Nannarb, Southport
DESPITE developing thousands of miles apart, all civilisations eventually invented sausages, and they all contain either pork or beef. The evolution of Homo sapiens seems to have hit a brick wall with sausages, so I would like to suggest some new fillings like ducks, moles or jellyfish.
Mike Harris, Gourock
PEOPLE keep saying my cat Archie is majestic, and judging by this photograph, You would have to say they are correct. However, shortly after I took this picture, he started licking his own arsehole, which is far from majestic. I’d like to see our monarch do that.
Joel, email
P S. I wrote “our monarch” just in case there’s a high profile death before this letter is published. But the point still stands – neither The Queen nor Prince Charles could do it.
MY OLD granddad lost an eye in WW2, but he still kept his spirits up. He used to take his glass eye out and pretend he was looking up ladies’ skirts. All harmless fun, but the modern ‘snowflake’ generation obviously took exception to his japes, and he was arrested for this and “other offences.” Utterly ridiculous.
Howitt, Bedford
RECENTLY reading a book I discovered that Limfjord is a fjord which cuts across the north of Denmark, with its western entrance blocked by sandbanks. Geological studies have suggested it was, however, open “in about AD 1000-1100”. When I was at school I was told my answers needed to be on the button, and in some cases I even had to show my working out. Battle of Hastings? About 10231092. 12 x 12? Just shy of 150. Come on scientists, show some pride.
Chloe Cardashian, Chelsmsfjord
THE OTHER day I was with a group of friends, and one of them told a story, at the end of which I said “Un-bee-lievable!!” Then I realised that the story hadn’t had anything to do with bees whatsoever, and I ended up looking a right twat.
Jack Spratt, Stourbridge
HATS OFF to the tories for managing to keep their parties covered up for so long. It took my parents about 5 minutes to notice the hole kicked in the wall, the bong behind the curtain, and the curry powder on the sofa. Then there was the whole fiasco with the jobbie in the kettle. Credit where credit’s due, they must have tidied up extremely well.
Oxter Boggins, Monifieth
IF WE’VE learnt anything in the last few years, it’s that the so-called experts don’t know what they are talking about. But what about the normal experts? We never hear from them any more. They must be even more useless.
Joe Williams, Leeds
I’M AT that age where I would rather do anything than go on a stag weekend, so receiving an invitation to my mate’s three-day bender in Amsterdam filled me with dread. I needn’t have worried, though. Thanks to the queues at passport control and cancelled flights, by the time we arrived at Schiphol Airport, we just had time for a couple of pints in the departure lounge before it was time to come back. Apart from the groom’s constant whining, it was quite a pleasant weekend. Three cheers for Brexit and Covid, I say.
Steve Crouch, Peterborough
MY FRIEND and I have been having an argument, and we were hoping you could help settle it. I reckon that there are an infinite number of pairs of prime numbers that differ by two, but my friend asserts that there is a finite number of these prime pairs. Can you explain which of us is right, with diagrams where appropriate?
John Moynes, Dublin
*Sorry, John, we can’t help you as we were off school the day they did Polignac’s conjecture and infinite series prime pair progression in maths. Perhaps there is a mathematical genius Viz reader with a terrible haircut, appalling dress sense and no girl- or boyfriend who could help settle your argument.
IN RESPONSE to your star letter (Viz 313), I was the individual who Mr Crisps spotted taking a dump on the morning that his Newcastle to London train passed Newark Northgate. I was unfortunately caught short after a rather heavy session on the real ale the preceding evening. It was not my intention to cause offence and I apologise unreservedly to Mr Crisps and all in First Class who had to witness myself pushing brown.
J Smotherbox, Newark
IS IT not time our Queen stepped down? We moan about dictators in other countries clinging to power, but come on. Even Vladimir Putin has only been in power for 25 years.
Andrew Crighton, Stockholm
AN EX-GIRLFRIEND of mine once had a threesome with the Chuckle Brothers years ago. Needless to say the phrase ‘to me, to you’ was used constantly throughout the whole seven-and-a-half minute encounter.
Gordon Bennett, Auckland
*No, we’re sorry, Mr Bennet, we simply don’t believe that is true. And if you told us that their ChuckleVision sidekicks The Patten Brothers joined in to make it a fivesome, and kept shouting “Get out of it” and “No Slacking” at various points in the proceedings, we’d believe it even less.
I SAW the film The Incredible Shrinking Man recently, and I’m afraid the science behind the premise is rather flawed. By the time he got to a few inches tall, he would have been torn to pieces by his grossly overpowered muscles. He would also be dead from being as dense as platinum. And this is not to mention that he would expire from hypothermia as his small surface-area-to-volume ratio would be insufficient to dissipate the massive amount of heat generated by his increased metabolism. Fighting spiders using a needle as a spear? I don’t think so.
Bill Logical, Colchester
I WONDER if aliens have curtains. I would imagine that if their planet has 2 suns, they might never get any night time, so they would almost certainly have them. Whereas aliens on planets orbiting a dark star probably haven’t got much
use for drapery.
Mike Harris, Gourock
THEY SAY never put all your eggs in one basket. But what if you have only got one egg? I’d like to see the smartarse philosophers answer that one.
Jack Spratt, Stourbridge
IF I had been the captain of the Titanic, I would have sailed around the iceberg. I mean, it’s an iceberg, for fuck’s sake.
John Moynes, Dublin
I CAN’T help thinking that if Johnny Depp had married Thora Hird instead of Amber, he would have been a lot happier. Thora could have baked him Eccles cakes and, when the heady world of showbiz made him get above himself, she could have brought him down to earth by referring to it as ‘a load of old stuff and nonsense’ whilst dusting an aspidistra.
Mike Hayley, Penrith
I CAN’T believe there’s so much mystery about how the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids. Surely they just made a square on the ground out of blocks, then put slightly smaller square of blocks on each layer as they went up? I wonder what we pay these boffins for.
Ian Wallaby, Spleen
SO MANY people tell me they wish they were a bird so as they could soar above all of the troubles and issues we deal with in the world today. This does seem a wonderful concept, but being a bird would mean I would have no hands, so I would miss out on my daily wank. Do any of your readers know of anything I can aspire to be that can both fly and wank?
Pat Joe Bricklayer, email
THE WINNING ticket for the Golden Gamble at the Scarborough Athletic v Matlock Town play-off semi-final on 26th April was 48154, just in case anyone at the game missed it. £324.00 went to the winner.
Tim Buktu, Timbuktu
I HAVE a couple of questions for you Viz boffins. Firstly,
I see that Rishi Sunak has been cleared of breaching ministerial rules by Boris Johnson’s ethics adviser, and I would like to know if a cabinet minister has ever been penalised by an investigation set up by their own government? Secondly, what is knob cheese made of?
Piers Fremulon, Reading
*In answer to your first question, Mr Fremulon, whilst several cabinet ministers have breached the ministerial code, none has faced official sanction, although two lost the favour of the Prime Minister of the day and found themselves demoted in subsequent cabinet reshuffles. As to your second question, fatty oils, shed skin cells and sweat.
I OFTEN say “I’ve got to see a pan about a log” when I need a turd. Has anyone said that? Just me, then?
Tarquin Dundas Fitz Rovia, email
IMAGINE how disappointing it would be being American. Every Friday night when you ordered fish and chips, you’d get a juicy piece of fish and a pile of crisps. And they probably wouldn’t even be salt and vinegar flavour, because according to my mate
Tex, they don’t do them.
Les Lard, Louth
WHY IS it that, having just had a profound dream, I wake up feeling like Mary Shelley, feeling that I could almost retire on the fruits of my unconscious imagination? And then, 30 seconds later in the cold light of the conscious world, I realise that a plot revolving around me working for B&Q does not a Hollywood blockbuster make?
Hector Grundlesnyke, Glasgow
I FOLLOWED the advice of one of your Top Tips about sliding a tenner into your funeral suit so that the next time you wear it at a funeral you find it and get a nice surprise. Well I just put the suit on for a funeral I am attending this morning and, Hey presto! A crisp tenner! Unfortunately it was one of the old paper ones which are no longer legal tender, so my joy was short-lived. Thanks a lot for kicking a man when he’s down.
Matty O’Toole, Chewton Mendip
HOPEFULLY it is not too late to register a complaint from a US reader regarding the instalment of Nobby’s Piles in issue 312. In the thirteenth panel, a reference is made to a NASA rocket having its launch moved forwards “due to the bank holiday.” But the term “bank holiday” is not generally used in the United Motherfuckin’ States of God-Damned America. A more appropriate term would have been “federal holiday” or “public holiday.” The improper employment of this phrase was an unfortunate blot upon a comic strip usually noted for its accuracy and realism.
Carl Horn, Milwaukee, Oregon
WHY DO we think people are amazing if they climb Mount Everest? They say you have a 1 in 4 chance of dying if you try it. Personally I’d rather do something else that doesn’t involve nearly dying, like having a wank or eating a pork pie.
David Wardle, Manchester
FOR SEVERAL years now, I have been sending in letters that you have failed to publish. Last month I noticed, with disgust, you printed in full a “spam letter,” which while being about as funny as any of mine, took up at least three times the space. It would seem that there is one rule for people called Mrs Comfort sending spam emails and another for people who write reasonably amusing letters.
Mark Humphries, Crewe
WHEN A friend of mine was thirteen, he got kicked in the bollocks by a classmate who went on to be a member of the Boomtown Rats. Have any of your readers ever been kicked in the bollocks at the age of thirteen by someone who went on to be a member of a not particularly memorable pop group?
John Moynes, Dublin
*That’s a rather narrow set of criteria, Mr Moynes. Could we perhaps widen it slightly by saying “…at any age” rather than limiting any anecdotes to when readers were thirteen?
HOW COME some boys’ names become girls’ names just by adding the letter ‘a’ on the end, such as Paul, Carl, Daniel, and so on, whereas others don’t, such as Les, Roy and Gary? There seems to be no rhyme nor reason. Whoever is in charge of these things wants to pull their finger out.
Flub, Musselburgh
I’M RESIGNED to the fact that no matter how often or how loud I shout the words “Up your arse, Virgo”, this will never be the answer to where the cue ball is going.
Mark, Hoylake
DO ANY readers know if it’s safe to squirt whipped cream up your arse from one of them spray cans? I’m not intending to try it, I’m just asking for a friend.
Gerry Paton, London