There’s nothing quite like receiving an irate letter to get the blood pulsing through the veins. These days it’s very often an irate e-mail, which is a major step up from the usual anonymous invective scribbled in crayon on the torn out pages of an OK Bazaars school exercise book; the type where the recycled paper is so porous that if you use a fountain pen you wind up with an archipelago of ink splodges. At least you can reply to a hostile e-mail whereas all you can do with an anonymous attack on your person is to pass the note around the newsroom for the amusement of your colleagues.
I wish I’d kept all the hate mail I’ve received over the past twelve years because it would have made a hilarious book. There’s nothing quite so funny as a letter written in the full froth of fury. However, it’s the letters that deliberately set out to be pompous and bombastic that are the best. I’ve just received a fabulous one from a reader who objected to something I wrote about black economic empowerment (BEE) in my Sunday Times column. In fact, he appears to have objected to everything I wrote and, just for good measure, has also laid a complaint with the newspaper ombudsman accusing me of hate speech and heaven knows what else. The author claims to be educated and to have a degree but you would never guess it by reading his letter. As so often happens, he hasn’t a clue where to start his complaint and so all his gripes tumble out in a heap making it very difficult to work out what exactly he is on about. Everything becomes clear about two thirds through the letter where he can’t resist crowing about his own achievements and resorts to ill-informed personal attack. For example, my comments on BEE must have something to do with black people moving into my previously lilly-white apartheid neighbourhood. No, I don’t think so. Or I must be jealous because black businessmen can afford to own the sort of cars I only get to test drive. Again, it isn’t something that I can recall losing sleep over.
I don’t know what goes through the minds of these people when they write their splenetic letters but I imagine they must think that we columnists stop in our tracks and tremble. Nothing could be further from the truth. All that happens is that I get a feeling of enormous satisfaction from the knowledge that I can still ruin someone’s Sunday morning. I’m always happy to debate a topic with a reader if I get an intelligent response and I’ve even been known to apologise for offending people on occasions, but I surely can’t be expected to respond to such ignorant drivel. Or can I?
The temptation to reply to the reader who has laid a complaint with the ombudsman is enormous. The only snag is that my response would almost certainly lead to another formal complaint and who knows where that would end up? I would feel compelled to correct his spelling and grammar before addressing the issues he raises and I just know I would adopt a supercilious tone which would be bound to rub him up the wrong way. His wayward logic, lack of appreciation of irony and inability to grasp the right end of the stick would also have to be subjected to my scrutiny. All in all it would be a very tedious waste of time (just as reading his long, rambling letter turned out to be) so I’ve decided on a much better revenge. I have his e.mail address and within a few days he should be receiving offers of cut price Viagra and all the other junk-mail paraphernalia. That’ll teach him to sneak off to the ombudsman.