I am happy to say that I was asked by the author, PK Munroe, to review this book for him. Having said that, what you are about to read is my objective opinion of the book. The sub title of this book is a stamp in the wrong hands!

This book is a brother, or sister, for the Henry Root Letters ... which I reviewed on this site in November 2001: http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/roo1.html

I like nonsense books and adventures like The Thursday Night Letters and can imagine that this book will be a welcome addition to many book shelves around the Nation. There are people, I know, for whom spoof letters are a complete mystery that they will understand as readily as they understand Fermat's Last Theorem: ie, not at all!

It took my just over an hour to read this book: the format is that each page (well, very nearly anyway) contains a letter from Munroe to some worthy or businessmanon on a particular topic. The following page or pages then comprise a response from the intended victim ... some victims don't reply and some do. The ideal must be for a single letter to give rise to a lengthy correspondence: this doesn't really happen. I think the reason why there are no extended sets of correspondence is because some of the ideas in the letters are far too wacky even for the most desnse among us to fall too far for them!

It's clear that some victims were taken in by their letter and that must leave us thinking either that they are as stupid as the idea presented to them; or they receive so many such crackpot ideas that they feel the need to reply and to humour the originator!

You will probably find as I did that some of the letters and follows ups are excellent, some will make you smile and others will probably leave you cold. That's just the way of humour I think.

Henry Root was famous for sending each of his victims a Pound with their letter: sometimes with a plea to do something specific with it, sometimes to defray expenses ... most of his victims seemed to have kept the moeny but others made a huge point of sending it back.

Munroe doesn't send a Pound or even a fiver: his tactic is often to say that, "My friends and I ..." as if some collective wisdom can guarantee the worthiness of the scheme being presented. It didn't!

What gems are there? The very first one, Hunter Gatherer Supermarkets in which Munroe quite rightly points out that men cannot stand being forced to be in a shop whereas women usually feel at home there. Munroe takes it all a stage further and says that the reason for the men feeling so alienated is that they are missing the 'hunter' aspect of getting their food. So, we are treated to the idea that men should be allocated things like

• a magnetic tipped spear
• shopping backets made from woven reed
• ...
• traps and hazards in the aisles
• ...

This letter was sent to several supermarket chains and did receive a reply from them. Of course, the responses were polite and one of them even says that he will circulate his Board colleagues with the ideas. This is a let in and Munroe eventually writes a follow up letter asking what the Board thinks but he gets no further reply! The best bit of this correspondence, though, is in the letter dated 30th Aoril 2006 and addressed to Tesco. In that letter, Munroe points out how Tesco operates in China:

The frogs and fish literally leap out at the shopper ... Customers are enticed to net live Carp and Rainbow Trout from brightly illuminated blue and green tanks ... Munroe goes on to say how remarkably similar the Chinese shopping experience is to the Hunter Gatherer idea ... Tesco, unfortunately, decide not to respond further. A pity that.

The No 1 Bigfella Swimming Trunks correspondence is another one well worthy of taking note of: this one is clearly a bit seedy but does manage to involve HRH the Duke of Edinburgh ... read the book to find out what Munroe thinks he knows about the No 1 Bigfella in the Palace!

The Peter Shilton Oven Gloves is another winning idea ... that no one else can see merit in! Similarly, Vegetarian Pork Scratchings is another winning idea never to get off the ground as is the Memorial Manhole Covers idea: can't think why!

There are 46 crackpot ideas to learn about in this book and if you are anything like me you will buy or otherwise purloin this book. You probably won't like them all. Then again, read the book once then read it again after a few weeks and you will probably find something the second time around that you didn't find when you first read them.

A note for sleuths: I have absolutely no idea who PK Munroe is, even though we have corresponded by email. I should say that I know that our correspondence was not a sopof because I received a copy of the book free of charge through the mail for me to review as promised!! The point is that eventually Henry Root was unveiled and his identity shared with the Nation. Even though I know who Henry Root really was, I'd rather not. So, I don't want to know that PK Munroe is my next door neighbour or Alastair Campbell or even the late Ngwazi Dr H Kamuzu Banda, former life president of Malawi.

My recommendation is to buy and enjoy this book!

Duncan Williamson
10^th July 2007