Your venerable book club’s choice of reading material for this month has left me rather surprised, alarmed and confused, and I am not accustomed to either of these emotional sensations. The Biographical Encyclopaedia of Pillydrizzle von Poodlewinkle has received excellent reviews in the press, wherefore it was with great joy that I began perusing my very own copy just the other week. The idea of an encyclopaedia that lists objects, places, events and people that have all come to be of some bearing and value in a man’s life intrigued me and I started to look up stuff with enormous interest and a great literary appetite. Naturally, the fact that this biographical encyclopaedia details the many elaborate facets of my life – as I soon realised – only helped to further my interest. Pillydrizzle is an obvious nom de guerre, I’m sure you understand, and I would like to thank the editors for its elaborate nature and for the apparent fact that they made me an aristocrat.

However, I immediately spotted some minor errors, e.g. regarding my date of birth, the colour of my hair and certain facts regarding my dear departed mother. She was not, in fact, “fat” but voluptuous, nor was she “an active member of the League of European Incontinents Against Oppression (LEIAO)”. Now, I could have just chosen to overlook these apparent mistakes and regard them as artistic embellishments, serving only to distinguish my life as even more exotic and exciting than the lives of the common man, but the discovery of even more frightful and exaggerated “embellishments” made the writing of this letter to you an absolute necessity.

For instance, upon looking up the word “spoon”, I found a rather titillating description of (1. to spoon, verb) what Lord Barnsworth and I apparently did during the 1984 Royal Duck Hunt and Harvesting Fête of East Anglia, as well as (2. spoon, noun) the foreign object used on several occasions, and in several locations, as a biological enhancement to my great pleasure and immense surprise.

While on the subject of enhancements, the term “Christmas decoration” granted the following definition: “Objects of varying kind used by [me] to emphasise the holiday spirit in question in an all-together untraditional manner.” Just below this sentence, I found a far too descriptive illustration of a Christmas star I allegedly used while on holiday in the darkest little corner of Cornwall several years ago, and the manner in which I attached it to my person at the time. I regret to inform you, dear sirs, that despite my overwhelming desire to actually make use of a Christmas decoration in the illustrated manner, I have in fact never been to Cornwall.

Another disturbing fact about the many encyclopaedic entries is that many, if not most, of them have me portrayed as either a drug addict, pervert, or both. Apparently, in my youth, I devised a method for using bicycles, vases and spaghetti as both narcotics and libido enhancers. Riding the bicycles, smoking the spaghetti and, well... About the vases, I’m sure you can imagine on your own.

The almost complete and utter lack of correctness this encyclopaedia has to offer would have me question whether in fact it is my life that is being dissected within its pages, were it not for the indisputable accuracy in pinpointing “John” as an acquaintance of mine. I did in fact encounter a “John” during my university years, though “John” was just an appropriate nom de plume, with which I ordained a delicious young lord in my poetry class. The nickname, you understand, had nothing to do with our activities in class, but rather with the venue we chose for our, shall we say, congregations, as well as the persona he took on as a consequence of his pecuniary generosity. Here, the sordid description following the entry “John” is remarkably precise and detailed. Should you know the current whereabouts of “John”, please let me know, for I have not seen him in years and have some unresolved issues with him.

In conclusion, I demand not merely an amendment of the current edition of The Biographical Encyclopaedia of Pillydrizzle von Poodlewinkle , that I shall pester the publishing company with, but also a significant sum of money to cover the therapy bills that ensued the trauma of reading this fraudulent orgy of lies, which I expect You (!) to wire to my account immediately, as it was you who recommended we read it.

I would like nothing more than to criticise your choice even further and to elaborate on the incorrectness of The Biographical Encyclopaedia of Pillydrizzle von Poodlewinkle, but I shall instead assume you to do the right thing and compensate me for this wrongdoing, while I examine the pages of another work that shrewdly steals details of my life and passes them off as someone else’s, namely, Diary of a Bonaparte.

I expect to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,