Comfydown Cottage

Address Withheld

Carryduff

Belfast

11/Mar/09

Customer Service Centre

Baird Ave

Dundee

DD2 3TN

Dear Tesco,

I was at the wake of a neighbour of mine the other day.  They say things come in threes but he’s the fifth neighbour of mine to die in the last year. Definitely an Anus Horriblus for Carryduff.  Poor, poor Maureen had been mauled in her garage and had fallen into a chest freezer.  She was discovered there by her poor husband (they were both on benefits) who had gone looking for a ring of prawns and a bag of onion rings two days later.  She was dead.

It turns out another neighbour, Walter, was the last to see her.  There had been some altercation about bird mess on her washing.  Maureen was overheard saying she was going to get the council onto him as Walter keeps racing pigeons without a licence.  Walter maintains he has tried to get rid of them but they keep coming back.

The sombre atmosphere at the wake was somewhat broken by a child running in and shouting “this is the best party ever”. Children are so funny and innocent- I’d‘ve only given it a 4 out of 10; at best.

Considering the mauling the pigeon gave Maureen it was amazing there was still an open coffin but my wife Gloria (I’m her husband) remarked that she had never looked so well.  It’s incredible what a bit of makeup does, and a prosthetic nose and earlobe.

Anyway, her husband was a bit distraught and didn’t look capable of cooking himself a meal, so Gloria decided she was going to cook him something special to cheer him up.  ‘Battery Chicken Pie with Sheep’s Bladder Jelly’ was Gloria’s choice (a dish oft remarked upon) and I was dispatched to your store to get the chicken.

On getting there I was upset to find there was only free-range chicken left. Gloria would go mental if I brought free-range into the house.  I could never pass it off as battery chicken- Gloria would know; she just would.  Gloria insists on battery chicken you see. She says it’s the ‘veal of the poultry world’ and that the less room the chicken has to move around the better.  She says ‘battery chicken just melts in the mouth, unlike that stringy free-range stuff’.

She’s partly blaming that Hugh Fearley-Whittingsnail and his whole ‘free-range chicken’ nonsense for the lack of battery chicken in the supermarkets.  She thinks you are concentrating too much on ‘free-range’ because of him.  She says you should be pushing ‘battery’ as a delicacy and is surprised it’s not held in the same regard as veal and priced as such.  We’re prepared to pay a lot more if you would only stock it adequately.

Also, we think you shouldn’t print ‘fresh’ on your chicken labels as it could then sit in people’s fridges for ages.  Gloria has cooked three-week-old chickens that have gone green because it states ‘fresh’ on the label.  Her counter-argument to my protestations is to point to the label and say ‘look John- it’s still fresh’.  Please just put the date the chicken was killed on it and we’ll be the judge as to whether it’s fresh or not.  It’s the same for milk. What about a label where the word ‘fresh’ slowly fades to be replaced by the words ‘Bin It!’

Please could you send me a signed photo of your owner Mr Tesco?

Yours Sincerely,

John J Marley

PS- you haven’t got back to me about my ‘Biodegradable Bag for Life’ idea.