Ok, so for anyone reading this who wasn't chatting around lunchtime (UK) yesterday...

My website is awful. Really bad. I usually never link to it, but I relented yesterday and gave Beasty and Travholt (and wintermute, later) the URL. And they pretty much agreed, but in a nice diplomatic way.

Anyway - since its an incomplete site, some of the links go nowhere...one of these was a link to my finest hour.

My finest hour was at 11 o clock on March 12th, 1997, when I was sitting in my school computer room, composing a letter to the Managing Director of the Coca Cola Company. I had just read a book on complaining to get free stuff, so I had the marvellous idea of turning it around, and blagging free gear through being sycophantic.

So what did my letter say?

"Dear Sir/Madam

I would like to bring the following points to the attention of your company, and its collective staff, concerning the soft drink, "Diet Coke". After many months of careful consideration and meditation upon the subject, I believe that I have come to a definite conclusion. In my honest, humble and forthright opinion, "Diet Coke" is simply the best water/Nutrasweet based cola beverage in the world. In terms of relative degrees of refreshment, it supersedes it's competitors beyond mortal comparison. In the grand, triptych-bedecked halls of Valhalla, I am sure that Odin and Thor (and all of the other Nordic personifications of emotion and ideals) often take a break from their drunken revels to relax with a tankard of "Diet Coke". Maybe they all sit around the television and enjoy an episode or two of "Hollyoaks" while they sup upon the champion drink; it is not for me to say.
However, I am sure that "Diet Coke" is the supreme drink of drinks: despite it's apparent inability to decrease human body mass inluess supplemented by a calorie controlled diet, I hold it in ever-increasing awe. It's clean, crisp taste should be worshipped and we should all be thankful for it. The brothers of the Order will gladly follow you into battle - we will sacrifice ourselves for the cool refreshment that "Diet Coke" offers.

Keep up the good work."

And thats it. I didn't get a reply for about three weeks, but the reply came from the US, which was way beyond my expectations. They only gave me three pounds worth of vouchers though, which (seeing as the stamp cost 25p, and all the materials were from the school) was a 1200% profit on the venture.


Since then I've written fifty or so letters, including my favourite to Glenmorangie whisky (about how the bottle I had bought was 10 years old, and could I get a fresh one, please?) which got me a load of info on the ageing process plus a voucher for money off of another bottle.

Bo"free stuff tastes better"urne