July 11, 2011
Battersea, Ontario
Dear Jimmy Carr:
Good evening, and congratulations on having this letter painstakingly crafted for your enjoyment. In the next couple of paragraphs, I hope to convince you to join my friend Rachel and me for some food either before or after your show on July 23 at the Montreal Just for Laughs festival. If you are like me, Jimmy Carr, you have never refused a dinner invitation from a strange fan. On the remote chance that we differ in this respect, I shall attempt to persuade you. Read on.
I am not a Nigerian Prince, and I am not offering you any money in exchange for meeting with me. This may sound disappointing, but most people who pretend to be Nigerian princes are just phonies and jerks who want to cheat you out of your money. Don’t you hate phonies and jerks, Jimmy Carr? Me too! See how honest and sincere I am? This is the kind of treatment you should expect when you meet me in person!
Living in North America, we don’t get much exposure to your oeuvre, Jimmy Carr, but I have dutifully downloaded many of your concerts and watched them. Often I share them with friends who never fail to get offended. This is great entertainment Jimmy Carr, and by downloading your work illegally and not paying for it, I have managed to save enough money to treat you to a dinner at your choice of one of Montreal’s finest restaurants! How pragmatic of me! Wouldn’t you agree, Jimmy Carr?
Just because I haven’t spent any of my own money on your stuff, doesn’t mean that I haven’t supported your career, Jimmy Carr. My wife bought me a copy of your book “Only Joking” (written with Lucy Greeves, 320 pages, 408 grams, you know the one?). I had looked forward to reading something funny, but also enjoyed how astute and scholarly it was. Also it had funny little jokes on each page, and thanks to reading it, I learned who Demetri Martin is. He’s so funny! If he’s around, maybe he could join us for dinner, too!
Just in case the tone of this letter worries you, I want to lay down a few ground rules, Jimmy Carr:
- Rule #1: I will not try to have sex with you. This would obviously be inappropriate since a restaurant is a public place.
- Rule #2: I am not hoping for special treatment during your act. People do not come to your show to hear you make fun of me. They come to hear your jokes about rape and physical disability described by informededinburgh.co.uk as “cringe inducing”.
- Rule #3: I can use British jargon. Since you are in a foreign land, I can make you feel more comfortable by using words you might hear in your hometown of North London. Fanny! Bollocks! Widdecombe! If you play your cards right, this is the kind of language you can hear continuously during our dinner. Feeling more comfortable yet, Jimmy Carr?
Don’t answer yet! In honour of your show 8 out of 10 Cats which I have never seen, I am prepared to buy you ten cats and let you choose eight of them! To keep, Jimmy Carr! Obviously there may be challenges with you bringing live felines home to England, but Montreal is a big city, and there’s probably an Asian grocery or restaurant that can hook us up with something practical than can fit in your carry-on.
Be honest, Jimmy Carr! Have you ever had an offer like this? Have your people contact my people*.
Yours most sincerely,
Jeffy Parsons-Sheldrake
*I don’t have people, but I do have twitter. Get someone to message me at @jeffyps
