Letters
As you may have gathered by now, this site is no longer being updated. But that shouldn't stop you from writing to me if you've got any comments about what you've read here, or about anything else for that matter. The Anonymous Coward Form has been removed from this page owing to abuse from spamming fucktards - yeah, 85.255.117.250, I'm looking at you - so you'll have to mail me directly at webmaster@spank-the-monkey.co.uk.
All mails to this address will be assumed to be for publication on the new site at http://www.spank-the-monkey.co.uk unless you say otherwise.
Letters prior to March 2006 are now in the Archive. Letters from that date onwards can be found below.
Anyone but Pearce Fanclub, Piccadilly Line, 03/07/2006
No doubt like fight fans everywhere, I am hoping Sky will have live coverage of Manchester United's first day back at pre season training.
I suspect this is merely Suze's brazen attempt to bagsy the last letter published on The Unpleasant Lair before it closes down. I did actually receive a couple after this one - a follow-up mail from Sexy Lingerie (see below), and a 48-page mail entitled Report Into Allegations Of Organ Harvesting Of Falun Gong Practitioners In China (which I would have taken more seriously if it hadn't been sent to popular spamtrapping address heresmebum@spank-the-monkey.co.uk). But ignoring those two, Suze wins. Hooray for him.
Kyle, Sexy-Lingerie.com, 22/06/2006
I noticed you link to trashy.com on your webpage http://www.gleeson0.demon.co.uk/lettsy2b.htm. Can you to link to our site, Sexy-Lingerie.com, since we also offer lingerie and accessories? You can put a free link to your site in our directory if you would like.
Thank You
And so the curious recurring theme of underwear continues to haunt the letters page right up to its very end.
Jimmie, 10/06/2006
Do not ignore me please,
I found your email somewbhere and now decided to write you.
b
I am coming to your place in few weeks and thought we
can meet each other. Let me know if you do not mind.
I amb a nice pretty girl. Don't reply to this ebmail.a
Email me direclty at etur@mailforfreedom.com
Ooh, I've got a stalker! And a mentally enfeebled one I can exploit, too! Kewl!
Andrew Batt, webmaster, www.mariannefaithfull.co.uk, 07/06/2006
Hi we have new official page for Marianne that is a big improvement on the old one! We will have a section on The Black Rider soon, but a clip of Marianne singing The Last Rose Of Summer from the show is available to listen to on the multimedia page. See www.mariannefaithfull.org.uk for details. If you could replace your link we would be really grateful.
Also it may interest you to know that Strange Weather isn't technically a cover version - the song was written for Marianne about her lover Howard who committed suicide by jumping out of a high rise window. The song arose from a late night phone call, and Tom was fascinated by Marianne's line 'I never buy umbrellas for there's always one around'.
Never knew that, Andrew. Consider the link updated, and apologies for my doubts on the Black Rider page over whether you were official or not.
Sharon, MQ Publications, 04/05/2006
Hello
We represent Robert Crumb and there is a new book coming out from him - following on from his amazing R. Crumb Handbook - we will be publishing The Sweeter Side of Crumb this autumn. Would you be interested in receiving some information on the book for your web site?
Thanks
We're not really geared up for that sort of thing, even on the days when I can actually be bothered writing for the site. But thanks for the offer.
Katherine Janzen, Oklahoma, 28/04/2006
I just discovered your radio station. I enjoy it. You need more stuff like Mitch Benn, but it's great. I loved Nemureru Yoru no Hitorigoto. It reminded me of an anime video called Tainted Donuts.
Can't quite see the resemblance myself, to be honest. If your band is broad enough and you want to play this at home, try comparing Fumido's Nemureru Yoru no Hitorigoto (track one on the link, and one of The Belated Birthday Girl's selections on Spank's Audio Lair) with Tainted Donuts (a Cowboy Bebop-related video mashup).
Domenick Tucci, Cordless Recordings A Division of Warner Music Group, 17/04/2006
Hello!
My name is Domenick and I'm the Online Radio Guru for Cordless Recordings. The reason for this email is because I would like to ask you if you'd like to receive the new Aya Peard single This Mess, in the hope that you'd add it on your station. Aya's very reminiscent of Kate Bush (as well as Portishead and Placebo) and I think you'll like what you hear.
We will be releasing Aya's new Digital EP entitled This Mess on May 9th. The title track has been remixed by Jack Dangers and a remix will be available soon.
I would really appreciate it if you would reply back and let me know if you'd like to receive some music.
Hope to hear from you soon
Hmmm, it's okay, I guess, if a little wet for my tastes. See what you think.
Suzanne Vega Fanclub, America I suppose?, 12/04/2006
SUZE IN SHOCK WEDDING SHOCK.
You only have to turn your back for a minute, and Suze gets married (but then I thought I was Suze - well according to Spank anyway).
Suzanne Vega, best-known for writing and performing the songs Luka and Tom's Diner, has published the story of her driving instruction in The New York Times (I suppose the songwriting is drying up then).
Mr. Mills proposed to Miss Vega in May, 1983, and she accepted his proposal on Christmas Day, 2005 (Naturally she needed time to think about it).
That's all from your twisted and bitter correspondent (well nearly as at least Sheryl dumped Lance).
Yes, yes, that's all very tragic. But why didn't you tell me Danger Mouse had done a Tom's Diner remix?
Stuart Pearce Fanclub, Piccadilly Line, 11/04/2006
Jeez, by sheer accident (whilst trying to get out of your site) I managed to click on and discover your extremely well hidden Moblog. What on earth is the matter with you man, this should be at the forefront of the site. Is finding it meant to be one of your wacky competitions or something?
Anyway for those of you who lack my obviously well developed internet tracking skills, here are four previews: 77794, 77144, 62398, and my personal favourite 74163.
The trouble is, from the selections Suze has made, I'm not entirely sure if he's taking the piss here or not. Still, he'll be pleased to hear that the new site will have information about recent moblog posts displayed prominently in the sidebar. In the meantime, you might be curious to see which images people have voted as their favourites.
Damian, Playup Music, Victoria. Australia, 03/04/2006
Hi there,
We would like to email you a track by our electronic artist The Winston Giles Orchestra. The style is a real blend covering electronic, downtempo, chill out, psy trance and dance styles.
Check out www.winstongilesorchestra.com. You can listen under “store”
Cheers and thanks
In the dying days of this site, I do seem to be getting a lot of mails from people wanting their tunes put on Spank's Audio Lair. As Damian says, there's an interesting mixture of styles on offer here. The band's touring the UK and USA in August, apparently, so say hello if you think they deserve it.
Stuart Pearce Fanclub, Piccadilly Line (Wot now no District Line from the 1st April?), 20/03/2006
[re: CD competition result and associated employment news]
I am a little disappointed to see that you have turned down the opportunity for some personal growth, by selling out to the man again. Certainly you have offset that a little by your new carbon neutal stance. However if you had taken my career suggestion, you would have been able to drive any number of carbon emitting monsters off the road (in some cases literally).
The new job - which is now confirmed, by the way - actually involves some working from home, so the lack of travel's got to have a positive impact on the environment, surely? (He said, trying to ignore the huge jump in his electricity bill from being at home all day for the last three months.) Still, I'll keep your suggestion of 05/12/2005 in mind for future reference.
Stuart Pearce Fanclub, Piccadilly Line (working this weekend so we won't mention the whole F****** thing stopped for all of Monday), 17/03/2006
Just so that Ben Burgess [see letter dated 05/03/2006 - Spank] can get some of the inside track, it is not the City way to kick a man when he is down. We knew poor old Mick McCarthy was on his last legs when they played us. Therefore we only did the minimum necessary to get the three points. After all we didn't want the same thing happening to McCarthy as happened to Souness after he played us (alas that is exactly what did happen).
No doubt Fergie is praying that the next Derby game with us ends up indefinitely postponed.
Nothing for Fergie to worry about till next season, of course. Assuming you're still in the Premiership then.
Mel Anthony, 15/03/2006
Was doing a search on a School Is Hell book that I bought that contained a Matt Groening signature. Do you know how I can check its authenticity?
To be honest, Mel, I'm not sure how you'd do that. I bought my pre-autographed copy of School Is Hell back in 1988, before Groening was famous enough for people to want to forge his signature. That's the main reason why I've always assumed it's genuine, but for all I know, it could be a fake. Do any of you lot out there have any ideas?
Stuart Pearce Fanclub, Piccadilly Line, 14/03/2006
[re: reply to letter dated 12/03/2006]
Obviously if they were all Lingerie ones that would not be a problem. I am hoping to get a special patch for my Anti Pop Up Program that will let those ones through.
What I would be concerned about if I were you though (and I stress this happened with my Pop Up Purger Prog switched off for reasons previously explained) was that I was massively hit by Scam software downloads. You know the sort of thing "You Must Click Yes" and every time you try to click the red X in the corner, three more are coming at you so fast you can't help but click the wrong thing. Next thing you know you have downloaded a premium rate dialler, and any amount of adware cum spyware. Not normally a problem for me however, as I seem to be one of the few people who keeps their Windows XP clean by using the System Restore function. However if I was someone else coming to the site I would totally S*** (damn I can't get those spellings right) myself, and would certainly not return.
ANYWAY UPDATE: during the course of this email I have switched off my anti pop up prog and opened Spank in a new window and no pop ups on 3 consecutive occasions, so you may have solved it. However that is still worth monitoring as I know some sites I visit (absolutely no need to know what sort of sites these are your honour) appear clean, but hit every tenth, fifteenth, twentieth visitor and so on.
Hope that helps.
Glad that the change appears to have fixed the problem. I was getting reports that even with pop-up filters turned on, Webstats4U were managing to sneak some ugly code through. I'll console myself by mentioning their email address info@webstats4U.com without any spamblocking, so they get swamped with Nigerian 419 spam and adverts for cock enhancing pills. It's the least I can do.
Stuart Pearce Fanclub, Piccadilly Line, 12/03/2006
Dear Spank The Monthly
One of the benefits of having Wannadoo Broadband as your ISP, is that there is always a large selection of Lingerie offers and clickable vendors on their homepage. Unfortunately my pop up stopper program always seem to block these, and therefore I have to switch it off, before I can browse the special offers and new ranges.
However having got slightly bored with all that (I mean how many different styles of thongs are there?) I decided to click onto your site. Whereby I was bombarded with pop ups about system registries, plus scam software trying to write itself to my computer, as I tried to get rid of it. So my question is: What The F*** Is Going On ?
Angry of London
You seem to be having some problems spelling the word 'fuck' properly there,
Suze. I'll point you in the direction of Belette's letter of 17/02/2006 for
an explanation of where the pop-ups are - or, more accurately, were - coming
from. I still haven't had any sort of response back from Webstats4U, so sod
'em, they're out of here. I started using a new web counter service
on March 12th, and hopefully pop-ups should now be a thing of the past. Though
if you'd rather I generated some lingerie ones specifically for when you
visit, let me know.
Vince Falzone, 11/03/2006
Hello,
My name is Vince Falzone and my latest album Out of Time has been released. I would like to submit my tune The Sound, Time In A Jar or Don't Wake Me for rotation on your station, you can hear it on either of the links listed below. I can e-mail the *.mp3 file over for direct upload...
Sorry, Vince, but your work doesn't really fit into the current format of Spank's Audio Lair. Still, I'll include the links to your website and MySpace so people can make up their own minds.
Arkadia, 10/03/2006
Greetings,
We find your site interesting and useful, and we would like to partner with
your site by exchanging links. We wanted to let you know that we have just
placed your link to our directory. You can find the link to your site here: [link removed]
We have used the following details on your link:
CATEGORY: Arts > People > O > O'Hanlon, Ardal
URL: http://www.gleeson0.demon.co.uk/talktown.htm
TITLE: Spank The Monkey - The Talk Of The Town
DESCRIPTION: Fan written review of his first novel.
As you know, exchanging links helps both sides in improving the traffic (by
increased visibility, and by extra scoring in major search engines counting
number of links as an important scoring factor).
Here is our linking information for your convenience:
URL: [link removed]
TITLE: Arkadia WorldWide Properties
DESCRIPTION: International real estate classified ads from homeowners or
brokers to buy, sell or rent your property, house, apartment, business, land.
Worldwide directory of vacation rentals by owner!.
Once our link is updated on your site and we got an confirmation mail for the
same, we will definitively validate your link on our site, else we will delete
it in 2 weeks!
For any queries do reply me. Looking forward for a positive response from your side.
Thanks and Regards
Webmaster
Arkadia believe that whenever anyone reads an Ardal O'Hanlon novel, they immediately think about buying property afterwards. Have I left the Twat Filters off my email this month, or something?
Dan Siwak, BuySellTix, 10/03/2006
After visiting your Web Site BuySellTix would be interested in advertising with you. Our advertisement format is generally 15 words containing 2-3 text links, which we provide. You would be able to place the ad anywhere on your home page. I would send payment in full (either by check or PayPal) shortly after our links are posted on your site.
Please respond by email if you are interested in this business opportunity.
I look forward to hearing back from you.
So, just to clarify: Dan wants to advertise theatre tickets on a page which reviews Mamma Mia! with the lines "Firebomb the theatre. Piss on the ashes. Shoot the survivors through the head." He's either a robot or he's functionally illiterate. What do you think?
Ben Burgess, Manchester, 05/03/2006
stu, easy team,so why did city play bloody crap football they should have won more than a goal difference this just amazes me how a brill manager like you coach a team who could only just win against Sunderland because they are a really bad team
Oh, yeah, he's gonna love that.
jorge, fl, 01/03/2006
ok
Sorry, it just amuses me that when the letters for March-June 2006 are collected into the archive, this will be at the very top of the page. (Or would have been if these letters ever went into the archive, which they won't now.)