First up, apologies for the impersonal greeting. We write to a lot of people and I’m sure you appreciate that learning all your names would be quite an undertaking. We’d be lying if we said we didn’t think about going with ‘Dear Sir/Madam’, but that sounds rather old fashioned these days, doesn’t it? And you might even consider it disingenuous. After all, we’re not attempting to start a personal relationship here, are we? You’re the customer, we’re the utilities provider. Let’s keep it professional and above board.

‘Occupier’ has a certain ring to it, though, wouldn’t you say? Formal, but not cold. I’d say respectful. We’re acknowledging straight out that it’s the resident power in this plot of land we want to do business with, not just whoever happens to open the mail. Only you, the Occupier, will do. God created the earth, and this is your spot on it. You need utilities, so here we are. It couldn’t have been planned better.

Plus if you really want to get into it, there’s no denying ‘The Occupier’ takes things onto a more existential footing than just ‘Dear Mr and Mrs’. You don’t need us to tell you that in the scheme of things you won’t be in this property forever, and someday further down the road your number will come up and that’ll be it, ker-put. There’s no hiding from it. By calling you ‘The Occupier’ all we’re doing is coming right out and alluding to it. Property ownership, relationships – everything’s temporary. Everything except utilities providers.

You see, when we call you ‘The Occupier’, what we’re doing is signalling that we remember a time before you were ‘The Occupier’, when that other family with the Honda and grown-up children was there and you were still renting. There were customers before you and there’ll be customers after you, and they’ll all need their utilities. We’re just being up front about it. No one’s stay here on earth is permanent, but we hope it brings you some comfort to know that there will always be utilities providers here to provide you and whoever follows with the utilities you need.

And at the end of the day, maybe that’s why we don’t learn your names. If we start out with ‘Dear Mr and Mrs’, then I’ve got to sign off ‘Yours, Mr Such-and-such’. Sure, we could put your details on a database and send you a personalised mailshot every quarter, but the point is it wouldn’t be me writing to you in perpetuity. Not Geoff Stanley, Marketing Director. Some day they’ll get a new Marketing Director, and then a letter will appear from Ian Sutherland or Helen Albright and you’ll read it and say, ‘Hey, wasn’t the last letter from that Geoff guy? And now not even a mention of where he’s got to?’ It’d just make us both feel bad about the futility of life and the transience of the relationship between a customer and his utilities provider. By signing off ‘Marketing Director’ I’m making a claim for permanence that only a well-salaried position within a utilities provider can. At least it stops us getting into any of this heavy stuff.

Look at me, rambling on here. Keep it brief, they told me. In and out, bam-bam-bam, no one gets hurt and you land yourself a sale. Here I am breaking all the rules in the book.

So, dear Occupier… Here at the office we joke that that’s how the Palestinians probably write to the Israelis. You see, we’re a company with personality. You’re not Jewish, are you? Hard to tell from a name like The Occupier.

Anyway, cutting to the chase. It’d be just great if you felt we were the utilities provider for you. Hand-on-heart, I honestly think we’d do a first-rate job of getting you your utilities just when you need them. Why not give us a call today? Be sure to mention that it was old Geoff here that you put you onto us. They know me over in sales and I’m sure we can cut you a great deal.

Yours,

Marketing Director.

‘I’ve been looking for years for a hot and intelligent loner with dark hair and maybe a nose piercing to have a tortured and platonic relationship with,’ bemoaned resident bloodsucker Gabriel Stein, ‘but this place is perpetually behind the times: it’s all blonde cheerleaders with high-kicks and karate – I mean, that’s so last decade! Forget sexually charged conversations about Poe, Shelley and Stoker, it’s all Twitter, tattoos and tan lines.’

However many local girls believe the blame lies squarely at the feet of Stein, and conversely accuse him of not moving with the times. ‘He just seems to think that he can turn up in a frilly shirt and we’ll all start swooning,’ said head cheerleader Cherrie Winters. ‘If I’m to overcome the perils and prejudices of a relationship between the living and the dead, I expect my paramour to at least hit the gym twice a week. Gabriel’s less Edward Cullen and more Nosferatu to be brutally honest.’

Stein dismisses such criticism: ‘Do you know how hard it is to be both wan and buff at the same time when you’ve been undead for two hundred years? I’m a vampire for Christ’s sake – they should be falling over themselves for a bit of neck action! I need to find someplace where bloodsuckers can latch onto impressionable young women with impunity, so I’m leaving Cedar Falls and heading to Vegas to audition for the X-Factor.’

Comedy car manufacturer Toyota is to recall 10,000 clown cars following a raft of complaints from circuses across the length and breadth of the country.

A recall notice is now being issued to thousands of clowns, advising that, while the faults are not life threatening, they may well ‘reduce the comedic factor of your vehicular-based performances.’

Toyota maintain that only a small percentage of the cars are faulty, a claim disputed by some clowns. ‘I’ve heard stories of unfunny cars from all over the place,’ said Bobo, Chief Bungler at Brighton Brother’s Family Circus. ‘They just refuse to fall apart or spout comedy water. We’ve tried covering up the problems but you can only pour so much wallpaper paste down your trousers before the audience starts to notice that something isn’t right.’

Claude, the troupe’s resident Pierrot, is equally downbeat; ‘The doors resolutely fail to drop off and the horn goes ‘pffft’ rather than ‘honk’.’ He also describes how, during a recent performance, one particular vehicle suddenly accelerated and shot out of the big top at great speed. ‘Although it turns out that Mister Chuckles had glued the accelerator pedal down for a laugh. Well try telling that to The Great Stromboli and his broken leg – ha bloody ha!’

The vehicle models now being recalled include the Toyota Ticklewagon TDI, the 2.0 litre Fun-Mobile and the 2009 Yaris Special Edition ‘Edge’ (both petrol and custard variants).

jp1885 from an idea by Brian Sewell

Writing in the journal Nature, Forester described how he fought hours of tedium whilst filming his prey’s seemingly imperceptible movements. ‘Lying on the living room floor for hours on end with your arm hooked around the back of the telly isn’t exactly everyone’s idea of fun,’ he admitted, ‘but luckily the latest Harry Potter film was on Sky Box Office and if I cricked my neck enough I could see most of the screen.’

Forester’s ground breaking work in lifting the veil on this little-known realm will feature in a major new BBC documentary series, Hidden World. The series will show for the first time how a swarm of cables’ ever-changing social dynamic causes their originally neat and straight migration routes to slowly evolve into an impenetrable tangle of competing wires.

‘In one particularly dramatic scene, the dominant SCART lead is challenged by the arrival of a new HDMI cable from a Blu-Ray player,’ Forester reveals. ‘Despite being laid neatly to one side, several inches away from the swarm, within days it’s hanging from the extension lead, knotted in a half clove hitch. Meanwhile the now banished SCART lays forlorn and unplugged next to a pile of old VHS tapes.’

Thanks to a fortuitous accident, the documentary will also show similar occurrences behind a computer desk, after Forester’s webcam fell off his screen and down the back of his PC. ‘For years we thought that keyboard cables ruled the roost in that particular ecosystem, but now we have conclusive proof that it’s the mouse that roars when it comes to getting tangled up.’

Hidden World will hit our screens later this year and, in a move designed to promote the BBC’s free-to-air high definition service, will be available in HD on Freeview. ‘Viewers will be able to watch the secret world of the television cable in crystal-clear resolution,’ announced a BBC spokesman, ‘assuming they can work out how to connect the new set-top box of course.’

Virtualwill

The 2010 calendar, in which twelve Cheltenham ladies pose in a variety of strategically placed modest camera shots wearing only tweed twin sets, has received orders from as far away as Yorkshire pit villages. Ex-miner Tom Bristow, 78, said: ‘I’ve ordered a dozen for me and me mates down at the Labour Club. They’re proper lovely calendars, with the Cheltenham ladies reclining outside the Pump Room or going about their daily chores like knitting or making jam, and dressed only in body-hugging tweed twin sets and wearing pearls. We’ve never seen anything like it up here in these parts.’

But Mr Bristow said he had one complaint about the calendar. ‘I’ll be writing to the Cheltenham ladies about a minor lapse in taste. If you take a proper look, you’ll see the November lady almost has one shoe off.’

While it has not been uncommon to hear stories of prisoners and correctional staff getting married, there are often extreme consequences in terms of employment, legal barriers and ethics for the parties concerned. Wisconsin, like many states, carries felony criminal penalties against prison employees for engaging in sexual intercourse with a prisoner. However, Ms Fay-Baker maintains her relationship with inmate Johnny Trejudo has been strictly platonic, and has sought to change the law so that the couple can consummate their marriage without risk to Ms Fay-Baker’s job or Trejudo’s legal rights.

‘When Johnny and I first met there was this immediate spark. I was carrying out a routine cavity search, in the presence of other officers I should add, and I don’t know what it was, but I felt we had this connection.’

A body cavity search is either a visual or manual internal inspection of an inmate’s body to seek out prohibited materials such as drugs, money, jewellery or weapons. In North America, body searches by prison staff of the opposite gender have often led to civil lawsuits, but in this case it seems to have sparked an old-fashioned case of opposites attracting.

Trejudo is serving five years after being convicted of car-jacking and minor theft offences. ‘I love her,’ said Trejudo, who after getting his breath back proposed almost immediately, ‘you know when it feels right.’ Unusually Fay-Baker has been backed by many of her colleagues and even the prison governor who maintain that what the couple feel for each other is genuine.

Governor Sam Delaney adds that it wasn’t unusual for Fay-Baker to be conducting this type of search on a male prisoner. ‘Leila is one of our most respected and highly-trained officers, with years of experience in this type of search. You couldn’t be in better hands. I like to think romance would have blossomed regardless of the circumstances. I’m not sure if it was love at first sight, but clearly when push comes to shove, love will find a way.’

Dan Hildebrand, a fellow officer, said, ‘They’ve both been through a lot. When he proposed it was a total shock at first. I didn’t know how Leila would react, it was a real catch-your-breath moment and when she said yes, well, you know, we all had tears in our eyes, especially Johnny.’

The case has now gone before the US Supreme Court with a decision expected in a matter of days. Insiders say that the judges are likely to be sympathetic towards the couple.

In anticipation of a positive ruling the pair have applied for a temporary parole for Trejudo, on compassionate grounds, so they can go on honeymoon. ‘I’ve always wanted a honeymoon in Venice,’ said Fay-Baker, ‘something about those canals just appeals to me.’

Mr Bridle is adamant that he was the one excreting in the story and that he dined out on the tale for many years sometimes even with his best friend at his side relaying his part in answering the door to the unfortunate lawman but then a few months ago they were at a house party when he overheard Mr Nayar tell the story with himself as the leak taker; ‘I stood there aghast barely able to contain my disappointment but felt compelled to correct my erstwhile friend. For some reason he mistook my veracity as masked hostility and bellowed at me that I was the one who answered the door to the policeman while he delivered the liquid payload from above. After three months of protracted discussions the only course of action left to me is a legal one and I will have my day in court, nobody is going to call me a liar and get away with it’.

Mr Nayar is less vocal but certainly as aggrieved ‘I remember the incident well and although I was the principal mischief maker I was quite happy to let Mark take the credit at first, sitting quietly by chuckling to myself but he wouldn’t stop telling it, over the years I’ve heard it at BBQ’s, weddings, christenings and birthday parties, the last straw came when somebody else actually told the story to me. I’ve been his straight man for twenty years but no more, by the time I’m finished with him he’ll not only have to depict me in my true role but pay me royalties whenever he tells the bloody story.’

The only witness to the incident PC Ian Ball was unable to recollect any details of the night in question ‘I visited a number of properties that evening so I’m afraid I have no idea who answered the door to me, I do remember the weather was particularly bad though and it rained quite heavily at one point’.