Hello . . .

[Guy Profumo]

<img> blind-woman-sculpting-lionel-richie-head </img>

is this the "malevolent television gifts" thread now?

[Erskine Bridges]

Yes add me to the great to have you back Wingco. I send your 'Send Them Victorious' match reports to my pals who all love them.

"That's fantastic EB, did you write that?"

I wish.

[Nefertiti2]

Wingco finally featured in his natural home

https://twitter.com/simon_price01/status/1074704052762611712

[Del Usory]

Indeed.

Hello.

Good evening

And welcome back.

[G-Man]

That Daily Express thing is a contender for the funniest journalism story of the year.

[ad hoc]

I presume they've taken the story down now

[Janik]

Not all of them:- https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal...mp-letters-spt

Some other media outlets are repeating the original ones as well:- https://www.ibtimes.com/prince-charl...nstead-2742865

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ha ha, brilliant.

[Femme Folle]

That's hilarious.

[Satchmo Distel]

It's been up for 10 days. Incredible.

[Sam]

As of right now, all three of those links (the one in SR's tweet in Nef's post, and the two in Janik's post) are throwing up 404 errors for me. Don't suppose anyone got a screenshot or knows how to get hold of one of them on one of those websites that saves old pages for posterity?

[Lurgee]

The internet archive ensures no inanity is ever truly lost.

https://web.archive.org/web/20181217...nstead-2742865

[wingco]

Thanks, Lurgee! Well, a very odd couple of days. Initially from a link I was sent I thought someone had just referenced the book in passing as an erroneous source. I'd absolutely no idea they'd been running headlined stories for days. It's very funny, of course, but when doing spoofs I don't want to deceive people into thinking it's real; there are sites like that and I don't see the point of them at all. This raises so many questions, though. I can understand a single writer making a blunder like this but this copy would have had to go through an editing and production process. Is there no one left at the Express as the copy came under their nose who might have scratched their chin and said, "Are we sure about this?" Also, since I'd apparently come by an epistolary goldmine, was no one at the Express curious enough to contact me and ask how I'd managed to intercept these letters?

Although they hastily took the stories down once Twitter, etc, got wind of it via Simon and others, I can't help wondering if they're not too worried about this, much as Rupert Murdoch didn't appear to regret publishing the Hitler Diaries, happy with the hike in sales. For a few days they gulled, inadvertently or otherwise, some of their readers with this nonsense, kept them titillated and turning the pages. The fact that a handful of people will have a chuckle about it on social media or in Private Eye may not be too big a deal with them. That's pretty sad, if so, and a measure of the esteem the tabloids hold themselves in these desperate times but it could be. Finally, why the hell didn't they do all this back in 2011 when the book was published? I could have used the publicity then. Not much use now.

[G-Man]

Republish with two new letters as "the expanded version", using the Daily Express story as a promotional vehicle.

[Sam]

Thanks, Lurgee. I did try to find it on the Internet Archive, but I've never used it before and couldn't work out how to do it.

I second G-Man's suggestion, wingco. Also, imagine how important you'd feel if this had set off an anti-Charles backlash that brought down the monarchy. We'd have to install you in their place as Lifetime Dictator.

[Kevin S]

Republish with two new letters as "the expanded version", using the Daily Express story as a promotional vehicle.

Brilliant idea, this. Add Charles' letters to Farage in it or something.