ROMANY WASN'T BUILT IN A DAY

I've had this rather disturbing letter I thought I should share with you all. It's from a Mr Billable-Hours of the eminent legal firm  Ersatz, Cocaine, Ponytail, and Bottomfeeder

Mr Jeff Browett
Editor/CEO ALIAS POOR YORICK
Dear Sir,

I'm writing in regard to your two sons Rupert and Frinton (Good God man what were you thinking ? Were you drunk ? Trying to get them into Eton ? Both ?) who you sold to the gypsies twelve years ago for allegedly "being naughty". I represent the two gypsies to whom you sold the boys. There appear to be a number of problems with the arrangement, to whit (no I don't know what it means either but my boss told me I had to put in stuff like that). Anyway.

There is no legal basis, either in statute or by common law precedent, to sell your children to the gypsies "for being naughty"

Secondly, and I've consulted with colleagues on this one, refusing to buy you a carton of Benson & Hedges and deliver it to you in hospital where you were being treated for double-pneumonia does not count as "being naughty"

Thirdly, over the years with the gypsies to whom you sold them, there has been no ongoing evidence of naughtiness, and a marked refusal to live the gypsy life. Your boys have consistently failed at many if not all of the following:

Looking shifty, smoking cigarettes in an insolent fashion, hanging around looking sexually-threatening , sneering, fortune-telling, having black curly greasy hair & big gold earrings, stealing cars, riding around on horseback looking sexually-threatening, cleaning their fingernails with a flick-knife, looking like Stewart Grainger in that movie you know the one it was on late on the ABC just last week, stealing horses and riding around looking sexually-threatening while smoking cigarettes in an insolent fashion and cleaning their fingernails with a flick-knife....

.... well look you get the picture. Your boys just aren't cutting it.

In addition to which your son Frinton has been sneaking away from the gypsy encampment &making inquiries about joining the police force while Rupert is secretly studying accountancy & has become obsessed with finding a nice little two bedroom unit in Cricklewood as an investment property.

In short, my clients feel they have no choice but to terminate this agreement effective immediately & demand their money back. On advice from Rupert they also ask that the money be paid back not in the original "gypsy gold" about which you were insistent, but the equivalent in Euros.