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All posts by Jamie Summers

Sticky: Letter to Melissa Kite, The Spectator

 

I have included this letter to highlight the decline in manners since Bernard Levin’s era.  He at least had the courtesy to respond.

 

Dear Melissa,

May I get the ‘brown-nosing’ sycophancy out of the way at the outset … I do enjoy your articles and column in The Spectator very much. How you manage to be on top form most weeks is astonishing. Thank you.

Your recent rant at that idiot at TFL about picking up your dog food in a ‘Red Route Loading Bay’ struck a chord – so I have attached my thread some time ago with a similar complaint which I hope may amuse you. I was a minicab driver for many years so accumulated many tickets, most of which I ‘challenged’ successfully … eventually.

Overleaf on this page is a recent failure. My girlfriend treated me to supper at The Caprice, Arlington Street on my 60th birthday & we were greeted with a ruddy parking ticket on our exit. What a dampener to an excellent meal.

If you have a moment please visit my WordPress ‘blog’ – www.shirtyletters.com where we are posting some of my ‘Henry Root’ stuff – it’s all very well and easy to slag off Tony Blair but perhaps some of my epistles to ordinary folk may be more interesting ? Any comments gratefully received.

Thanks again, Melissa.

Yours,

Jamie Summers

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Letters to my conveyancing lawyers

Dear Sirs,

I am sending this email to all the solicitors concerned with the sale of the above property to Mrs B.

The reason I decided to sell, rather than let out this property, was to effect a quick sale to a cash buyer with no mortgage. Had I chosen the letting route I would by now have received some £2,500 in rental income and the value of the property would have increased by perhaps a greater increment.

Mrs B’s offer to purchase was accepted on the 9th May 2014, over 10 weeks ago.

Why oh why are we not close to exchange / completion ?

The lease extension, I was told, would merely be a paper exercise and yet this appears stalled.

You are all very well financially rewarded for the work you do, at, it has to be said, a lamentable pace. Has it not crossed your minds that I, your client, might need the proceeds from this sale to ‘get on with his life’?  What if I was involved in another property development?  You have been shuffling papers for the same time as we took to up-grade this flat.  May I make you aware that as a consequence of your procrastinations I am paying searing charges on my bank overdraft and punishing interest on my credit card. I approach the end of my tether … the whole UK conveyancing process needs shaking-up,

Yours sincerely,

Jamie Summers


4 August 2014

Dear Sirs,

Once again, 3 weeks after my first badinage to you solicitors involved in the sale of the above property and now closing in on 13 weeks since the buyer’s verbal agreement to purchase, I am forced to vent my spleen at your collective deferrals. This time I am copying in the estate agent dealing with the sale and will be sending a copy of this and my previous email to Mrs B. who needs to be made aware of my fomenting frustration.

Harry Mount wrote in The Spectator (28.6.14) “ … conveyancing – a long word used by lawyers to conceal an extremely simple transaction.”

I signed my part of the contract one week ago at the offices of my London solicitors and informed them that I wished to complete at the earliest opportunity. Unless we ‘exchange’ by this coming Friday 8th August I fully intend to cancel this sale and re-advertise the property at a considerably raised price or rent it out as an interim arrangement. None of you lawyers will be involved in any subsequent sale.

I repeat my assertion that you have all contrived to make my life financially burdensome. You should be held to account for your ineffectiveness.

Yours sincerely,

Jamie Summers


4 August 2014

Dear Jamie,

I am surprised by the tone of your email which I find offensive.   I have already explained my position by email.  I have since met you and dealt with everything I was required to do expeditiously.  I will forward separately the emails since our meeting regarding the signed Lease Extensions.

I would appreciate an apology.

Kind Regards.


No apology ever granted

Letter to Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury

   Acknowledged by Press Secretary 

Dear Justin,

You may just remember my name,  Summers OS (RHH) – I may have fined you for ‘socking in the street’ or doing something inappropriate up Judy’s Passage.  Johnny Cameron ( Harrow, Christ Church) , my foursomes partner at Swinley tells me you once sold him some derivatives –  ‘World’s Worst Banker’ we dub him,  losing the UK economy some £13 billion –  I am now his self-appointed moral guardian ; trying to install a touch more humility into an Old Harrovian is a slow game.

Leaving Eton

Leaving Eton early 1973

Continue reading Letter to Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury

Letter to the President of the Law Society

Dear Lucy,

It was good to see you on television the other day once again sticking up for the poorer members of society – this time in terms of Legal Aid being withdrawn.  I just wanted to say many congratulations on becoming President of the Law Society.

You may not remember me  (Anno Domini gets us all doesn’t it ?!)  but I used to do my best in the mental health world initially for Springfield Patients Council and then for Consumer Forum, the user group at Hammersmith & Fulham MIND.  I must have referred people to you maybe via Steve at the Springfield Law Centre or through John Colquhoun at Penley’s in Dursley   – John and I shared a fine brother-in-law,  Andrew Ingram R.I.P. .  Adina Halpern may be a name you recall as well.

Anyway, you did/do valuable work in a field that few of your fellow solicitors would relish. I am so pleased that you have achieved such high status in your profession.

Funnily enough, back in April 1993,  I wrote a long letter to the Head of Professional Ethics at the Law Society (Redditch office) because an ex-Allen & Overy solicitor (now dead) , who was also my sole Trustee, had taken advantage of my own mental health problems to enrich himself . He even used some £12,000 of mine to pay one of his tax bills !  Because he was still registered with the Law Society and with the City of London Solicitors Company I thought the Law Society might at least strike him off their books. Sadly, my letter got passed to the Solicitors Complaints Bureau in Leamington Spa and came to naught.

I am sure that had you been in charge at the time this wouldn’t have happened !

All the best and many congratulations again,

Yours sincerely,

Jamie Summers

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A Westminster ticket

Dear Sirs

Re PCN Number WM77019438

Once again, your operatives are ‘trying it on’ – in fact engaging in fraudulent practices. There was no Penalty Charge Notice issued in this case.  Anticipating this might happen, I made contemporaneous notes.

As a private hire driver I was awaiting my clients to emerge from the Royal Horticultural Society’s Lindley Rooms on Vincent Square when the ‘Civil Enforcement Officer’ appeared at my side window to say, ” You’ve been here 8 minutes.  I can mail it to you ” .  I replied, “No,  it doesn’t work like that.  You would have to put the ticket on my windscreen.  I’ll be off now. ”  Whereupon,  I departed the scene  – at no point did he try to affix any parking ticket, nor attempt to hand me one.

The terms of your ‘How to Challenge’ documentation detail the somewhat draconian,  ” A person who knowingly or recklessly makes a false representation regarding a material fact is guilty of an offence and on summary conviction may be liable for a fine of up to £5,000.” Tell me, please,  why this should not apply to your deceitful traffic wardens ?

Yours faithfully,

Mr A.J.P. Summers


Reply from Westminster parking

 

Letter to Tony Blair, ex-Prime Minister

Dear Mr Blair,

We were exact contempories at Oxford back in the early Seventies – while you were strumming away with ‘Ugly Rumours’ at St. John’s I was playing golf every day,  not attending lectures and doing typical ‘studenty’ things at Christ Church. You will probably remember kind Barry Wild at St. John’s who was in the golf side with me, but one or two years older than us. Continue reading Letter to Tony Blair, ex-Prime Minister

Transport for London ticket

Dear Sirs,

Penalty Charge Notice : GF6349577A

I wish to complain in no uncertain terms about the issue of the above penalty charge notice.  I parked outside NatWest Bank at the front end of the ‘one hour free parking’  bay ( between 10a.m. and 4p.m. ) adjacent to the telephone box there at about 11a.m. on the day in question.

There was no tape and/or bollards indicating that the bay had been ‘temporarily suspended’.  It was only when I returned to my car less than an hour later to see two of your operatives issuing me with a ticket that they pointed to a small sign some 12 foot in the air attached to a pole which said ‘bay suspended’ or some such.  How on earth is a motorist supposed to see that ?  In fact, the position in which I parked meant that even if I had looked 12 foot in the air from there,  my view of this ‘sign’ would have been,  and indeed was, obscured by the telephone kiosk.

There appeared to be no just cause for this Red Route parking zone to be out of action anyway. Personally,  I find them very useful … to be able to park free whilst attending to one’s business in Southside or wherever.

As I have said there was inadequate warning of this bay’s closure and I trust you will be able to cancel this ticket.

I await your news,

Yours faithfully,

 

Mr A.J.P.Summers


 

Reply from TFL

Letter to HRH King Abdullah II of Jordan

Your Highness,

I am on my last day of a 12 day holiday in your country where I have not been before – my education has been lacking.  It is good to see the devotion that the people have for the Hashemite monarchy – if only your UK counterparts were so lucky !  Many years ago, I had the honour of meeting your father who was staying in the Chilterns with friends of my family, the Streets. This must have been several years before you were even thought of.

Furthermore, I was friends with a lovely couple, Jamie and Liz Cork in the early eighties in London. One of them, I cannot recall which, was your father’s Godchild and as a wedding present he gave them a Mercedes 250SL – how marvellous.

Apologies for the sycophancy but I have been to probably 120 countries around the world and your’s ranks very high in my estimation. People have been charming to me, even your traffic police keep saying, “ Welcome to Jordan “ when I pull up at their checkpoints. Obviously amongst archaeological extravagancies, Petra reigns supreme but some of the lesser known and thus less trampled sites have been superb . Umm Qais (Gadara) was in its way more special than Jerash and the mosaics at Umm ar-Rasas dare one say it finer than those in Madaba – at both places I was virtually the only tourist.

I have made so many new friends and will embarrass them in writing their names, well just a few of them anyway …

Billal at his souvenir shop at the circled entrance at Petra.

The gap-toothed Bedouin boy with his excellent English, trying to sell me his bracelets on the way back from the Siq.

All the staff at the Petra Moon Hotel.

Waleed, the bell-boy at the Days Inn in Aqaba.

Mohammed, night duty manager there – a fan of this notepaper !

Fares, the perfumier in Aqaba.

And perhaps last but by no means least at his Al-Anoud jewellery shop in Madaba, Anwar Al-Rayyan, Special Forces Commander in the Jordanian Army 1967 and 1973.

+ others too numerous to mention.

I leave on the EasyJet back to Gatwick this evening as you tussle with John Kerry and Mahmoud Abbas in efforts to find an accommodating peace in Palestine where my parents both worked during WW2 occupying a flat in the American Colony in Jerusalem. May power come to your elbow, Sir.

Just a few pedantic little gripes about matters trivial.  Signposting is attrocious !  Many times I have followed signs to Aqaba say before they then disappear making it very hard for a non-local to find the right road. Also dismaying and annoying is the defacing of road signs, often to important sites, by fly-posting maniacs who cover entire signs obscuring any chance of seeing whether one needs to go left, right or straight on. Infuriating.

Littering is endemic – no one seems to care for their environment. Boxes, bags, cigarette ends, paper is thrown willy-nilly from cars and pedestrians alike. Such a shame for a beautiful country to look so messy and rubbish-strewn.  Any chance of instilling a little civic pride among your citizens ?

Lastly one worries about the tragically high death rate on the roads – your people drive appallingly, with cavalier selfish attitudes – no indication, no seatbelts (why ?), children roaming about the front and back of vehicles, everyone using their mobile phones while driving, parking skills absent, overtaking & undertaking efforts lamentable … the list goes on.

However, many thanks again for all your people’s hospitality over the past few days.  I shall return soon I hope,

Insh’Allah,

Yours sincerely,

Jamie Summers

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Letter to Nicky Gumbel, developer of the Alpha Course

 No reply ever received

Dear Nicky and Pippa,

It was so lovely to see you both yesterday and to be given such a warm reception that I felt I had to put pen to paper. ( …. in fact one of my few remaining sheets of rather special writing paper, sourced in Eilat 21 years ago ! ).

What you two, + all the other Nickys have achieved is wonderful and wondrous. I sat upstairs in the gallery next to a Canadian catholic and her daughter – her son was just starting at Christ Church – who said there was nothing like Holy Trinity Brompton in her denomination. Your congregation was impressively diverse …. there was me expecting just Barbours and red cords!  Continue reading Letter to Nicky Gumbel, developer of the Alpha Course

Letter to Ilham Aliyev

Ilham Aliyev

Dear Mr Aliyev,

I recently spent about 9 hours in your country and would like to make some comments about my experiences and observations.

Firstly, there was the extraordinarily complicated procedure for obtaining a visitor’s visa which I endured over several days in Tblisi, Georgia. I have visited some 120 countries around the world and have to say that getting into yours was the hardest,  probably akin to entering  North Korea. Consulate working hours of just 2 hours a weekday,  letters of introduction and photos to be procured elsewhere , payment for the visa only possible several kilometres away in an Azerbaijan bank. It was then required that I leave my passport for several days – this I was unable to do because I was intending to travel into neighbouring countries. On my return a few days later at 10a.m. I was then told to come back at 4p.m. when the long-drawn-out process would be completed .  Honestly ! All this for just a few hours in Baku.

I took the Azerbaijan Airlines morning flight from Tblisi which was fine, although serving a full meal on a 40 minute flight might be a step too far. Luckily there weren’t too many passengers.

On arrival at Baku Airport (oh, I do beg your pardon sir, … at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport) I was extremely disappointed to discover  there were no ‘left luggage’ facilities available which meant I had to lug my case around for the next few hours. Yours must be the only airport in the world with this problem.

After avoiding several aggressive taxi sharks a decent bloke took me via the fascinating Yanar Dag (where the custodians appear to know little about their ‘blazing mountain’) to the Old City of Baku.

I then walked for miles around the city – along the ‘Bulvar’, in my view a poorly designed indentikit effort at a French boulevard / promenade where hundreds of workers were tending their formulaic sections in some sort of Soviet-inspired utopian work ideal. I passed the world’s tallest flagpole (or is it the Heydar Aliyev Flagpole ?), the base of which was out of bounds to us mere mortals – perhaps the Aliyev dynasty mausoleum was being constructed underneath. Yet more workers tended unnecessary, over-engineered verge gardens on the ‘Heydar Aliyev Avenue’ out towards the airport.

It was somewhat galling to note that you have named Zaha Hadid’s rather fine edifice the ‘Heydar Aliyev Centre’ – is your family on some sort of power trip ? These vanity projects are an utter waste of your country’s oil money which you appear to be squandering willy-nilly.

Leaving your country was a bittersweet affair too. The good bit was excellent service in the departure check-in area. The bad bit was truly outrageous … my checked-in bag was taken aside for ‘additional security checking’. A security guard prodded around its contents before asking me to zip it up again. When I arrived home in England I was appalled to discover that this ‘security’ man had stolen 3 packets of Georgian cigarettes bought for one of my daughters. An absolute disgrace.

I gather Tony Blair does your public relations – a rather poor choice in my estimation. He pockets US$ 1.5 million per annum as Middle East Peace Envoy with a free flat in Jerusalem. Have you noticed his efforts to keep the peace in Syria.  No, me neither.

I was just a humble tourist in Azerbaijan who even on a brief visit noticed a vast dichotomy between all this ‘Heydar Aliyev’ stuff and the people at the periphery of your projects. Do you think Allah approves of your activities ?

Yours sincerely,

Jamie Summers