SAINT CLUB CHRISTMAS LETTER 1983

My dear little grubs, maggots, and assorted parasites:

As if you will not already have had enough reminders that there are only x more shopping days till Christmas, and so many more opportunities to buy white elephants which you could have had for half the price in the sales last January, if you had only had the wit to buy then and store them away, it is again my seasonal duty to remind you that your dues to this distinguished institution to which you have the ineffable honour of belonging are now payable and should be sent in promptly if we are not to have the nuisance of employing the heavy mob to collect them.

As you can read in the Honorable Secretary's report, our performance last year was again noteworthy, and this year we would like to set a new record for aid and encouragement to the Arbour Youth Centre, which is the objective of our benevolence.

Besides your cash subscriptions and donations, we also remind you again of the assortment of relatively useless merchandise which you might just as well buy from us at this time of year, instead of some of the other junk on which you will be squandering your money in the hope of currying favour with your friends and relatives, employers and employees, and sundry targets of seduction.

A new novel addition to our list is a 7 x 5 reproduction of a portrait in oils recently done of me by John Bratby R.A., who, only the most ignorant of you need to be reminded, is generally esteemed to be one of the most important contemporary British artists. Whether or not you will opine that it does full justice to my rather exotic kind of beauty, we cannot of course offer to refund your remittance if you are dissatisfied: we have never had much respect for the views of art critics, official or self-appointed. But if you don't feel irresistibly impelled to hang it over the mantelpiece in place of that painting of your Aunt Emily by Sir Joshua Reynolds, there must be another room in the house where it could be contemplated at leisure by your friends of better taste, if you have any.

And so, in the hope of putting the bite on you for even more generous contributions this year, I send you the warmest regards which I can hypocritically wring out of myself. May the suckers always fall for your line of bull, may all your nefarious schemes prosper, and may you never be caught.