THE saint CLUB Christmas letter, 1989

My dearly beloved finks, freaks, and fatheads:

By now, the familiar thud of Christmas catalogs and associated junk mail flopping through your letter boxes, combined with the sub-tropical, temperatures and the disappearance of all warm-weather clothing from the shops, must have hinted to even the dimmest wits among you that the Festive Season is only about three months away, and that all prudent persons should be preparing to harden their hearts against the specious efforts which will be made to separate them from whatever loot they have been able to bank since the bite was last put on them.

With this in mind, it has occurred to me and your Committee that 1 should kick the procrastination which I have too often indulged in of recent years, and get this letter off for once before a single snowflake has fallen. And before your heart-hardening processes have achieved the consistency of a hypochondriac's salmonella-proofed egg.

Many of you have already seen the preliminary hype about the new TV series starting on September 2, and have asked us about the new star, Simon Dutton. We are glad now to tell you that in preparation for the predictable demand we have obtained a number of full-length pictures of him, in gorgeous color and personally autographed by himself. Because of their size, we are charging £2 for them, which is practically a giveaway price, considering the rarity value they will have as "first editions", in a mere couple of hundred years.

Another method of extracting pennies from your purses has been proposed by Saint Ian Dickerson, in the form of a SAINT CLUB NEWSLETTER, about which more information is enclosed.. If you like the idea, make haste to send in your subscriptions, because naturally it can only go ahead if there is enough support to make a worthwhile profit, which of course will benefit the Arbour Youth Centre, as all the Club profits do.

But apart from these luxuries, and other goodies which the Hon Sec has to offer, it is my duty to remind you that your annual subscription is already overdue. So don't dawdle any more about sending it in, if you want to remain on our exclusive sucker list.

And to those who do, I send my warmest greetings, before they curdle.