129. ✒️ A letter to Terry: reply #24-04

On non-existence and the toolkit of Dr Meefy Ranter.

Photo by David Pisnoy on Unsplash

This is the latest letter in my regular, informal correspondence with Substacker and fellow Brit Terry Freedman, in which we take turns every other Wednesday to delve into the things that British people talk about the most. So that you can explore these unashamed clichés for yourself we’re inviting you to read our letters over our shoulders.

My next ‘Dear Reader, I’m lost’ post will of course be published on Saturday.

Dear Terry,

Many thanks for your latest letter, the receipt of which you tell me you were ‘honoured to acknowledge’. It gives me to wonder, if you value my words so highly, why three entire paragraphs of ‘your’ response had been generated by AI? 🙄

And never mind that: I am holding you responsible for the existential crisis in which your letter – specifically the paragraph below – landed me in a week ago:

‘Ah, Rebecca. The one that got away. Well, not really, since she never existed in the first place. But let’s pretend for a moment that she did, and that we had a complex and tumultuous relationship. As we reflect on this fictional connection, we’re transported back to the beginning, reliving the magic of those first encounters.’

Ah yes, our ‘magical first encounter’; now, I thought I could remember it well. Yet reading your letter has left me questioning whether indeed it had even happened? 🤔 Are you suggesting that the coffee spillage, the milk shower, the wrong cup of tea – those highlights of our meeting on which we had both¹ reported² independently³ – are in fact figments of our imagination?

🤯

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Evidence for consideration by the Substack jury:

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How about we set up another an actual get-together once spring has sprung? I demand a hasty rematch of our encounter in October – the one which AI tells us can’t have happened since I ‘never existed in the first place’? I shall make a point of pinching myself HARD in your presence to prove to you and to myself that I actually exist.

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You might be interested to learn that I have at last decided to educate myself, and to that end I have booked my place on a course entitled ‘creative writing using constraints’, with esteemed tutor Dr Meefy Ranter⁴. According to the description on the college website I will, by the end of the course:

• Understand what creative constraints are, and how they can be used in my writing.

• Use several Oulipo techniques as part of my creative writing “toolkit”.

Well, the creative writing toolkit in which I’ve been rummaging this morning has supplied me only with the means to muck around amusingly anagrammatically with the course tutor’s name, so I can only hope that the ‘creative writing toolkit’ supplied by Dr Ranter on the course itself will turn out to be more useful.

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You’ve made an interesting point about the overwhelmingly female demographic for literature and creative writing courses, and my own experience mirrors this. Most other participants of the art courses I’ve taken part in – or taught – over the years have been female, and in language-learning environments in my teens and twenties I’d also found this to be the case.

Photo by Pea on Unsplash

Still relating to demographics, but sidestepping to a much more important subject than creative writing courses, have you ever wondered what the statistics of male vs female tea-drinking look like in the United Kingdom?

🔗 Examine, if you would, this article from The Grocer, from which the screenshots below were taken.

Black tea ‘reigns across both genders’, being the type mostly frequently drunk by 35% of women and 32% of men:

Screenshot taken from The Grocer

Gender aside, Terry, in terms of geographical demographics I gather that you, as a Londoner, are considered to be more likely to drink too much tea than I am:

Screenshot taken from The Grocer

(No, I don’t believe it either.)

Oh, and I’m glad I was sitting down when I came across this absolute thunderbolt of a disclosure:

Screenshot taken from The Grocer

No, really? 😆

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Speaking of headlines, did you notice this one last week?

Screenshot taken from BBC News website

I’m alarmed at this news, Terry, for Tetley is my preferred brand of teabaggage. I was therefore very disappointed to note that the company doesn’t seem to be taking its situation seriously, as this extract from the BBC News article shows:

[It] said while its current production levels were not changing, the amount it was able to hold in stock as a buffer would drop, in what it described as a "quite fluid situation".

What can I say? I’m sure you’ll agree that news of any threat to the nation’s tea supply is not punny.

All the very best,

Rebecca

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If you’ve enjoyed reading this letter to Terry, please let me know by clicking the heart. Thank you! My next ‘Dear Reader, I’m lost’ post will be published on Saturday.

You’ll find the rest of my letters in this series by clicking the ‘Letters to Terry’ tab on the top bar of my home page. Terry and I take it in turns to write to each other on alternate Wednesdays, and I really enjoy our light-hearted correspondence! You can access both Terry’s letters and mine using the index below:

An epistolary index: Letters to Terry

Check out Terry's fabulous newsletter, and to make sure you don’t miss his reply to this letter next week, why not subscribe? You’ll be glad you did!

Last but not least, do please share and subscribe for free! Thank you!

1. The first:

Reply to Rebecca #23

2. The second:

3. The third:

Reply to 'Letter' ABOUT Terry

4. The enigmatic Dr Meefy Ranter has a number of questionable identities, including Lord Tel, Dr Tel, King Tel, Johnny Sax, Yerret Manfred, Fred Terryman and Terry Freedman.