Listen Right,

Listen right,

This is a post about my favourite way to begin a letter.

The story behind this one involves my housemate of many years, Jamil... and some berk who was living here when we moved in, called Ian. This Ian character was a terrible human being who was very much all about himself, especially when it came to money. He would avoid paying bills, buying essential household items like washing up liquid (but using whatever had been bought), and refused to chip in to the council tax. We even had to change our internet password to prevent him using it since he wouldn't pay the phone or internet bills!

His reasoning for not paying the council tax was that he shouldn't have to pay it when another three of us didn't need to at the time as we were students or unemployed. That's the law, but he was such a skinflint that he went down to the council offices and changed our housing type so that the landlord had to pay the council tax instead.

In order to pay this new bill, our rent got bumped up by £5 a week. Not a big problem on a weekly basis, but that's a extra £260 a year each, which we would rather have kept and just paid the council tax ourselves. It wasn't a problem for Ian though, he was living in the tiny spare room and only paying £25 a week even with the added £5. He was also working a lot, or playing with his expensive games consoles and iPhone. He could have easily just paid his share.

We decided we'd had enough of this berk. He said he was going to move out at the end of the year, but we couldn't really cope that long. It's very awkward being in the kitchen at the same time as someone you never want to speak to or be around.

So, Jamil wrote him a nice letter, which is presented here:

The bit about TV license was an issue because the housing type had been changed to a student flat instead of a family home. This means each person needs to get a TV license for their own room. Thankfully, we got it changed back when he moved out, but the rent is the same. I suppose it would have gone up at some point anyway, but it's always good to be able to pin the blame on an utter berk.

Signing it from "The Lads" seemed a bit cheeky of Jamil since he did it one night when wrecked and the rest of us were asleep. However, it needed to be said, and it's pretty damn funny to look back on now!

Thankfully, rather than talking to any of us, he wrote us a letter back. It isn't anywhere near as succinct, and sadly not even as hilarious. You can tell he's a berk from his bad use of words though:

It was still a long time before he moved out. It felt like forever! But thankfully we saw the last of him ages ago now. These letters are still present on his old room door, for pure comedic value. I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed re-visiting them and reminding myself of a terrible time that came to pass. Life is pure bliss compared to back then!

So, the phrase "Listen right," is now regarded as a classic motivational letter opener. I can already imagine using it in many everyday situations:

Listen right, can I have a job?

Listen right, do you want to go out tonight?

Listen right, sorry for your loss.

...and so on. In the immortal words of Neil Buchanan: "Try it yourself!"