Oh dear. Vine has just received a rather stroppy letter from one of
our subjects, referring to our item back in January in which we
mentioned a new book called Hardship Posting.
The author, one 'Colonel Ken', has called our competition - guess which
one of the three people on the cover is ex-adman Stuart Lloyd - as
"ill-conceived".
"The irony is this," he writes.
"NONE of the pouting beauties on the laminated wash-clean cover is that
reformed advertising wanker Stuart Lloyd.
"It is indeed The Colonel (i.e. moi!) that is front and centre, flanked
by my rather comely (and I use that word advisedly) Thai assistants, Oo
and Aa. So you have posed a trick question to your readers. I don't
think Lloyd could manage to grow such proud and prolific facial fungus
as mine in two lifetimes."
Colonel Ken also took a potshot at fellow author Jim Aitchison, whom he
described as a "part-timer, compared to my 30 illustrious years in
Asia".
"What battalion was he stationed with in Vietnam anyway?" the Colonel
demanded to know.
Still, not all was vitriol.
Colonel Ken has grandly put up signed copies of Hardship Posting as
prizes for the Vine competition, courtesy of his "miserable
publishers".
So what's holding you all back?
