Humor: Come on, let me light your fire

Come on, let me light your fire

To: The Prime Minister,
The Hon. Mr John Howard,
Kirribilli House, Sydney,
September 7, 2000

My dear Mr Howard,
I am writing to you from Ward 4D of Puddleduck Hospital for the Criminally Insane (Pyromaniacs Rehabilitation Division) with a special plea.

I dearly want to light the cauldron at the Olympic Games opening ceremony on Friday, September 15 and they won't let me.

Would you let me light it? Please, please, please.

I know you are not directly involved with the organisation of the Olympic Games, Mr Howard, but I know you are a man of great influence.

Please don't try to tell me, like my doctors have, that someone else, whose identity remains a closely guarded secret, has already been chosen to light the flame.
I am not an idiot. You can't fool me or my schizophrenic paranoia with that kind of bullshit.
I am of the firm belief that the only reason it is a so-called secret is they haven't found the right person yet.

I am also of the firm belief that I AM the right person.

For a start, you owe me; the whole Australian community owes me.
Do you know what it's like being locked up 24 hours a day, 265 days a year (266 last year) without a box of matches or even two sticks to rub together? Well, I'll tell you: it's worse than your worse day in the House of Representatives and nearly as boring too.

I feel like a criminal.

The evidence against me was all circumstantial.

So what if I was caught with an empty petrol can, 18 inches of leftover wick, a packet of Handy Little Firelighters, and five ounces of paraffin wax!

I was fitted up.

Nobody ever found the match I used.
Nor did the prosecution substantiate the other charges levelled at me.
Just because I sat on the hill at 2am watching my school burning when I was eight, doesn't mean I set it alight. I was just out for a walk.
The fire in the locker at the Memorial Pool had nothing to do with me either. I was doing dog-paddle laps in the pool at the time. A witness at the trial testified to that. Can I help it if she was my mum?

I don't expect you to apologise to me, Mr Howard - others better than I have tried and failed on that score - but I do expect you to seriously consider my request.

Tell you what: you help me, I'll do a favour for you too.
I read in the newspaper last week that you are not very happy with United Nations committees who are critical of Australia's treatment of Aborigines and refugees.

Bastards! After all you've done for Cathy Freeman and Christopher Skase.

I think you were right to ban future visits to Australia by UN committees and to refuse to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Let me send the world a message from you, Mr Howard.
Give me that UN charter and let me light the cauldron with it.

Yours faithfully,
Jerome "Hotfingers" O'Fury

PS: I know where you live.

PSS: If you are unable to act on this, please pass my letter on to that nice Pauline Hanson whose flame, I hear, is being rekindled.

©2000 John Martin. All Rights Reserved

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it