THE NAKED CITY: HOAX LETTERS, LEG-PULLS AND PISS-TAKES

The story is probably apocryphal, but some years ago, it’s reported, a resident of a town in the midlands of the UK wrote to their local council, objecting to the term ‘witches hats’, the bright orange traffic cones often deployed for traffic control. The writer complained that not only was the term insulting to women, it totally ignored men in the community. After all, they wrote, wizards also wear pointy hats. Their suggestion was to change the name to a non gender specific ‘sorcerers hat’, although it seems the cry for equality fell on deaf bureaucratic ears.

In all probability it was a gentle leg-pull, maybe from somebody who had watched too many episodes of Monty Python. These days few people would go to the trouble of sending a hoax letter when instant mischief can be created on Tik Tok and other web platforms. Before the internet however, it was not uncommon to receive a letter in the mail that was entirely bogus. It was not a scam or a ploy to extort money, rather somebody just trying to have a bit of fun – very much at your expense.

During the ‘50s and ‘60s, as the cold war lingered, a number of Australians were surprised to find a letter in their mail box appointing them ‘nuclear warden’ for their particular street or immediate neighbourhood. It all looked very official with government logos etc. but the majority of recipients still laughed it off as a piss-take. A few however took it quite seriously, an honour in fact to be made the street’s official commander should atomic catastrophe strike. It might sound ludicrous now but in a more naïve time, one of the warden’s duties was to make sure everybody had three or four buckets of water ready to extinguish any flaming nuclear fallout – not to mention a month’s supply of tinned food to survive the ensuing apocalypse.

These days, you can actually buy a ready made prank letter or postpak to send to a friend, workmate, family member or acquaintance. Most of them are pretty crude, tacky and of a crude sexual nature – hardly worth highlighting here (check them out on an Etsy search if you are that curious). But remember, constantly bombarding somebody with some of these letters and postpaks could amount to harassment or even psychological stalking, if the recepient fails to get the repeated jokes.

It appears Australia Post has no problem delivering postpaks emblazoned with ‘Herpes Test Kit’ or ‘Adult Baby Diaper Club’ and as long as you have the correct postage, it ends up in the postie’s sack. It’s also apparent that you can mail a wide range of items as long as they have an appropriate stamp attached.

Around five years ago a writer from the ill-fated Vice magazine decided to test the patience of Australia Post by mailing a number of objects including a squash and a potato, devoid of any packaging and fresh from the supermarket. Despite no return address, but with the correct postage, the vegies were dutifully delivered. The writer explained that Australia Post did have a set of stringent conditions as to what could be sent through the post but noted “with their thousands of employees, I wondered just how seriously each individual person might take these rules.”

A number of professional writers and enterprising individuals have made an art out of writing prank letters and their mischief has been immortalised in a collection of best selling anthologies. First published in 1977, comedy writer Don Novello’s The Lazlo Letters, features around one hundred spoof letters to well known politicians, dignitaries and movie stars. The letters were signed by his pseudonym Lazlo Toth, and interestingly Novello appropriated the name from an Aussie, the real life Lazlo Toth. Toth was the Hungarian born Australian geologist who gained worldwide notoriety when he attacked Michelangelo’s Pieta statue in St Peter’s Basilica with a hammer in 1972, shouting “I am Jesus Christ – risen from the dead” and causing extensive damage.

Similarly, another book from 1995, Drop Us a Line…Sucker! by James and Stuart Wade, focuses very much on the absurd with letters written to large corporations and global organisations. The humour is fairly light-weight and somewhat obvious, like one letter to car rental company, Hertz and their lost-and-found department requesting a search for the correspondent’s elderly mother, left in the back seat of his rental car by mistake.

Perhaps the finest collection of leg-pull letters is that of Melbourne journalist Michael Morley, published in 1985 as The Hocknell Letters. The targets include everybody from the ABC to posh Melbourne girls schools. Some of his letters actually received replies which are also published, including a surprising reply from Edward de Bono. Morley’s humour is dry but also quite subversive and hits the social and political nerve of Australia in the 1980s with a real sense of devilment.

My favourite is an enquiry to Melbourne’s snobby Windsor Hotel requesting a private room for the annual night out of the ‘Canterbury Pornographic Society’. Apparently the hotel took it very seriously, reporting him to police, and whilst no action was taken, he then writes a grovelling apology asking that he not be permanently banned from their premises.

These days, with restricted deliveries and a reliance on the internet, it can be a joyous moment when you actually receive a letter in your mail box. If it happens to be just a gentle hoax or prank, and not a sneaky scam, you should consider yourself blessed. After all it could be a very nasty electricity bill!