Tony Blair may have wanted everyone to believe that class divisions are no longer relevant but this morning’s batch of spam has proved him to be foolishly blind to reality.

“I very much enjoyed visiting your middle-class guestbook. I will tell my son, so he can enjoy it too.”

Thanks to “George,” Miss Mussel can now spend the weekend overcome with middle-class anxiety about her clearly ineffectual attempts to create what should appear to others as a clearly upper-class guestbook. It has a Burberry cover and everything.

Writing a letter of complaint is an art form and, as any dedicated complainer knows, there are several important elements that must be included to guarantee a result. What is it complainers want? Public Recognition Of Their Grievance. Why? Because it will allow them to take up residence on The Moral High Ground, the most sought after of post codes.

The Holy Grail for the complainer is a place in the hallowed Letter to The Editor pages of a highly respected newspaper. Having a letter selected for publication not only guarantees a wide readership but allows the complainer to achieve their secondary goal: Legitimacy. Once publication is achieved, the complainer can no longer be dismissed as a grumpy old coot with nothing better to do. He (and invariably it is a man) is now a valued contributor to the ongoing debate on The State Of Things.

So, how can the occasionally disgruntled novice complainer transform themselves into a permanently dissatisfied master? It’s not easy. Becoming a Level V complainer (Jedi Master) takes an inordinate amount of time and will likely not be achievable before you reach retirement age. You will write many letters that will just get thrown into the bin by their ungrateful recipients. Less discerning people will accuse you of being irrational, petulant, narrow-minded and stubborn. Ignore them. Mastering the 6 Components Of A Winning Complaint Letter must be your first priority.

Our exemplar for this lesson is: “Why Coughing Brought Down The Curtain On Our NSO Years” by Richard Gould. In a nutshell, Mr Gould cancelled his subscription to the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC after 10 years due to a sudden surfeit of laryngeal spasms among audience members.

1. Choose an issue for which it is impossible to find a solution–Audience coughing
2. Imply that this wasn’t an issue in those golden years known as “when I was a child” or “X years ago” — “Yes, coughing has become so pervasive at Kennedy Center performances that one wonders why people should even go out to listen to live music or theater.”
3. Base your control situation on a snapshot episode. Extra points if it taps into any sort of post-colonial insecurity — “During a recent trip to Europe, I heard little if any coughing during symphonic concerts in the gilded, glittering concert halls of Prague, Vienna and Budapest.”
4. Make highly idiosyncratic and impractical suggestions for improvement — “In my first letter I suggested that the NSO and the Kennedy Center do some research into the cause of this excessive, disruptive, mood-breaking hacking. How have other concert halls dealt with this problem? Do they issue edicts? Do they make cough drops available in the lobby?”
5. Complain that no one is listening to/taking seriously/implementing the aforementioned suggestions.“Several letters of complaint later, with no response from the Kennedy Center or the NSO…”
6. Take irrational action– “my only recourse is to decline to renew our long-held subscription.”

With any luck, you might just get in the paper.

Itzhak violist.

What’s a Jane Chord? [Don't worry, Miss Mussel didn't know either until about a month ago]

Of course, if we want to get all technical, two notes make an interval, not a chord. When the rules are bent ever so slightly to include the first and last two words, we get a much more better result:

Itzhak Perlman’s other violist.

Not bad, but four note chords generally resolve to a nice major triad, so our work here is not quite finished. Miss Mussel can’t bear to leave you all hanging with an unresolved dominant seventh in your head. That would be cruel.

A bit of tinkering and a gross abuse of half forgotten theory lessons brings us V13 –> I which, in the context of our discussion thus far results in the deliciously naughty and highly improbable:

Itzhak Perlman’s New Year’s Eve began on // the other violist.

If anyone else cares to have a go, the first article was, published on 2nd January 1981. Mr Holland’s last review, appeared on 23rd May of this year. Or, choose someone else’s output.

NSFW if your work is uptight about anatomically correct vocab, religion or silliness.

After weeks of boring old whitebread home/auto/business insurance spam, Miss Mussel is excited to report that someone has finally taken the initiative and created something worth repeating.

Here’s what “Kathy” sent along this morning.

viagra enlarges penis
I praise God for answering my prayers.
God, you are so wonderful, majestic.
Jesus Christ, I adore Your Sacred Heart.
accutane effects on penis

The first thing one notices when reading is of course the proximity of sacred and profane elements, a juxtaposition that has been explored for hundreds of years. Think pagan festivals turned into feast days, hymn lyrics set to drinking songs, Rook etc.

It is very rare that a spammer reveals such a deep knowledge of cultural history but the real delight is that she is able to sum up this centuries-old tension in just five short lines. In this case, the scandalous bits form a sandwich around the rather more benign statement, sort of like a triple-stuffed Oreo cookie.

An interesting technique to be sure, but the meter is the most important here. The first and last lines are 8 syllables in iambic tetrameter while the middle (benign) lines are 8.10.10, a meter that is very nearly identical to Carl Nielsen’s hymn tune Det koster ej for megen Strid. The reference to this hymn further underlines musically the sacred/profane dichotomy of the text.

The awkward overall meter pattern creates a sort of random effect, making it seem as if the three lines are entirely unrelated. If we go back to the text however, we see that for the form (object/verb/subject) and final word of the first and third line are identical. In other words, it’s ABA’. Spam in da capo aria form.

Miss Mussel awaits “Kathy’s” next composition. Perhaps a rondo this time?

After giving it some careful thought, Miss Mussel is willing to admit that perhaps she has been a tad overdramatic about the whole “destruction of classical music by the country’s public broadcaster” thing.

To be honest, Canada has many other national treasures and doesn’t need a hold over from 19th century Europe to define its culture. Why would we waste $600,000 keeping an orchestra going when we have this: