Just boasting!

Heard from the Dalai Lama today. How cool am I, la?  Yes, I know it wasn't a personal letter but it was still a very great rush! And it's going immediately into my file of letters from famous folks; people like Amelia Talbot and Musuveni.  And if you're asking who the hell they are, Amelia Talbot is the niece of Amelia Earhart and Musuveni is the President of Uganda.

I also have in there a heap of very erudite letters about Art from David Bowie, but I must admit I got those third hand. I'd tell you the name of the artist friend of a friend he exchanges letters with, except ... well, he most likely would be very cross to know she passes them on, so let's keep that very secret.

But I have to say I am very impressed with David Bowie The Man because he's a most clever and insightful fellow and an absolute delight to read. 

And also in there is a letter from a fellow who signed himself as Salman Rushdie.  It was a private reply to something I'd placed on the Fiji Message Board shortly after the 2000 Speight coup, about Fijian land unquestionably belonging to the Fijians, and this was a very silly attempt to counter-argue that from an Indian perspective. Normally, I'd have questioned that signature except this letter-writer used the most bizarre sentence structures and had a very odd way of putting ideas together ... so I immediately raced out and bought "Midnight's Children" ... and it was exactly the same.  Decided that someone was either a laudable Rushdie imitator or Salman Rushdie was taking a very close interest in Fiji.

Then, shortly after, his novel Fury came out where he talks about a little island called Lilliput that had all the problems currently facing the world yet always came up with very elegant solutions.  And reading that, it was obviously Fiji.  Unquestionably, he was talking about Fiji ... so Rushdie indeed would have been taking a close interest in Fiji at that time and would very likely have been reading the message boards, and thus this letter, silly as it was, went into the Famous People's Letters file!

I also have in there a lot of handwritten poems by Noel Coward ... but that's a different story.