Dear Ms May,
I’ve only gone and bloody done it!!!
Let me explain.
It all began when I was a young lad. I say young because I was only five.
I went to soviet school number five, on the corner of three thousand six hundred and fifty ten hundred and one Traktortroetsky Street.
I was a lonely boy. Rather than playing with other children I developed a great affinity for animals. Every break time I would go into my cupboard and train Mr Tarkovsky (the school monkey) to tie up his own shoe laces. He was a quick learner and by the end of the first term he could put on his own shoes, do up a fiddly bow tie and read a short passage from Chekov.
My talent was soon spotted and Mr Tarkovsky and I were sent to the great Moscow circus.
But then, one fateful night, the Generals came to the performance. They were slightly intoxicated and had come to shout vodka-smelling insults at the animals. Despite years of dedicated training, using the most advanced behavioural techniques known to man (and animal) Mr Tarkovsky started flinging handfuls of monkey shit at them.
We fled. I only had the shirt on my back, the trousers on my legs and half a billion rubels in my suitcase.
Since arriving in the UK I’ve continued with my time honoured profession. I’ve taught Mr Tarkovsky many things, it’s been difficult, there have been tears, tantrums and regular trips to the hospital, not to mention handfuls of monkey shit everywhere. But I’ve finally done it!!!!
Mr Tarkovsky has finally passed his college exams and is working as an independent general practitioner in Croydon!!!!!!
The government has spent years trying to get monkeys to do a GP’s job for bananas but now I’ve made it a reality!
If you’d like to meet up to discuss my training techniques and to see Mr Tarkovsky in action then we have to do it soon. As you’ve probably worked out he’s ancient and doesn’t have very long left to live.
I also have an accountant owl, a civil servant squirrel and a hedgehog trained up in European trade negotiations that you might be interested in. How does next Tuesday sound?
Warmest regards,
Mr Strugatsky
