The response of all right-thinking people will be to roll around on the carpet shrieking with laughterLast year, an English textbook in Pakistan printed a poem praising an anonymous leader for his strength and wisdom. The leader remained unnamed, but hidden in the first letters of each line was the acrostic phrase ‘PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH.’

Now the publishing world has one-upped the subcontinent. A week ago, a British paper revealed that a love letter in a biography of poet John Betjeman is not only a fake, it insults the biography’s author. The first letters of each sentence spell ‘AN WILSON IS A SHIT.’

A.N. Wilson’s rival Bevis Hillier is the main suspect. He’s accused of sending Wilson the fake letter under an assumed name, waiting for the book to be published, then sending a second letter tipping off the Times of London to the prank:

… a price sticker affixed to the back of the Eve de Harben envelope [revealed] that it was bought at a stationery store in Winchester, Mr. Hillier’s hometown… No Eve de Harben lives at the return address written on the letter… “Eve de Harben” is an anagram for “Ever been had?”…

Hillier had spent 25 years working on a Betjeman biography, only to be upstaged by Wilson’s 12-month effort:

“The motive was simply revenge… We’re talking about three volumes and a total of 1,800 pages. [Hillier] spends half a lifetime working on the book, and along comes A. N. Wilson, who turns his book around in a year and probably got a bigger advance than Hillier…”

Most publications reviewed the two books together, another potential source of irritation to Mr. Hillier, who complained that Mr. Wilson had filched his material without crediting him. [Link]

If, as it seems, the prankster is Hillier, he certainly has a GSOH — pawning a man of letters in his own book, with bonus points for closing with the absurd ‘tinkerty-tonk’:

The revelation of the hoax has been met here with glee. “The response of all right-thinking people will be to roll around on the carpet shrieking with laughter…” … if the perpetrator of the hoax did turn out to be Mr. Hillier, hats off to him. “It doesn’t seem like sour revenge, because it’s so funny.” [Link]

Back in high school, a local yearbook was famous for spelling out FUCK YOU using the digits on a photo of a credit card. An similar pejorative was engraved on a tombstone in Montreal:

“This guy’s ex-wife and mistress came in together and ordered the stone. They said the message represented him…” [Link]

Update: Hillier has admitted sending the letter.