Sweet Revenge: 200 Delicious Ways to Get Your Own Back Read online
Belinda Hadden has written for numerous publications on travel, fashion and lifestyle, including Tatler, Over 21, the Evening Standard, and the Daily Mail. She is also the author of The Ageing Parent Handbook and The Over 60’s Directory, and has exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. She is married with three children and nearly lives in Chelsea.
Amanda Christie has inherited the dry wit of her father Derek Nimmo and has written or participated in features for the Daily Mail, Harpers & Queen and many other publications. She has also toured extensively as both an actress and stage manager. Amanda is married to film director Willie Christie, has three children and lives in Chelsea.
Sweet Revenge
200 delicious ways to get your own back
Belinda Hadden and Amanda Christie
With cartoons by Ian Jackson
HEADLINE
Copyright © 1995 The Grey Agency
The right of Belinda Hadden and Amanda Christie to be identified as the Authors of the Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Permission to reproduce the anecdote on p. 10 was kindly granted by Kathy Lette.
All rights reserved.
First published in 1995
by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBN 0 7472 5338 2
Typeset by Letterpart Limited, Reigate, Surrey
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berks
HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING
A division of Hodder Headline PLC
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
For our ultimate revenge this book is dedicated to the following people who have wronged us in one way or another: SS, AR, RB, MW, AH, GC, WL, KH, DM, EA, LH, F, PW, DB and MW... you know who you are!
However, we would like to thank:
Josie Ashcroft, Vicky Barnsley, Charlie Barton, Sid and Susie Beart, Johnny Bevan, David Briggs, Alan Brooke, John Brown, Duncan Bullivant, Alister Campbell, Sue Carroll, Fiona Corkhill, Dudley Davenport, Nigel Dempster, Adam Edwards, Margie Fenwick, Medina Gilbey, Tom Goldstaub, Corinna Gordon, Nicky Gray, Julian Grazebrook, Christopher Hanbury, Iain Harris-Bartlett, Adam Helliker, Stuart Higgins, Aziz Laghzaoui, Dai Llewellyn, Jonathan Lloyd, Paul Matcham, Eva McGaw, Iain McGowan, Michael Naylor-Leyland, Julia Samuel, Urs Schwarzenbach, Mike Smith and Sarah Greene, Taki Theodoracopulos, Diane Wilson, Les Wilson, Victoria Wooderson, and, last but by no means least, Abel Hadden and Willie Christie.
The authors and publishers wish to point out that they accept no responsibility whatsoever for any consequences arising from carrying out these ideas. The sweet revenges in this book should not be taken too seriously!
Contents
Foreword
Love and Disharmony
Sexual Subterfuge
Nasty Neighbours
Road Hogs
Office Politics
Little Angels
An Englishman's Home...
Looking Good?
Cash Crises
Military Mischief
Animal Antics
Telephone Trouble
Culinary Capers
Photographie Evidence
Travellers' Tales
Acting Up
Quick Tricks and Devilish Deeds
Foreword
I am writing this on one of the hottest days of the English summer of '95. Outside the window a cloudless sky. The shady trees in my garden beckon invitingly. The goldfish are rising in the way the salmon didn't on the Blackwater in June. Why am I indoors? Well, quite simply because I received a fax from my vengeful daughter this morning commanding me to write a foreword to this rather dubious collection of anecdotes gathered together by Amanda and her companion-in-charms, Belinda Hadden.
Amanda and Belinda have been close friends since schooldays. They have a keen sense of the ridiculous and complementary senses of humour. The highlight of their week used to be parading the Kings Road on a Saturday afternoon in a variety of fancy dress costumes. Yashmaks were great favourites but dressing up as the lead singers from ABBA came a close second.
Earlier this year they did a feature on wine buying in France for Auto Express Magazine (under the mistaken impression that it was for The Sunday Express) and it was only a matter of time before they embarked upon a major opus together. The idea for Sweet Revenge was born. Since then they have written to everyone they know and hundreds of people they don't. My address book has been pillaged - perhaps that is why the book has a fair share of theatrical stories - here are two more, both concerning the writer/director/actor Orson Welles.
One Saturday during the production of his film The Lady From Shanghai, Welles decided that a certain set needed repainting for the following Monday's filming. Having been told by the Production Manager, Jack Fier, that this was quite impossible, Welles gathered together a group of friends. They broke into the Paint Department late on Saturday evening, repainted the set themselves, and left a huge sign over the entrance to the studio 'THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR IS FIER HIMSELF'. When the official set painters arrived for work on Monday, they immediately called a strike. Fier was obliged to pay a hefty sum to each member of the crew as compensation for the work done by non-Union labour. He obtained his revenge by deducting the money from Welles's fee and had a new banner painted 'ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELLES'.
Upon another occasion, the Film Director, Vincent Korda and his son, Michael, had to chase Orson Welles, who was running from contract obligations, across Europe. Landing in Venice and pursuing him through Naples, Capri and Nice, they finally caught up with him in Cagnes-sur-Mer and hoisted him off to a private aeroplane. Michael Korda and Orson shared the back seats with a giant basket of fruit, which Vincent had carefully selected in Nice, wedged between them. Michael eventually fell asleep. When he awoke, he eyed the basket and realised that Welles had systematically taken a single bite out of each piece of fruit. Having thus effectively destroyed Vincent's fruit, Welles now slept soundly. His immaculate appearance was marred only by a few spots of juice on his shirt front.
Perhaps one of the most spectacular acts of revenge was perpetrated in the early 19th Century by the playwright and composer Theodore Edward Hook. It appears that he had a score to settle with a Mrs Tottenham, who lived at 34 Berner Street in London. Records do not relate what had occasioned his anger. What Hook did was to write an enormous number of letters - more than 4,000 of them. As a result of these, on a particular day there arrived at 34 Berner Street an armada of vehicles, some delivering coal, some furniture, one other a wedding cake. There were hearses and haycarts; there were chimney-sweeps, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, lawyers, doctors, dentists, fishmongers and every other conceivable kind of tradesman. The confusion was completed by the arrival of the Duke of Gloucester, The Lord Mayor of London and a host of other dignitaries, lured to Berner Street on some pretext or other in one of Hook's letters. Hook, who had rented a room on the opposite side of the street, was able to sit by the window and enjoy the spectacle.
Probably the most effective revenge anyone can attain is in their last Will and Testament - as my daughter will one day find out. For damning dismissals, however, few Wills can match
that of a successful industrialist who died in Philadelphia in 1947 leaving the following:-
'To my wife I leave her lover and the knowledge that I wasn't the fool she thought I was.
To my son I leave the pleasure of earning a living. For twenty-five years he thought the pleasure was mine. He was mistaken.
To my daugher I leave $100,000. She will need it. The only piece of business her husband ever did was to marry her.
To my Valet I leave the clothes he has been stealing from me for ten years. Also the fur coat he wore last summer when I was in Palm Beach.
To my Chauffeur I leave my cars. He almost ruined them and I want him to have the satisfaction of finishing the job.
To my Partner I leave the suggestion that he take some clever man in with him at once if he expects to do any business.'
I am now going back to my deck chair. To forget wrong is the best revenge.
Derek Nimmo
August 1995
Love and Disharmony
'If you want to get revenge on a man, marry him!'
Basia Briggs, 1995
Love and Disharmony
Lord Gillford cannot reveal the identity of the young couple who announced their engagement. Sadly, the groom-to-be discovered, quite by accident, that his fiancée was having an affair with the best man. The groom decided to say nothing and he acted quite normally throughout all the preparations until the wedding day.
The service went off without a hitch and the reception was a delight. At last, it was time for the speeches. The groom stood up and gave a marvellous speech, and made all the traditional thank yous for the flowers, the organist, the bridesmaids... and finally, in front of all the guests, he thanked his best man 'who has been screwing my wife for the last few weeks'. While guests stood watching in stunned horror,, he scrumpled his speech notes and walked off. The marriage was never consummated so was, therefore, null and void, yet he had the satisfaction of knowing that it cost the bride's family at least £15,000.
Sign seen on a newsagent's bulletin board:
For Sale: set of Golf Clubs, reasonable condition, £90 o.n.o.
If a male voice answers the telephone, please hang up!
A sexy love letter found in her boyfriend's pocket prompted a young lady to empty his Chanel aftershave and replace it with kettle descaling fluid. For good measure she also poured oven cleaner into his handmade shoes and covered his suits and silk underwear in black coffee.
It was the same thing every night - Mrs Filsbois would watch with resignation while her husband flirted outrageously with every female under the age of sixty-five. Everybody in every bar and nightclub in the pretty Alpine resort of Zermatt knew the score.
One evening she had had enough and snuck home early. Knowing he would arrive back later, very tired and very drunk, she calmly crushed a bag of crisps into his side of the bed, climbed into her side, and went to sleep. He had the most uncomfortable night of his life.
He told his wife that he was going on a business trip for a long weekend and, instead, he took his lovely mistress to a stunning hotel. He told her he would leave his wife for her and they shared a glorious weekend, at the end of which he unceremoniously dumped her. All she had to remember it by was some hotel soap, a few sheets of the hotel letterhead and a broken heart.
A few days later she posted some lacy underwear and an empty contraceptive packet to her ex-lover's wife, with a letter typed on the hotel's writing paper which read: 'Dear Madam, Following your stay here we found the enclosed items in your bedroom and we return them herewith.'
- Tatler magazine's social editor, the glamorous Ewa Lewis, was far too discreet to reveal the identity of the well-heeled lady who wrought this revenge.
Jilted father of two, Mike Owen, took bitter revenge on his cheating wife. He nailed a giant sign painted with the words 'Adulterous Wife' above the 'For Sale' board outside the house he shared with his pretty wife Jane after she had an affair with Ian, the builder who was working on their extension. He also amended his outgoing answerphone message to say, 'Sorry. I cannot speak to you right now. I have got my hands around my adulterous wife's throat. If you would like to leave your name and number after the tone I will return your call as soon as she stops breathing.'
Some years ago in New York a woman hit the headlines when she shot her lover because he had announced he was going to marry someone else. The shot did not kill him and he was rushed to hospital. The revenge shooting completely backfired because, when they were removing the bullet, the doctors discovered a tumour in him and were able to operate successfully to remove it. Thus by shooting him, she actually saved his life which was the last thing she had wanted.
Kathy Lette, author of the splendidly funny Foetal Attraction and The Llama Parlour wrought a revenge which was so sweet and oh, so simple that it has achieved Urban Myth Status. The story is mentioned in her book Girls Night Out and here Kathy describes the events in full:
Looking back I blame it on the man shortage. In Sydney all the men are either married or gay. Or married and gay. And the rest have a three grunt vocabulary of 'na', 'dunno' and 'errgh'. Apart from the occasional Pommy poet passing through town, there is nobody. Nothing. Zilch.
That's how I ended up having a close encounter of the grope kind with a MMM (Middle-aged Married Man). Like most of these scenarios, I didn't know he was married until I found the teething ring in his pocket. But by then it was too late. He was tall, dark and bankable with biteable buttocks and... I fell in love. (I was young enough not to know that when a man says his wife 'doesn't understand him' what it means is that he wants you under, not standing.)
There were drawbacks. He was forever pulling away from my passionate love bite with a panic-stricken cry of 'Don't mark me!' After a night of heart-felt declarations of adoration and devotion, the next morning I'd pass him in the Woolworth's frozen food aisle... and he'd stare straight ahead as if he'd never laid eyes on me.
Even worse was never knowing when he was going to drop around. Invariably it would be the night I was in my pyjammies covered in acne lotion, with one eyebrow plucked, my hair plastered in henna and wearing an organic face mask. A knock at the door would send me torpedoing down to the bathroom. Not wanting to waste my precious R-rated moments with him, I'd hack and scrape away at my legs with a blunt razor in the shower, simultaneously inserting my diaphragm and spraying the old bod with aphrodisiacal unguents. Slashed, trailing blood and covered in Band-Aids, I'd stagger breathlessly up the stairs and into his arms. (It was all right. He just loved my 'girlish charms'.)
He promised he'd leave her. He promised we'd live together with a His and Her Harbour View. Marriage was in the air... well, I thought it was marriage. What it turned out to be was the car exhaust of his Alfa Romeo as he sped off into the sunset. I truly believed my MMM loved me, but it seemed I was merely a distraction - a little something to break the monogamy.
You can imagine how I felt when he left his wife a few weeks later for a woman even younger than moi (a case of upward nubility) and ensconced her in a penthouse apartment with a His and Her Harbour View.
There was only one thing to do. My girlfriend distracted the Super while I snatched the key. Once inside O took down the bedroom curtain rail. Removing the stoppers at the ends of the rail I stuffed the hollow cylinder full of prawns, replaced the stoppers and rehung the curtains. Now all I had to do was wait...
It was a heat-wave summer. From my girlfriend's flat on the less salubrious side of the street we watched through binoculars as the love-birds tore apart the flat looking for the source of the odour. Within a week, he'd called the 'Rent a Kill' flick man. This was followed by a new carpet. Then, a complete re-wallpapering. We watched them have their first fight. The new girlfriend started sleeping in another room. Then she refused to go back into the apartment. Next, she moved out altogether. Shortly after, the apartment went up for sale.
Revenge is sweet. Sweeter than tiramisu. And, with a broken heart and a wounded ego like mine it was, le
t's face it, cheaper than therapy.
We watched the removal men pack the van. And the real beauty of it is, they packed the bedroom curtain rail.
Lady Sarah Graham-Moon hit the headlines when she took revenge on her cheating husband, Sir Peter Graham-Moon, in spectacular style. Incensed that he had moved in with another woman before their divorce had gone through, she chopped the left arms off thirty-two of his Savile Row suits, tipped six litres of white paint over his beloved BMW and delivered seventy bottles of his vintage wines to neighbouring doorsteps in the Berkshire villages of Lambourne and East Garston where her husband was staying with his new girlfriend. She said: 'I've done my bit and I've run out of things to do now. I'm not loopy - I'm just tired of being used,' advocating that the form of revenge should be tailored to its victim.
There are many people who believe that revenge takes care of itself and you don't need to lift a finger to help it. They are absolutely right in this case. Lady Sarah had the satisfaction of seeing Sir Peter sold down the river by the blonde who replaced her. Terry Graham-Moon revealed her bedroom secrets to the News of The World in July this year following her departure from the marital home, with the words: 'He's just a sex-mad dirty old man. Sex with him was so horrible I used to lie back and cry my eyes out until he'd finished - and that could take hours.'