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From: linden@positive.eng.sun.com (Peter van der Linden)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: medical advice columns
Date: 15 Jan 1994 05:22:47 GMT

Jack Campin enquires:
> Anyone else out there tried anything like [trolling] on a newspaper columnist?

You're kidding, right?
I send out at least a letter per month and have done for the last ten years specifically to wind up, confuse, irritate, frighten, or disconcert the authorities, or the pompous.

Apart from the famous "Ann Landers smears her face with lard & sugar" (chronicled by Uncle "straight dope" Cecil in his column two weeks ago; so now THREE AFU old hats have been mentioned by Ed Zotti -- smudgett, snopes and myself), there have been:

1. a letter to Ann Landers describing her own personal circumstances as though it were my problem ("my husband ran off with a younger woman, my daughter is a no-good lush, my sister opened up a competing business and won't talk to me..."). No answer by the way.
2. A letter to the local newspaper objected to a not-very-funny revolutionary cartoon, from "The Society for Making English Grandeur More Accessible". Despite the acronym "smegma", the cartoon was pulled.
3. An op-ed piece for the local newspaper under the cognomen of the attorney general, in favor of decriminalizing drugs. Published, and drew a few letters.
4. Letter to dog food manufacturer asking if it matters if we feed it exclusively to the cat and vice versa. Surprisingly, it does matter!

and many more. I thought *everyone* on AFU does this.

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