Why Me? (26 page)

Thank you with peace,

Yours Faithfully,

ADV DAVID MAHLANGU (Esq.)

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From: Bob Servant

To: David Mahlangu

Subject: I'm on the case (no pun intended)

David,

OK I am going to sit down this evening with a flask of OVD and write out the whole sorry story. In a nutshell it's a bust-up with my neighbour Frank that makes Pearl Harbor look like Alton Towers.

Oh and don't worry about me paying you. In the 1980s I made more money than Anna Ford. I was a windowcleaning supremo then a cheese burger van messiah and if you add those two together, David, then the answer is my house which is known round here as Bob's Palace. I attach a photo.

How is your day going? Are you sitting working away with your white wig on?

Yours,

Bob

⁵⁹

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From: David Mahlangu

To: Bob Servant

Subject: I am ready

Good evening Bob,

I hope you are advance in your notes because I am ready to here the case now Bob. You have a very interesting house and I am sure that you have been a big success in business and in fact I will do a special deal for you because of our mutual standing. So let me hear the case for now and then we can firm a fee Bob.

We only wear wigs when we are in court. Today I am in business suit in office Bob as I have a string of vital meetings.

Your lawyer,

ADV DAVID MAHLANGU (Esq.)

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From: Bob Servant

To: David Mahlangu

Subject: Here you are

David,

I hope the string of meetings went well. Sometimes I wish I had become something important and influential like a lawyer or a PE teacher. I certainly never had a string of meetings when I worked on the cheeseburger vans. I was lucky if I had a string of string. Anyway, let's not get bogged down in the string stuff because we could go back and forth on that all night.

Here's the whole sorbet
⁶⁰
story. As you will have gathered by the way I conduct myself, I am an enormous success story. I have made a lot of money in business and because of my outgoing personality and stuff with my eyes I have built up a large following of fans and imitators.

I don't know what it's like over in South Africa but in Blighty in the last few years there has been all this celebrity stuff. I just don't get it. These days people just seem to be famous for the sake of being famous, like the folk on reality TV and Cliff Thorburn.

Dundee hasn't got that many famous faces so I have been pushed into the limelight. People are coming from all over the place to see me and my big house. I play deaf when they ring the bell and they can't get in because my house is like Fort Nob
⁶¹
but Frank's garden next door offers a pretty good view of my place.

In the last few weeks Frank has started allowing people to pay £5 to stand in his garden and watch me. He calls it ‘The Bob Servant Experience' and, as you'd expect, it's been very popular. Every time I go out my door there's someone watching and they can see in some of my windows as well. I feel like the whole world is gaping at me and passing judgement. It's like being on trial at Nuremberg, or being Cliff Thorburn.

You've got to help me, David, how can I stop this? I just went out to get a paper and I attach a photo of what was waiting for me. The man shouted that he was ‘an admirer' and I shouted back that he was an animal.

Help.

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From: David Mahlangu

To: Bob Servant

Subject: I can handle this for you

Hello Bob,

Well Bob this is not a normal situation in any way but we are a legal team who can think fast bob and so we can react to this in the proper way. Your friend does not have the right to do this bob that is very clear to me but it is not as simple as that. It must be proved in court that he is casuing you distress and behaving in a way against the law. This is where I help you Bob using all my experience to make these points to the court in a clear manner because this cannot be done by any man on the street of course.

Ok bob i hope you can see that we are on the right track to ending the behaviour of frank. I will also push for full refund from frank to you of all the money these people have paid because he is getting rich bob from your efforts and your famous nature in the neighbourhood.

Your lawyer,

ADV DAVID MAHLANGU (Esq.)

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From: Bob Servant

To: David Mahlangu

Subject: They're in the garden

David,

Thanks for your advice. You certainly sound like you know your business and I like the sound of getting the entrance money off Frank. I looked after that guy for forty years through my various businesses and now he's throwing egg all over my face and legs.

Things have stepped up a notch here tonight. I'd finished my dinner and went out to the garden to have a wee think about what bits of my dinner I'd liked the best when I nearly jumped out of my skin because there was some boy in the bushes. I didn't see him at first then he whispered ‘I love everything about you'. I managed to get a photo before running back inside while he shouted after me ‘keep doing what you're doing!'

That's me back in the house now, David, and I'm shaking like a horse. Frank's obviously started letting people over his wall and the situation is just completely out of hand. I feel under physical threat in my own home. Like the youngest Walton or Richard Madeley. It's getting towards the winter here, David, I can't risk getting trapped in the house.

I really appreciate your help here, David, in what must have be the toughest case you've ever faced. You must feel like Karl Kennedy
⁶²
during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Bob

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From: David Mahlangu

To: Bob Servant

Subject: The way forward

OK Bob,

You are right it is time to act because no one should be on your property that is a whole new level. No matter how much people want to see you and talk to you this is clear illegal and will be easy for me to prove and put a stop to.

Bob send me $2500 through the Western Union details i gave. I will then file an EMERGENCY ORDER through all international criminal courts. This will give police in every country full power to arrest FRANK and throw him in the jail with the theifs for what he is doing to do.

You are right bob you should not take more of this and just send the money and it will be stopped.

Your lawyer,

ADV DAVID MAHLANGU (Esq.)

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From: Bob Servant

To: David Mahlangu

Subject: There's hundreds of them

David,

Thanks for your kind words which have been the silver lining to a very tough day because things are going from bad to worse. Frank has started bringing in coach tours from Perth. Perth's not the most exciting place in the world
⁶³
so apparently through there they see me as a mix between David Niven and bubbly former Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke.

I just tried to nip out the house to go for a pint at Stewpot's and was greeted by the sight below. I tried to get through them but they were like a pack of alligators. They were pulling at my clothes and saying things like

‘What's your favourite colour?'

And

‘You've changed my life'.

And

‘Stop ignoring your fans'.

In the end I had to run back into the house. This is a nightmare, David, and you're the only man who can wake me up. It's like I'm tossing and turning in my bed and you're standing holding a bucket of special lawyer water. Douse me, David. Douse me.

Bob

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From: David Mahlangu

To: Bob Servant

Subject: Go to Western Union by the back

Yes Bob I know it is a nightmare that is why I have told you very clearly the instruction to send me $2500. Do this today bob you can get out to a Western Union just for this i am sure even if you must leave by the back of the house.

These people are all breaking the law and i will treat them like the dogs they are in the courtroom bob this is my grave promise to you bob but first you must send the money for me to file the EMERGENCY ORDER.

This is vital go now bob go out of the back of the house to a Western UNION

ADV DAVID MAHLANGU (Esq.)

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From: Bob Servant

To: David Mahlangu

Subject: Surrounded

David,

I'm afraid that won't work because I'm completely surrounded. I was up first thing this morning and darted out the front door to try and get to the bank and sort your fee when I was greeted with this – I don't think I've ever seen that many people David, not all at once anyway. They went absolutely potty when they saw me and started chanting. The chant went like this –

We want Bob

We want Bob