Belinda Hadden - Sweet Revenge: 200 Delicious Ways to Get Your Own Back

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 60s 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

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.'Next page