Dear Danny,

RE: The Red Planet Productions Prize

Danny, Danny, Danny, you obviously didn't read my submission carefully enough. Did you get what it was about? Maybe you didn't realise it was mine? You did read all of it, didn't you? Would it help if I sent you the rest of the script anyway, just to give you the context for those first ten pages? It was the formatting wasn't it? That actually is standard industry formatting for BBC drama, you know? Did you have a problem with the title? That can change. I'm not wedded to the title - or at least, not to the order the words come in - obviously all the words have to be in the title, of course. But I can be flexible. And we don't have to set it in Cardiff. It could be Edinburgh or Belfast. Though, obviously, Cardiff's better. Are you absolutely sure you actually read it? I mean, it might have slipped through the cracks somewhere - you did have all those problems with the submission process, right?. Maybe my script got lost. You couldn't just double-check for me, could you? I'm just wondering whether it might have gone over your head - some of the sub-themes were intellectually challenging, and they're not fully explored or explained until later in the piece. Look, why don't I just send you the rest anyway? You can look at it (I am a mate, after all), and if you like it (you will!), then you can just slip it into the pile and pretend there was a cock-up somewhere along the line and it should have been there all along. We need to sort this out, Danny, because it's going to really embarrass you one day. Did you know that Tony's a good friend of mine, actually? I didn't mention it on the application because I thought you were bright enough to see which way the wind was blowing, but maybe I should have spelt it out a bit better. No hard feelings. We can sort it, yeah? Drop me a line.

Yours affectionately

Paul