Ooh. Isn’t he lovely?

1. Buy book.

2. Log in.

3. On your own page, under Books, you will see an icon for the Warhorses of Letters book. Underneath, there is a link which reads ‘change the name that is printed inside the book’. (It may not say exactly that. I don’t have it open in front of me. But you will get the idea.)

4. Click on that.

5. A new page opens where there is a box in which you can type whatever name you like.

6. It is that easy. I just did it myself.

Book going well. If you are planning to buy it but hadn’t got round to it, the sooner the better and here is the site (with bonus video). In case you don’t know, we’re working with a new company which publishes books as soon as they get a certain number of pre-purchases. There’s no danger Warhorses of Letters won’t be published, but we’d like to get the first batch done and out of the door.

Unbound is a fantastic organisation. It is also new and has been very successful. Thus it is incredibly busy. It has also built its own payment system. These are really tough, technically. Thus, in short, there are small glitches and unclarities which they are working to iron out. In the meantime, in answer to some questions we have had:

1. Can I buy the book but get someone else’s name in the back because I think it would make a great present?

It WOULD make a great present! I’d say someone should snap you up but it seems like they already have. More specifically, ‘Yes. We will email all the people who buy the book checking what name goes in the back.’

2. The cards from Marengo and Copenhagen – can they be to someone other than me?

Much as above. We will email all card buyers asking for name and address details. You might ask them to say something specific, and they might comply. We cannot be totally certain. They are their own horses, especially Marengo.

3. I seem to be being charged as if I am abroad. Or, in some cases, as if I am not abroad. What’s up?

This has happened to a small number of people. It’s a little glitch. In almost all cases, hitting re-load deals with it. Basically, what is happening is that you get a display telling you the wrong price but when you look at what you are actually being charged, the box gives you the right price. We absolutely understand that this is not reassuring and Unbound are working on it.

Little apology to pass on from @copenhagenhorse, re the Gay Times letters.

Hi Everyone,

OMHG I am such a goofus. I joked about the Grenadiers being well bling these days but, as a Top Military Contact pointed out, the Grenadiers are Her Majesty’s Foot Guards and what I meant to say was the Household Cavalry, who ARE well bling.

Soz, KKH, 

Cop.

In other news, the Devine Warhorses are now 13-0 and going ever deeper into the Texas High School football play-offs. They (I feel like saying ‘we’) are underdogs against the Wimberley Texans this Friday. But we have hope, and his name is Joseph Sadler, who broke the all-time Texas single-season scoring record last week (it had stood for more than fifty years) and he might go on to break the national one even though he has sat out the second half of loads of games because the Warhorses were already home and dry. We are big fans.

(Devine is ‘The Avocado Capital of Central Texas’)

In other news, yesterday we wrote some hoof care notes for the book. Practical and funny, like these.

Lots of other people have asked if we’ll ever find out what happens next. To this we say, that the original version of the final play-out read:

And there the letters end. It is rumoured that there are other packets in the private collection of a Danish chewing gum magnate, secreted into the velvet backing behind the fish knives of the Officers’ Second Best Dining Service of the Coldstream Guards and in various other places, but until new funding is secured from the Comedy Commissioning Department at Radio 4, who are practically the only people still financing original historical research, it is impossible to take this further. Maybe that funding will eventually emerge. Here’s hoping. 

Here’s hoping indeed. And while we are on the subject of the authors’ cut, well, for good and sensible reasons we recorded more than we could use. Some of our favourite lines had to go. Below, for instance, is a passage from Copenhagen. If you buy the book, you get approximately 20% extra content on the letters alone, and you get a whole load of new letters. From C to his mum, for instance, and from M to a horse called Flambeau. And there’s more than just letters. You really should buy the book, and you should do it now, because it only gets published when enough people have signed up.

It is all go in Paris. Wellington has been made ambassador to France, which seems tactless. For his embassy, he has bought a massive hotel, which in this period means house rather than hotel. Everyone is falling over themselves to give the general presents. The king gave him two vases – big mistake, Wellington hates vases – and a tray which was originally painted for Napoleon’s mother and which features Napoleon and his Mameluke servant hunting in funny hats. Why they thought Wellington would want a tray in general or this one in particular I do not know. Also, what is a mameluke? It sounds like a sort of cat, but that cannot be the case.

Anyway, the Official Texas High School Football Team of Warhorses of Letters is, obviously, the Devine Warhorses, which is a bit how Copenhagen and Marengo think of themselves. And last Friday the Warhorses kicked the asses (a horse joke) of the San Antonio Sam Houston Hurricanes in the first round of the play-offs. We love the Warhorses, and we are big Joseph Sadler fans.

Sadler is the Warhorses’ star running back. He is putting up cartoonish numbers (he rushed for 466 yards IN ONE GAME against Hondo). He is on the verge of a single season points-scroing record and is up there on yards and TDs too. Go Joe. Or Goseph Joseph, if you don’t like your name being shortened.

We don’t know, but we assume that Warhorses of Letters is the Official British Radio Comedy of the Devine Warhorses.

As you may be able to see through the haze of my penmanship, these were our first notes towards last night’s episode. As you can also see, I won’t clean my keyboard just because some people tell me to, Ben Johncock. As you probably can’t see unless, the nature of editing letters, and of life being learning, means that two of our very favourite jokes in the whole Warhorses of Letters canon didn’t make it onto the air. If you need yet more reasons to buy the book, let that be one.