Dear Barry

I am in need of some money to help cheer up my dog - Gary Neville, I know it is a funny name for a dog but I am an avid Man U fan.

Gary has not been himself for a number of weeks. I have tried everything to cheer him up, including buying him new clothes and shoes, taking him to expensive restaurants and I have even bought him a Nintendo Wii. Nothing seems to work.

He is really down and I'm at my wits end.

I am thinking that plastic surgery might be the only answer.

I often hear people saying " Ugly dog" and "Ugly fat bitch" when I go to the shops. I think Gary has overheard these comments because dogs have very, very good hearing.

I am fat and ugly myself and so I know how these kind of comments hurt. I was thinking that I could get a plastic surgeon to make him look like the real Gary Neville and then the comments wouldn't be so bad.

Please send €15000 so I can get him fixed up.

If you can't send it let me know and I'll have him killed and get a cat instead.

Thank you

AALTJE, LEIDEN, NETHERLANDS

Read an interesting story the other day when I was in Boston finalizing a deal to build a giant tea pot in the harbour. 

It was about a group of people, some from MIT and Harvard, who’ve come up with a foolproof way to win the lottery-the only catch being you need 600,000 dollars to invest. 

But they reckon they’ve won nearly 2 million dollars already.

 I’d say good luck to them, but from my own bitter personal experience I know that money only brings misery. 

A luxurious, wrapped in the finest furs, sipping 100 year old cognac while living in a house so high tech that the local yokels think it has been sent from the future and is inhabited by a time travelling chrononaut called 'Mr Barry' misery, but misery all the same.

Anyway have a read. 

http://articles.boston.com/2011-07-31/news/29836200_1_lottery-tickets-claim-prizes-massachusetts-state-lottery

They say money can’t buy you love and unfortunately I know this to be true.

It’s a lonely life at the top and sometimes I wish I had someone to share my shopping trips or vacations on gorgeous private islands. 

But I haven’t and I don’t think I ever will. I just never seem to meet the right girl. Just a successions of ‘Nearlys’. 

Maybe if my dream comes true and I give my fortune away then I’ll meet someone who takes me for who I am - a genius software engineer who was once wealthier beyond most people’s dreams. 

Sorry to be so personal but its times like this, Christmas, Hannakah, Eid, Diwali, Kwaanza and Festivus, that I feel the need for companionship and someone to snuggle with under the mistletoe, shalwar kameez, 7 candle thingymajig.

Look after your loves

Barry