Sweet Revenge: 200 Delicious Ways to Get Your Own Back

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