Dear Sir

I recently called you to ask if you would be making a donation to this year’s Cambridge at Christmas campaign. You informed me that you would not, because for the last few years you “haven’t seen the lights go up”.

This is a matter of great concern for the City Council, especially as for the last three years Fitzroy Street has had the largest display of Christmas lights in the whole of Cambridge. It is distressing indeed to learn that you have not noticed them.

It seems that there is little we can do until we ascertain the reason for this problem – naturally, since the lights have definitely been up in Fitzroy Street, we can’t help but assume that the trouble is on your side. Have you considered, for example, the possibility that your shop window is simply too dirty to see the lights out of? If this is not the case, may I suggest that you might like to pop along to an optician and see if the problem is with your eyesight – I would be happy to recommend several to you.

Should these areas fail to elicit any reason for your difficulty in seeing the Christmas lights, we’ll have to consider less likely options, for example:

1. a group of thieves stealing the lights whenever you tried to look at them (and indeed putting them back after you’d finished – odd behaviour indeed for thieves)
2. your shop being accidentally upside down, meaning that when you looked up to see the lights you were actually looking down at the pavement
3. a black hole in the vicinity of the lights, your shop, or indeed just you

Perhaps you could let me know if you can throw any light on the problem – no pun intended.

Kind regards,