Know Your Enemy

"In 2004, Bevis Hillier, the venerable biographer of John Betjeman, was horrified to discover his arch rival, A. N. Wilson, was also planning a biography of the poet. Spotting an opportunity to pay Wilson back for a series of insults and slights over the years, he decided to forge a love letter from Betjeman to a (real) woman by the name of Honor Tracy.

This sexy missive, which included the immortal line 'Tinkerty-tonk, my darling', was in fact a cunning acrostic, the first letter of each sentence spelling out a hidden message to his enemy. To Hillier's 'jig-dancing, air-punching' glee, the letter duly appeared in Wilson's biography. And the message encoded within it? A. N. WILSON IS A SHIT."

Olivia Lang, reviewing Melissa Katsoulis' Telling Tales: A History Of Literary Hoaxes in the Observer. It's rather reassuring to know that even esteemed men of letters occasionally feel the need to stoop to such wickedly puerile levels of behaviour, isn't it?