Tom got this email:

Subject: Your bankrupt command of the English language

Dear Sir,

Some time ago, I think shortly after it was published, I bought your book "The Pentagon's New Map".

I was enjoying it and respected your ideas until I got to page 174 and was astonished to find you using the crude phrase "pissing off"

I was utterly incensed and disgusted to find, in what I had assumed to be an intelligent book written by a professional, such gutter language. There is a place for such language but not in a book such as this for which I paid good money.

In my whole life of reading hundreds of intelligent books I have never encountered such unprofessional language.

Are you not capable of expressing yourself on a normal level?

Your book should have had a prominent warning "contains offensive language" so that intelligent people could avoid it.

I have completely lost all respect for your ideas and yourself and propose to read no further but throw your book in the trash where it and your ideas belong.

It has taken this long for my disgust to die down sufficiently to allow me to write calmly to you.

Yours in despair,

Neil in California

Tom says:

That is the silliest feedback I have ever received, but thanks anyway.

Another customer served ...