Dear Hillary,
Happy New Year and I want to wish all your readers a Happy New Year as well, though I’m a bit late. I look forward to reading your journal every couple of weeks, after a couple of beers. Always seems to make the world spin a bit faster, eh? Anyway I hope your team wins in the cup and you get lots of champagne to celebrate.
Irving
Dear Irving,
I don’t know what you’ve been taking, my Petal, or even what you are reading, but this newspaper comes out every week, not every couple of weeks. And you are completely correct, New Year was about eight months ago. That’s slightly more than “a bit” late. Nevertheless, it’s nice to hear from you and I hope you’ve got tickets for the 2008 Olympics. You wouldn’t want to miss it, would you? (Where do these people come from? And they allow them to breed!)