Compensation culture

In Competition No. 2545 you were invited to submit a letter written by a well-known literary character to an insurance company making a personal accident claim.
My favourite ludicrous compensation claim — which generated the classic Sun headline ‘Safeway leaflet crippled my dog’ — was made against the unfortunate supermarket chain by a couple after their dachshund injured itself leaping up to grab a store leaflet that had been posted through the letter-box.
The standard was cracking — commendations to Noel Petty, John O’Byrne, Mae Scanlon and Mrs E. Emerk. W.J. Webster’s entry strayed from the brief but was too enjoyable to be left out. The winners get £25 apiece, and the bonus fiver goes to Basil Ransome-Davies. The choking Beckettian circularity of his entry brings to mind not only the madness of today’s compensation-seekers but also the impotence of those embroiled in seemingly interminable claims and subject to the impenetrable absurdities of the insurance industry.

To whom it may concern: We, the undersigned, wish to claim on our policy. If we have a policy, that is. This is not easy to tell. Our son Hamm does not say there is a policy. Neither does he deny there is a policy. Conclusion: there may be a policy, evidence for it falling short of material proof.
We cannot move about, that’s the sum of it. Conclusion: we have no legs. Loss of legs surely the basis of a claim. No claim made when we had legs. If we had legs. But where we are now is not where we formerly were. Conclusion: once we had legs.
Were we born to live in dustbins? We do not know, neither does Hamm or his lazy servant Clov. Maybe. All destinies catered for, that’s the way of Providence.
Please pay up before death.
Yours most respectfully, Nagg and Nell
Basil Ransome-Davies