Letters of Note shared a hillarious letter exchange this week from Private Eye, a satirical news publication. The instigator was Private Eye, after they published an article claiming James Arkell, a cred manager, had done some shady dealings. Arkell had his lawyers reply to Public Eye demaning they redact the article and pay him. They note, quite weirdly to be honest, "His attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of your reply."

Private Eye, not missing a beat, responded with this:

Dear Sirs,

We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr. J. Arkell.

We note that Mr Arkell’s attitude to damages will be > governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off.

Yours, Private Eye

For reasons you can imagine, the response is quite notorious. Rumor has it, the phrase, "I refer you to the reply given in Arkell and Pressdram (Public Eye's publisher), is quite popular between lawyers and journalists.