Letter to David Haye (an apology)
Illustration by Sophie Rogers
Dear David Haye,
Recently I was chatting with my mates about boxing and someone brought up the subject of how strong you are, to which I said: “Yeah, David Haye’s really strong…I’d say he must be at least three times stronger than I am!”
This, predictably, has meant that now whenever I’m performing mundane day-to-day tasks, they say things like “David Haye could eat three of them” or “I hear David Haye can carry three of those.”
I am writing to apologise for this remark. In the sober light of day it’s obvious that I drastically overstated my own strength. You could certainly destroy three of me with both arms tied behind your back. In fact, even in a Matrix style scenario where I could create a vast number of duplicates of myself, I imagine you would have little trouble fending off my army of clones indefinitely.
Had I proclaimed that I cook like Heston Blumenthal, or that I play guitar like Hendrix (when everyone knows I can basically just play Wonderwall) I probably would not be writing a letter of apology, but I feel that these cases are significantly different in some key respects: Jimmy Hendrix didn’t ever win 24 fights by knockout, and – to my knowledge – Heston has never been awarded the belt for heavyweight champion of cooking.
I pray that my poorly thought out remark has not angered you, for in an actual confrontation I’m pretty sure you would bash me into tiny pieces – realistically, my best shot at defeating you would be to try and somehow drown you in my own blood…
Please accept my humble apologies,
Solomon Radley
