Tuesday, 17th May 2005.

The Lady of Letters

Rabia, who sits two desks away, gets all manner of curious emails from disgruntled authors, but she looks to her journal editors as a source of relative sanity. The production role is a curious one: we live in a world of strange requests and angry, sniping academics who will frequently send berating hate mail in bad English, or urgent pleas to "ignore the ridiculous comments of my colleague", in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the way you'd behave at school - "Tell Mike I'm not speaking to him". But you can always rely on editors to be sensible and rational - there are a few cranks, but the fact that we talk about them so much is a sure-fire indication of their comparative rarity, and the fact is that most editors are calm, polite, helpful and dedicated to their work.

In one of her titles, Rabia corresponds primarily with the editor's secretary. Communication, I'm told, was light and friendly but always strictly business. "We were just two people slogging away at this difficult journal," she said. "I never thought our relationship was anything but professional." All this changed this morning, when Rabia received a somewhat unusual request. The secretary's cousin wants to visit the UK, apparently, to see relatives in London. In order to make this visit it is necessary for her to receive an official letter of invitation from a British citizen. And she wants Rabia to write it.

"I've seen these letters," Rabia said. "I had to do them myself in the past when my father came over. You have to assume financial and personal responsibility for the person you're inviting. I can't possibly do this for a woman I don't even know!"

Of course, you have to ask why such a request has been made - why, for example, can the request not come from the London relatives? A simple answer is that they aren't yet aware of the visit - that it's a surprise (and perhaps not even a particularly welcome one). It's also quite possible that they aren't UK citizens themselves - but in the light of current parliamentary debates about border control, that's an avenue that invites a lot of speculation as to whether they should even be here in the first place.

Finding an excuse to not do the letter is relatively easy - it's a simple matter of company policy. This is supposed to be a professional relationship and to do this would be to place particular strain on the company, as well as setting a precedent for all kinds of 'favours'. Nonetheless, Rabia dreads having to reply: she doesn't want to upset anyone, and even though she'll be telling the secretary that she categorically can't do this for her, thereby closing the debate, she fears that things will become a little sour as a result.

"It's just a matter of how you phrase it," I said. "You have to make it sound like you're really like to, but can't. Alternatively, you could put them off by demanding something in return. Here's an idea. Begin your email like this: 'I would be delighted to assist you in this matter, but if I am to do this for you I must ask for a favour in recompense. My Uncle, the late Robert Guie, ex-military head of state of the Ivory Coast, has left fifteen million USD in assets following his recent murder..."