TO: BILL CLINTON (FORMER US PRESIDENT)

Dear Mr Clinton:

When you became the President, a lot of folks believed another JFK or Lincoln had arrived in the White House. You set out with noble ideals but you soon met with quite a few policy problems – for example, the failure (with the First Lady playing a prominent role) to introduce a national health system much like our own here in Scotland.

But everything went wrong for you (and your millions of fans round the world) when you messed it all up in the trouser department. It must have been embarrassing to have your sperm produced in court as evidence. No man would be happy for his sexual peccadilloes to be aired in a public arena, but what bothers me most is not actually how the most powerful man in the world could be caught with his pants down but your odd definition of “sexual relations.”

Sexuality is never black and white but a spectrum which incorporates every possible human (and sometimes inhuman) desire. But you have sworn that oral sex is not sex!  Are you kidding?

“I did not have sex with that woman,” you declared at the hearing, referring to Ms Monica Lewinski, despite the fact her dress was splashed with semen which subsequent DNA testing confirmed could be nobody else's but yours – in fact, according to official statistics, the odds against were one in 7.87 trillion. Monica once very kindly suggested that the stain could be spinach (a dip) but it's highly unlikely that spinach and sperm could be somehow confused in her mind, apart from the fact they begin with the self-same two letters.

So between you and me, Bill, it wasn't an accident, was it? You didn't ejaculate out of the blue (on her pretty blue dress) as she happened to get in the way!

This is not irrelevant, I venture to suggest. When it comes to government policy (war, the economy, health, education, etc.), it is hard to believe you are telling the truth when you have such a strange definition of sexual relations. How can people trust you when you say we should increase the level of taxes in order to balance the budget when you don't think that having your cock sucked is having real sex?

What if someone asked about the Palestine problem? Interest rates? Climate change? Nuclear weapons? The Balkans?  Could we trust you to tell us the truth?

I'm disappointed, Bill. But I am willing to change my opinion if you will admit you are wrong about what really constitutes sexual relations. More than most people, I am aware I am mortal and won't live forever. So perhaps, if you share my perspective on matters like this, you will finally tell us the truth?

In a parallel universe, things would be totally different. I am in the White House with a couple of friends (Rob and Stuart), and I have a few drinks and I stay up all night, and I have a few more drinks, and get a bit carried away, and I launch a few nuclear missiles, to see what will happen, and the next day the world ends, apart from a few billion cockroaches, spiders and sharks, who've seen it all before and always somehow managed to survive...

Did you ever feel tempted to give it a try? Did you want to know if Monica loved you because of your body or because you had the power to destroy the world (apart from a few billion cockroaches, spiders and sharks) and declare the end of history forever and ever?

A lot of people say they are addicted to sex as if that means they can't be held responsible for any of their actions in the trouser department. But I find that hard to believe.

Will you tell me the truth, Bill? It's not much to ask, for a man who has only a short time to live – unlike the cockroaches, spiders and sharks which I referenced earlier on (twice).

Best wishes,

Ben Nevis (deceased)

TO: CHARLES SAATCHI (ADVERTISING MOGUL & ART COLLECTOR)

Dear Mr Saatchi & Saatchi:

You have been responsible for many memorable ad campaigns, including pregnant men and pictures of the unemployed queuing for hand-outs which brought Margaret Thatcher to power – when unemployment not unsurprisingly rose even further. At one time, your media empire was so vast that you and brother Maurice tried to buy the Midland Bank, now part of HSBC. You also have a beautiful and well-proportioned wife who is well known for her cookery programmes, and suggestively licking her fingers. In fact, several friends of mine (Steve, Jim and Albert) would give their right arm just for one single night with Nigella, especially if there was chocolate involved. For me, however, the attraction is considerably spoiled by the fact that she is Nigel Lawson's daughter, but I guess (and I hope) you have never had similar problems, because once the thought has invaded your mind, it is hard to forget it...

But what I admire most, apart from your wealth (£120 million) and your beautiful wife, is that you have become Britain's and maybe even the world's greatest artist. During the Renaissance, many of the most accomplished artists (including Michelangelo and Leonardo) employed an army of assistants to do all their dirty work for them. For example, Leonardo may have painted Mona Lisa's so-called enigmatic smile but the landscape in the background was the work of an apprentice. In fact, your protege, Damien Hirst, is another leading example of this kind of practice, who took the idea even further. Sometimes, the great impresario simply thinks up an idea and instructs other people to make it – as if his own imagination has brought the idea to life via psychokinesis. And why not? There is nothing at all wrong in that. Do architects have to lay all of the bricks and install all the plumbing to claim that a building is theirs?

But what interests me most about you is that you have taken this a few steps further than anyone else (including your protege Damien Hirst) and do not even come up with original ideas in the first place! You simply select works and make artists and their “art” famous. In other words, your taste and your decisions are your art. And if you say it is good and you buy it, it immediately rises in value.

You have in fact invented a completely new art form – as if the art exists and is created in your mind by simply deciding it is art. And once you have inflated the prices of art by particular artists, you sell it and trouser the profits. In other words, there is no longer a debate about whether or not art is simply a business like all other trades and transactions. The opposite is now true – the business itself or the buying of art is the art. In fact, the purchase is more interesting “art” than most of the art it concerns (including your protege Damian Hirst).

At least, this is what I think. Can you comfort a hard-living man on his deathbed by confirming this theory is right? I know you are a private man who won't speak to the media or even go to opening nights at your own exhibitions, but it would be nice if you could settle the issue before I am put in a specimen jar like a shark or a cow or a sheep (like one of the great works of art by your protege Damien Hirst).

Has it ever occurred to you that in a parallel universe, you and Maurice may have bought the Midland Bank and appointed Fred Goodwin to run it? If that had happened, maybe you'd have lost all your money (£120 million), and you'd have to sell your artworks and your lovely house in Chelsea, and Nigella would leave you and maybe run off with another celebrity chef.

And finally, one little favour. It occurs to me if you decide that my letter is “art” and deserves to be published, it may persuade a publisher to publish it. Even if it does get published after my death, it would give me great pleasure and not inconsiderable comfort to know that my words will outlive me.

Best wishes,

Ben Nevis (deceased)

TO: ANDY MURRAY (TENNIS PLAYER)

Dear Andy:

The first time that I saw you play at Wimbledon, on TV in a pub in Aberdeen, I knew you were the greatest British player who had ever hit a fluffy yellow ball with a racket in anger. After three pints of Tennent's, you were two sets up against the feisty Argentinian David Nalbandian (whom my friend Donald always bets against because he's always likely to explode at any moment without any warning) and somehow, two pints later, you contrived to be beaten in five very difficult sets.  But I saw straight away (I have also played tennis myself) you were better than Mark Cox and Tim Henman playing together against you (which Donald says would also be an interesting bet).

I must admit it's not a good omen to speak of defeat at the start of this letter (i.e. your disappointing Wimbledon debut), especially in view of the fact that you still haven't managed to triumph in one of the majors, but I honestly think you're the best player Scotland has ever produced, and I honestly do like the way that you handle the media, who criticise you just because your voice is slightly monotone and, let's admit it, because you are Scottish.

Being Scottish may be something millions of people are proud of, even though it's hard to understand why anybody can be proud of something that happens by accident (i.e. place of birth), but our “proud” nationality comes with a pricetag – our decades of sporting disasters.

I suppose our great sporting disasters outnumber the triumphs by a factor of hundreds to one, but please don't let that put you off in your battle against all the odds to win one of the majors, which will surely happen before you get too old and have to bow out of the game, having never fulfilled your potential.

For Scots like us, the memories of many ignominious defeats come back to haunt us – e.g. the penalty conceded in the very last minute to England in a Grand Slam decider at Murrayfield, when the referee thought that a member of our team had handled the ball in a ruck, when it had actually been one of our (cheating) opponents. Gavin Hastings, one of our great sporting heroes, openly wept live on TV a few minutes later, so broken in spirit by such blatant sporting injustice. How many similar last-minute scores have denied us the triumphs our play has deserved?

The World Cup also brings back painful memories. In Germany in 1974, we ended up the only team unbeaten in the tournament, including the eventual winners themselves, but we didn't even make it to the next round (quarter finals), despite our moral win against Brazil. And what about the time we beat the Netherlands and also failed to qualify – the only team to beat the Dutch in normal time, including Argentina, who needed extra time to do the business in the final.

I could continue. Many Scottish people bear the scars of our sporting disasters but our lack of success would be ended forever if you made the almost impossible breakthrough and triumphed in one of the majors. You may be up against three of the most talented players who have ever hit a fluffy yellow ball with a racket in anger (Federer, Nadal and the Serbian player who crosses himself during matches), but one day you will surely turn the tables on your more gifted rivals. Maybe they'll get injured and retire or have one of their off days. But never give up, Andy. Never say die.

It must be awful having the hopes of your countrymen piled on your shoulders like great sacks of potatoes  And believe me I don't want to add to your burden. Just because I only have a few months to live (enough to see me through to the end of the season, if nothing bad happens), does not mean I want to put pressure on you or make you feel obliged to do much better. Your entourage will make sure you do not get too disconsolate or pay too much attention to fans like myself who would (literally) die if you never won one of the majors.

Tim Henman, for example, could have done it if the fans hadn't screamed at the critical moment, and fainted every time he missed a volley. Just because history sits on your shoulders like sacks of potatoes, do not surrender to depression or despair. Even if I am in heaven when you serve for the match, in the Wimbledon final, I will be flying round the centre court above you, willing the ball to obey your command – maybe even helping it fly through the air, with my prayers propelling it forward and adding a wee touch of backspin. Personally, I am not religious, but you know what I'm trying to say?

Maybe in a parallel universe, another Andy Murray is the world Number One, Scotland has just won the Grand Slam in rugby and lifted the World Cup again, beating England 1-0 in the final with a penalty in stoppage time. I have won the Nobel Prize for Literature and made my first billion. The world is at peace and a cow has jumped over the moon.

Good luck, Andy. Scotland is with you. And one day, the waiting will (literally) come to an end.

Best wishes,

Ben Nevis (deceased)

Update (July 8, 2012): Next year, Andy, next year...  

Update (September 10, 2012): I take it all back, Andy.  Well, nearly all... 

TO: NICOLE KIDMAN (ACTRESS)

Dear Ms Kidman:

I have long admired your movies, especially the one about the weathergirl when you murder your husband and have sex with a teenage admirer. But please clear up two things: Did you ever have sex with your ex-husband, Mr Tom Cruise? And do you still burn a candle for Ewan McGregor, your co-star in that musical extravaganza, Moulin Rouge? (The on-screen chemistry was there for all the world to see and once I also saw you being interviewed with him on TV, when you couldn't take your eyes off the dashing young Scotsman, a few feet away on the sofa...)

But back to Mr Cruise!

As someone who has only a few months to live, I feel free to ask highly personal questions, because I have nothing to lose. In fact, I will ask anyone whatever I wish to because I am not scared of being sued for defamation or libel, since no-one will be likely to pursue me after death. Many people I have already written to over the last few months, since I was given my terrible news, have gone out of their way to give honest replies, even when my questions went beyond what decent manners would suggest is appropriate. For example, Charlton Heston has been very frank regarding his encounters with Sophia Loren, perhaps because he also has nothing to lose. (Is Ms Loren still alive, by the way? Perhaps you have seen her at one of your Hollywood parties?)

Mr Cruise strikes me as a rather odd individual. And I'm happy for your sake that he is now out of your life (taking your adopted children with him).

What I have observed, from watching several of his films, is that he does not seem to like women. Or children. In expressing “affection” or “love,” he acts like a robot attempting to act like a human. And even his performance as a“robot” isn't very convincing!

Perhaps this is because he is a well-known Scientologist, with all his responses to “human” encounters determined by electrical impulses sent to his brain, which trigger a particular behaviour and programme his future responses.

In Eyes Wide Shut, made by the great Stanley Kubrick (whom my friend Donald doesn't rate at all despite the fact that Spartacus was one of his favourite movies until he found out the director was Kubrick), he squeezes your breasts through your nightdress as if they are dumplings. You wouldn't catch myself or any other hot-blooded gentleman treating your breasts like a couple of dumplings!  (Size is not everything, either.)

But anyway, what makes the movie so interesting now is that you and your co-star were set up by Kubrick, I strongly believe, to expose just how hollow your marriage was right from the start. The theory goes that Kubrick had detected the absence of animal lust in your husband, at least in his feelings for women, whereas in his other films, starting with Top Gun, he clearly has more time for men. In Eyes Wide Shut, the great director then exploits this weakness in your marriage and the end result, as we all know, was a hasty divorce.

So was it just a marriage of convenience?  And did the Scientologists destroy it, as rumours have also suggested?

The actor John Travolta also seems to be a leading Scientologist, so I wonder how many celebrities share their peculiar beliefs. Maybe Mr Kubrick was trying to save you not just from your husband but also the infamous cult.

Many years ago, one of my friends did a “Free Personality Test” at the Scientology centre in Goodge Street in London. They told him that he had a lot of “negative” feelings and that they could turn these feelings into positives, by plugging him into some kind of electric contraption. “But I have lots of negative feelings,” he told them, “because I am responding to the state of the world as it is, so instead of making me feel better, why don't you sort out the rest of the world?”

I suppose a sane reaction to insanity can look like madness. Do you not sometimes think so?

Forgive me if you think I am intruding on your privacy.  You're clearly very sensitive and also, despite all the people around you, quite lonely. To be glamorous and sexy and one of the most recognisable women on earth is not always enough to make men you desire feel the same intense passion. You will probably see the desirable Ewan MacGregor as someone who has settled down with someone much less glamorous and sexy, and you not only envy his wife but the fact he is happy in ways you can only imagine, despite the fact that you are now happily married in real life.

You said he gave you “tingles” every time he sang Your Song. You said that he was “beautiful.” Some people even suggest that the dashing young Scotsman was the cause of your break-up with Tom...

In a parallel universe, much like the one we inhabit today, you and Ewan may be happily married and settled in Crieff (where he comes from), with your family (two sons and daughters) around you. The highlight of your year will be a visit to the Highlands and two weeks in a white-washed self-catering cottage with an unobstructed view of the mountains of Assynt on one side, and the islands which sit on the distant horizon like musical notes, on the other...

Ewan is a teacher at the local Academy who once dreamed of being an actor and you are an artist who sells the occasional painting, to family and friends. But are you really happy? Do you secretly lust after danger and risk and adventure and being so scared that you like it, as if you are standing on top of a mountain and know you could die any second by deciding to jump off the edge? Do you think Tom Cruise is sexy even though he is shorter than you? Have you seen his latest movie, Eyes Wide Open, in which he very confidently shows off his animal passion and massages the pneumatic breasts of his co-star as if he is addicted to their loveliness? Do you think of him when Ewan makes love to you, night after night after night? Do you whisper his name at the moment of truth and hope Ewan has not heard the name of his fantasy rival?

I've enjoyed your films. I'll miss them when I'm no longer here. And I hope you don't have too many negative feelings, like my friend who did the free Personality Test, and that nothing I've said has upset you.

The world may not be perfect but to be alive is heaven (not where I am).

Best wishes,

Ben Nevis (deceased)

TO: STEVE JOBS (FOUNDER OF APPLE)

Dear Steve:

Very soon I will be joining you in Virtual Reality or wherever it is that we go when we die, but before I do, please let me ask you a couple of personal questions.

Please don't get me wrong, Steve. I admire you for a lot of things you did in your tragically foreshortened life but I simply can't join in the chorus of those who regard you as some kind of technical genius and spiritual guru. You had a good eye for design and understood instinctively what people really wanted (and expected) from computers, but your products did not “change the world.” Your products simply made the noise surrounding us significantly louder.

When you persuaded John Sculley to join you, you asked him if he wanted to “change the world or sell sugar water.” You thought that was a clever way to elevate your personal ambition to a mystical level, and motivate your future CEO, but what did you really achieve (apart from the fact that he sacked you soon after)? You were very good at spotting good products and clever ideas, and putting them inside a good-looking package, but you didn't invent things (apart from your personal image) or make any great technological breakthroughs – you borrowed and stole things (including the company name and the logo, from John, Paul, George and Ringo) and sold them as if they were yours. You created a corporate cult (not unlike the Beatles).

This is not to say, however, that you didn't make very good products and bounce back from your sacking by Sculley to turn Apple into the world's biggest business – without even wearing a suit and a tie. Along the way, you also revolutionised the music industry, transforming music into a commodity more successfully than anyone else.

In a parallel universe, however, Xerox Corporation and Atari could be ruling the world just as Apple is now. After all, they invented the clever stuff inside your products...

Did you know I worked for Apple as a public relations consultant in the early 1990s? Of course not! Why should you? But I learned a lot from reading your marketing/PR instructions – a very thick manual which spelled out exactly where words should appear on the page and the palette of colours, the fonts and the point size permitted. In fact, not much has changed in over 20 years, when I look at your latest announcements and new generation of products. The attention to detail is truly obsessive – as if designers would receive electric shocks if they dared to break one of the rules.

One day, in your Asia Pacific headquarters, I had a strange experience. The regional boss (Dave Whatever) asked me into his office to show me a film of a conference in Cupertino – I think it was one of your annual events when you rally the troops and say how well the company's done in the last year and how well it's going to do in the future and how you will conquer the world.

The conference was held in a very large theatre, filled with employees dressed in polo shirts of every imaginable colour. Some of them had pony tails, headbands and beards, like hippies at Woodstock, millions of light years away from the corporate world – the blue suits and ties of the IBM robots you sneered at in your iconic ad for the Mac.

We both sat down and watched the film and afterwards Dave asked me: “Waddya think?”

I thought for a couple of seconds and told Dave what I thought (a big mistake):

“You know what it reminds me of? The Nuremberg Rallies.”

Dave Whatever said nothing.

And several weeks later, we lost the account (it was my fault).

But was I wrong, Steve? Was Apple not a high-tech, pastel-coloured Gestapo inspired by the obsessive attention to detail and fanatical ideas of the great Josef Goebbels? Was that not the sacred vision you had when you took LSD in the early days, suddenly seeing that even though Goebbels was evil, his “branding” of the Nazis was absolute genius. While other corporations may be scared to admit it, you embraced those ideas completely. In fact, the “sugar water” peddled by Pepsi had much more in common with Apple than people may wish to believe. Instead of “sugar water,” you were selling the digital grey goo of data in which we are drowning. And the hippies in their uniforms (pastel-coloured polo shirts, pony tails, headbands and beards) all worshipped their all-knowing guru as if you had come down from heaven to open their eyes.

Did LSD play a big part in your corporate branding, as well as inspiring the notion that all information should be at our fingertips, all of us living forever in virtual reality, our DNA part of the infinite data that swirls through the cosmos, our minds integrated as one?

Flower power rather than a swastika? Instant nirvana instead of the Thousand Year Reich?

See you soon (I'm afraid).

Best wishes,

Ben Nevis (deceased)

p.s. I also took a lot of LSD in the seventies so I can understand exactly how your consciousness expanded and also how you managed to delude yourself and millions of others...