I half joked on my introduction thread here that my dialogue has the soul of a Samsung VCR manual. The responses to that made me laugh, though I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for the person that wrote the manual I so derided. Just for fun, here's his story. This is not at all serious: it's just meant to lighten a boring Tuesday afternoon.

What do you need to know about your new VCR? How can I best convey this to you? I don't know you; I can barely speak your language and the only ones of you I've ever seen are on TV, subtitled or dubbed.

I am sitting at a desk in front of a PC. The office could be anywhere; only the symbols on the screen are different between here and where you are. I have set my keyboard to use Western characters: my keyboard crowded with two symbols or three or four on every key, the better to speak to people I'll never meet.

How can I convey to you the sheer joy of using our VCR? How can I phrase this so that you understand that this is not just simply a "video player". This is a Samsung! This is the best VCR you will ever own. Everything, from the box to the user menu, to the carefully crafted, sleek but rounded remote control, is designed to let you know, This Is A Samsung.

No job is more important than mine: I write the manual. I am the one who connects you to your new Samsung, who educates you to connect your device to your TV by SCART, UHF, composite or component, and ensures that you have a user experience that will leave you breathless with joy at how simple it is to use.

But I have to write to you in English. English is a horrible language with which to instruct you. Where are the honorifics? In your language, a manual must be cold and dry: "connect the SCART lead to SCART socket A1 on the Samsung VCR and to an appropriate SCART socket on the TV." One cannot address the reader, there is no respect or warmth to the prose. To fellow Koreans, the Chinese, and even the Japanese with their convoluted bushido, you are the "honoured customer" and "noble reader". To the English-speaker, you the reader are nobody.

I could tell you how to make your VCR happy. I could laud you as a discerning customer for choosing a Samsung. I could tell you that a Samsung VCR will make your life better, but I cannot. I am not able to do this.

I have seen your kind, English-speakers, reading our work, reading our efforts to help you to understand that owning a Samsung is a soulful experience. I have seen your reactions, "bad translation", "woolly and imprecise", or the worst insult of all, "written in Chingrish".

I have studied the manuals of my competitors. The writer of Sony manuals writes works of art: he writes plain instructions in a way that let you know that you have bought Quality. I wish I could write like he, but I am Korean and do not know you; he is Japanese and understands Americans. I study his manuals, I read his work every day, but I cannot mimic his craft.

Honourable reader, please just connect the video to the TV with a SCART lead, and the aerial to the VCR. Then press "auto setup" on the remote. If at least you can do this, and understand the love that went into "auto setup" alone, maybe you can understand what it is that I try to do here.

Your VCR is designed to work on 240V power supplies only, and is not NTSC compatible. Please consider model SV-660E for full compatibility. The VCR will operate between 0ºC and 60ºC, and up to 90% humidity. Under no circumstances use this VCR in the bath.