To whom it may concern at Channel Ten,

(and above all, to Matt Agnew, Bachelor-Sultan 2019),

This year, all of Australia has been watching the skies with fixed attention to see whether the stars
will align for astrophysicist and Swinburne PhD Matt Agnew, as he sets out in his pursuit of love in
this year’s Bachelor.

Like many other Australians, we were accordingly deeply shocked when an unheralded comet in the
striking form of Mme Abbey streaked across Matt’s skies this week, leaving in her wake a trail of
disharmony at the Bachelor mansion.

To give her due credit, our comet made no attempts to hide her intentions. Initially slated in the
Antony and Cleopatra photo shoot of Thursday night as a mere attendant waving the fan, Abbey was
threatened with being completely eclipsed by the stunning Vakoo, playing a sultry and demur
Cleopatra.

Abbey quickly turned the situation around, insinuating herself onto the couch, and very soon, like
some errant Venus, coming to dominate Matt’s unsteady attentions. The chemistry between the two
of them was palpably "stellar".

When Abbey was then voted one-on-one time with our star-gazing Bachelor by the other
contestants, the result was inevitable. Abbey’s reappearance at the cocktail party, sans lipstick and
bearing a rose as red as her glamorous gown, all but guaranteed what now seems so regrettably to
be about to unfold.

Several of the other girls soon began to register their discontent. How could it be that, just meters
away, Abbey could have had the gumption to be ‘making out with our boyfriend’, as one put it? A
telling question for which no immediate answer has been forthcoming as tensions rise amongst this
year’s cast.

Would it be presumptuous of us here then to pretend to offer Matt some advice, before comet Abbey
sends the entire galaxy of his seraglio into complete chaos? Can we venture to advise him, before
these first murmurs of discontent gather themselves into a chorus whose rising volume can only
herald one thing: complete revolt and the end of all chances for love?

Surely, if Matt’s imminent walk out, advertised for over a week, is about to materialize, he will be
open at just this time to friendly words that might bring the astrophysicist back down to earth—
before it is too late.

We take Matt’s decision to take the Persian beauty Sogand out on the first single date very seriously.
We also take it as an indication that our earnest entreaty, as follows, will not perhaps go unheeded.

One of the most famous and popular works of the 18th century was the Baron de Montesquieu’s
Persian Letters, published anonymously in the early 1720s. It has never been more relevant than
this week.

The book records the letters sent to and from two Persian men, Rica and Usbek, as they sojourn in
Paris, in search of knowledge of the world.

And here’s the rub. Usbek is a Persian Sultan. So, like Matt, this means he is in possession of a large
seraglio of the most beautiful women in the kingdom, given over by custom and law alike to serve his
every need and desire.
Usbek, however, is a rather strange fellow. Unlike the sociable, free-spirited Rica, he is predisposed
to scholarly pursuits, unworldly reflections, and moody brooding.

Amazingly, he seems to have come to France in part to escape from his royal housing in Persia,
leaving behind him a seraglio of increasingly unhappy, frankly bored and discontented concubines.

Several of them, alongside the Eunuchs charged with their supervision, write to Usbek in tones of
increasing urgency over time. They detail the growing resentments and jealousies that begin to
simmer and then boil over in the master’s absence.

Usbek, however, shows himself unable, unwilling or uninterested in trying to pour the soothing balm
of his words onto the festering wound of discord, let alone to express any willingness to return and
quell with his royal person the flames of infighting between the effectively imprisoned women.

Until it is too late.

Things reach such a point amongst Usbek’s concubines that, in the end, open revolt does break out.
Some of the girls, feeling rejected by the object of their most ardent longings, begin to consort with
other men. When the eunuchs exact a righteous vengeance in the absent Sultan’s name, all hell
breaks loose.

In the end, Roxanne, Usbek’s favourite, commits suicide. And all hope of love is gone.

So, are we being too obtuse to suggest that Matt at this time could do a great deal worse than to put
aside his astronomy textbooks, and pick up this much-loved literary classic by Montesquieu? Does
anyone really need a telescope to see that comet Abbey’s fiery entrance into the orbits of Matt’s
affections may not betoken the worst forms of disruption and disorder?

Will Matt not listen to reason and the experience of a Sultan who, like himself, came to know only too
well the great vexations that attend being the simultaneous object of so many affections, and of
women who, seemingly despite all social progress since 1720, have consented to be effectively
locked up in a mansion for several months at a stretch with nothing to talk about but their mostly-
absent master?

Can the worst be averted? Or will Matt prove himself another Usbek? Can the course of the too-
errant stars for a moment be halted, so balance and order and, let us say it!, the possibility of a
lasting cosmic connection, nay sacred marriage, be restored?!

Or, heaven forfend, must we begin to dread Roxanne’s fate for Elly, Chelsea, or one of the other of
Matt’s present favourites in this year’s Bachelor seraglio.

None of this is to suggest in any way that we do not look forward ardently to next week’s programs.
Au contraire. We venture only to submit our hope that, between now and then, this letter can
somehow make it into Matthew’s hands and that, between the one-on-ones, group dates, and
personal training sessions, this year’s Sultan can be prevailed upon by one of his eunuchs to read it.

We would be only too willing to send a copy of Montesquieu’s Lettres Persanes to Matt, addressed
direct to the Bachelor Mansion in Persepolis, Sydney, NSW.

Sincerely—no, urgently—yours,

Concerned (Monsieur Charles de Quieu M. de Paris)