DEAR MR. POP STAR, a collection of hilarious letters to iconic pop, rock stars with fantastic in-on-the-joke replies from the artists themselves, out September 20

For more than a decade, Derek Philpott and his son, Dave, have been writing deliberately deranged letters to pop stars from the 1960s to the 90s to take issue with the lyrics of some of their best-known songs.

They miss the point as often as they hit it.

But then, to their great surprise, the pop stars started writing back.

"Dear Mr Pop Star" contains 100 of Derek and Dave's greatest hits, including correspondence with Katrina and the Waves, Tears for Fears, Squeeze, The Housemartins, Suzi Quatro, Devo, Deep Purple, Nik Kershaw, T’Pau, Human League, Eurythmics, Wang Chung, EMF, Mott the Hoople, Heaven 17, Jesus Jones, Johnny Hates Jazz, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, Chesney Hawkes and many, many more.

Derek and Dave Philpott are the noms de plume of two ordinary members of the public, working with help from a worldwide social networking community.