Here is a message for Max, who is clearly having problems sleeping. If I had known that receiving a prize would have caused you so much distress we should have made it smaller. Perhaps : http://home.swipnet.se/photo/engelsk/other/mouse/mouse2.htm

There really isn't a problem. All the words used were carefully chosen. You didn't receive any plaudits at all for winning the competition as originally stated. As a New Zealander you were clearly outside the rules of the original competition, so as long as you put in an entry, based on the fact that it wasn't entering the competition that was fine and dandy.

You were given “the prize for the fastest response by a Kiwi”. This was a completely separate competition and not only were you the winner but you were also the only competitor. The prize was suggested for two reasons (i) It was a very elegant paragraph, (ii) What is a fish meant to do without a bicycle?