Man mows Taylor Swift a welcome lawn: 5 other simple ways to get a celeb's attention

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Taylor Swift might throw away tons of fan mail unread, but there’s no way she can discard of this particular message, as the enterprising admirer, a Rhode Island farmer, mowed his greeting into a corn maze.

Richard Manfredi heard that Swift was soon to move into the local neighbourhood, and decided against a polite knock on the door to make the 23-year-old starlet feel at home. Instead, he mowed a ginormous greeting message into a field – presumably in case she happened to be passing by helicopter. (Manfredi also showed some entrepreneurial guile by opening up his Swift-themed maze to the public, for an $8 entry fee.)

Swept up by the spirit of neighbourliness and megafandom, here’s a brief guide to getting the attention of your favourite celebrities:

1. The Van Gogh

Right, celebrities get letters all the time. You need to make yours stand out, and there’s no better way of doing this than a little ‘surprise blood’ soaking through the envelope. Your favourite celeb (in this case Jared Leto) will be all like “Oooh, I wonder what body part is contained in this parcel of fun”. Then they will open it. And there – gunging quietly besides the letter – will be your severed ear! Now they know exactly who you are!

Name one celebrity who wouldn't appreciate another ear! Not Jared Leto, for sure (Getty Images)

2. The practical option

Sometimes being a celebrity means long trips on the road, with plenty of hangers-on (eurgh) and nobody to look out for your best interests. Even Triple A-listers need some TLC from time to time. And who doesn’t eat cereal? Nobody. So take a lead from this Belieber, who sent Justin a box of good old breakfast crunch, with the note “Here you go, I got you this cereal. Hope you like it”. Plain-speaking can work wonders.

Justin Bieber. Doesn't get enough cereal

3. The sympathy injury

How far are you willing to go? If the answer is, ‘anything that doesn’t involve long-term physical damage to my body’, then, well, you might as well go home and never try and get a celebrity’s attention again. This Jessie J fan showed how much she admired the singer by breaking her own leg to sympathise with Jessie’s broken foot, and sending her pictures of the proof. Snap! Now you’re friends!

Just grit your teeth, break your leg, and think of Jessie (PA)

4. The portrait

Many celebrities spend very little time looking at themselves in the mirror, so they may well appreciate a portrait of themselves, just to remember how good they look to the outside world. It doesn’t matter if you draw like a 6-year-old (more’s the better! Celebs love kids!), it’s the thought that counts, as Benedict Cumberbatch recently admitted: “Look, I'm very flattered, but what do you expect me to do with it?”, he said.

Get out your pencils and draw your way to this man's heart (Getty Images)

5. The name change

Ok, so you’re a boring non-celebrity with a boring non-celebrity name that your celebrity will look at and think, ‘God, I’ve never heard that name before. NEXT!” Here’s what to do: change your own name to the celebrity’s OWN, perhaps with a hint towards possible marriage (!) as this Kanye West fan, Linda Resa, did. She changed her name to “Mrs Kanye West” and – for good measure – had a tattoo saying 'Kanye' scrawled across her hind-parts.

That's the real Mrs Kanye. But it could be you