A recent Myeresque article of mine in one of the weekend broadsheets, which was accompanied by an unusually nice and highly photoshopped picture, elicited one 'cross' reply from an elderly lady in the shires who obviously has even less to do in her spare time than I do since she had taken the time to seek out my private email address, and a number of sweet, if misguided, propositions from members of the single fraternity. One of my prospective suitors wrote to tell me what he would like to have for his last meal before the lethal injection... Ah, the old lethal injection line - it never gets old. In any case, since I referred to the men I had been dating as hapless trolls, it was never going to win me friends or influence people in my favour. Not least those people who've wafted in and quickly blown out of my life over recent months. My email was further swelled by a number of messages signed 'Hapless Troll' from worried friends. I had to do an awful lot of self-flaggelating apologising.
And, for the record, there was only one Hapless Trolls, who since he doesn't live in this country any more, didn't recognise himself. And at 6 foot 2 is actually more of a hapless giant.
However, a few months ago in a women's magazine I had another lovely (and again highly photoshopped) picture that looks absolutely nothing like me but rather a more idealised version of the person I might have been if I was born facing a wind machine and a row of lights backed with silver deflectors, and so - naturally - I wanted a copy of it. I wrote and asked the picture desk if they would send me a jpeg and a very charming girl called Stacey kindly sent me several different shots.
I assumed she'd be the work experience girl - you know, highly educated with a degree in Fine Art from The Slade and a MA from The Royal College, scrabbling about on her first job on the lowest rungs of publishing, making the tea, doing the photocopying, and dealing with vain old matrons and their annoying requests. As well as people like me.
We exchanged a few emails in which we quickly built up a brisk repartee.
We were on Day Three, and maybe four emails in apiece in, amid discussion of her handsome uncle who lived on a houseboat and was single whom she described as 'tall, leonine and someone she hoped to resemble before too long' when it slowly, oh so sloooooooooowly, began to occur to me that something about that last statement was a bit odd. Why would a girl want to look leonine?
And then I remembered Stacey Keach.
'I just realised - you're not a girl are you?' I typed.
'Noooooo,' s/he replied. 'It's a common misunderstanding with a name like mine, so I thought it was about time that I dropped a hint.'
I reread all my messages and wished s/he had dropped a hint a little earlier. Maybe before we arranged to meet for a drink.
