2001-12-07 - 7:51 p.m.

�Let�s not lie, we are quite plain, and find this life a filthy strain, and rather tiresome��

Perusing my inbox, I�m intrigued by the following: �PILL! INCREASE YOUR EJACULATION BY 581%!!!� Honoured as I am to be approached with such an exciting, generous and convenient offer, it did make me think. First of all, does this company have files on my, um, �volume�, that gives them empirical data on which to base their claim? Secondly, it seems an excessively precise figure, like I�m thinking, �Great! Because that pill that only increases my ejaculation by 573% really wasn�t working out!�. Thirdly, I�m not sure that much fluid has any business being produced and released from my body, not to mention the clean-up operation that would presumably take on Exxon Valdez-like proportions � and I don�t want to have be responsible for teams of environmentalists hosing down gulls. Um, not that I�m ever around gulls when�erm�anyway, moving swiftly on.

�Breathless with passion, experience the tranquil purity, the infinite duration of true Victorian love��

From the personals: �Open minded gull seeks�� Er, no, not that one. Here: �Mrs Robinson wanted by attractive male 38�� We needn�t go any further. THIRTY EIGHT? Sorry, Chester, but you don�t get to have Mrs Robinson fantasies at advanced middle age. By now, you�re MR Robinson � you�re saying you want an disaffected alcoholic who�s extremely bored with you and fucks recent graduates behind your back? Either that or you want to be seduced by a seventy-five year old. Would you like a toothless coffin-dodger to seduce you, is THAT what you�re trying to say?

I�m constantly (well, not that I�m constantly reading the personals, but you know�) stunned by the amount of people that refer to themselves via some kind of vehicular analogy. You know, �1953 model, elegant chassis, perfect working order, one careful owner, handles like a dream, huge throbbing ten inch exhaust pipe��, that kind of thing. Someone did that in like the first ever personals ever produced in about 1845, and it maybe verged on amusing, but now you sound like a desperate mutant who�s physical reality is so hideous that you have to dress it up in the least imaginative metaphorical prose since Moses. Having said that, I�ve never had any complaints about the efficiency of my catalytic converter. I think you know what I�m sayin��

Trite, obvious and dreary, love�s a clich�except when it�s indulged��

Today�s gentleman cynics