"I don't want to look at Lonely Hearts," I said indignantly. "It's not that bad."
"Er, Bridget," said Sharon coldly. "Weren't you the one that wanted Tony Blair to set up dating agencies for Singletons? I thought we agreed that Political integrity was important."
"Oh my God, this is outrageous." Jude was reading out loud, shoving large pieces of a leftover Crunchie Easter Egg into her mouth. "'Genuine tall attractive male 57, GSOH, WLTM civilized, married luscious lady 20-25 for discreet uninhibited no-commitment relationship.' Who do they think they are, these creeps?"
"What's GSOH and WLTM?, I said.
"Giant sore on head. Willy limp, thin mollusc?" suggested Sharon.
"Great sex on horse with little tiny mouse?" I wondered.
"It means: Good Sense of Humour, Would Like to Meet," said Jude, suspiciously suggesting she might have done this before.
"I suppose you'd have to have a sense of humour to be too mean to fork out enough to say so in genuine words," sniggered Sharon.
Talking Hearts turned out to be v. entertaining. You can actually ring up and hear the people advertising themselves like contestants on Blind Date.
"Right. My name's Barret and if you'll be my sugar and spice, I'll give you champers on ice."
Is not very cool to start message saying "Right" thereby giving impression of huge build-up to scary messageleaving, even though obviously is scary.
"My work is thoughtful, fulfilling and rewarding and I'm interested in all the usual kind of things - magic, occult, paganism."
"I'm handsome, I'm very passionate. I'm a writer and I'm looking for a very special leading laydee. She'll take pleasure in having a good body, I'll be at least ten years older than her and she'll like that."
"Pahl" said Shazzer. "I'm going to ring some of these sexist bastards up."
Shazzer was in seventh heaven putting them on speaker phone then murmuring sexily, "Hello, is that 'First Time Advertised' on the line? Well, get off it quickly there's a train coming." Not very mature admittedly, but seemed amusing with all Chardonnay in selves.
"'Hi, I'm Wild Boy. I'm tall, I'm Spanish with long black hair, dark eyes, long black lashes and a lean, wild body....'" I read out i
n a stupid voice.
"Ooh!" said Jude brightly. "He sounds rather nice."
"Well, why don't you call him then?" I said,
"No!" said Jude.
"So why are you trying to get me to ring someone?"
Jude went all coy then. Turned out whole Stacey, Singleton Depression weekend thing had catapulted her into returning one of Vile Richard's calls.
"Oh God," said Shazzer and I simultaneously.
"I'm not going back out with him or anything. It's just ... nice," she finished lamely, trying to avoid my and Shazzer's accusing stares.
Got back home to hear answerphone clicking on. "Hello, Bridget," said deep, sexy, foreign young-sounding voice. "This is Wild Boy. . ."
Bloody girls must have given him my number. Horrified by sense of danger implied by total stranger having phone number, did not pick up but merely listened while Wild Boy explained he will be in 192 tomorrow night holding a red rose.
Then immediately called Shazzer and gave her bollocking.
"Oh come on," said Shaz. "Let's all go- It'll be a laugh."
So plan is, we are all going tomorrow night. Ho hum.
What am I going to do about hole in wall and stench on stairs? Bloody Gary! He's got ?3,500 of mine. Right. Am going to bloody well ring him up.