Since discovering his name was Clive, and that he worked in insurance I had also uncovered the fact that behind those dark shades were some erotically charged thought processes.

“How’s that?” I ventured; almost afraid to hear the answer.

“The male orgasm is called, in French, le petit mort….” He paused for effect, smiling, and lifting his beer glass to his waiting mouth. The froth twinkled on his upper lip. “A little death…” He put the beer glass down, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

People jostled around me to get to the bar, a stray elbow hit me in the back. I was trying to concentrate on his words, and not just the lasting image of that froth on his upper lip.

“A little death?” I repeated vaguely.

“Yes, a little death because after the male orgasm it’s like a death. The impact, the power of the ejaculation….” He smiled again, enjoying the words in his mouth.

“–it‘s like dying.”

“I’m not sure the female orgasm has quite such a deathly ring to it…”

“No it hasn’t got that terminal edge.” He smiled again, but only half of his lips curled upwards, as if testing the air for humour. ”Some scientists did tests which proved that a hormone is released in the male after the orgasm that sends him to sleep. They don’t know why, but it explains why men just can’t keep their eyes open afterwards…”

“And there we were thinking it was an excuse to avoid conversation.”

“It’s just plain biology.” I could see Penny out of the corner of my eye across the bar winking at me, and making the kind of hand gestures that imply inserting a penis into her mouth. Her partner witnesses this puppet show, and takes it as an opportunity to engage her in yet more foreplay. I watch as they disappear off to the toilets.

“There must be some biological reason for it?” I wrestle my way back to the conversation.

“We could try our own experiment, and you could write about it?” He was smiling again.

“There you are!” It was Megan. She had succeeded in downing several rounds of Jager bombs, and was worse for wear. Jeff, a young plasterer from the area, was hanging off her like a new handbag. He sensed that morosity could turn to carnal beastiality at any moment, and he didn’t want to miss that turning point.

“Jeff says we can all go back to his gaff!” She slurred, turning to Jeff.

“The more the merrier,” he assisted, holding her up.

“Well…” I was trying to think of an excuse.

“We could take my car!” Jeff almost yelled.

“Wait! Haven’t you been drinking?” I asked, feeling like the only one with a degree in common sense.

“Yeah, but I only live round the corner,” he offered like a hurt puppy.

“Has nobody realized that we are here—at a funeral—for exactly this kind of behaviour?!” I was angry now. Megan looked crushed. A hush fell on the crowd as if the reverberation of realism had broken through the drunken revelry. Clive eyed me with a growing piquancy; he seemed to relish my aggressive reasoning.

The buzz of voices started back up again. “Excuse me a minute,” I said to Clive, and steered Megan away from the bar and into the ladies room.

“Ow, you’re hurting my arm,” she moaned as we got inside the door.

“I’m sorry—I know you are grieving—but you cannot just jump in a car with the first man who comes along, high on Jager bombs, and drive off when he has clearly been drinking!” Megan looked at me with big eyes which were beginning to fill like tea cups. “I’m sorry,” I said throwing my arms around her as she sobbed gently into my arms, wetting the roses on my sweater with the dew from her eyes, and releasing a fresh smell of mothballs.

That was when Penny and Peter chose to somewhat shyly emerge from a cubicle, and try to slip past us.

“Not so fast you sex-perts!” I yelled. They stopped, horrified. “I would appreciate it if you could break off from coitus long enough to assist me in getting Megan home in one piece—have you guys got a cab number?”

“But I don’t want to leave!” wailed Megan. “I’m grieving—I need drink!”

“You need a good nights sleep and a hot water bottle.” Peter was standing dumbfounded, and frankly I was beginning to wonder if he was good for anything but sex.

“Peter—hello?” I tried. “Penny does he speak?”

“Yeah, he’s just always a little simple after sex,” she smiled.

“It’s that scientific effect I was telling you about.” I hadn’t noticed, but Clive had somehow let himself into the ladies and was leaning against the wall looking very pleased with himself.

“I have a car,” he offered, “and I’ve only had a couple of ecstasy tablets….”

Or rather my eyes met the inky blackness of his dark shades. He looked cool and sophisticated in a two piece suit and white shirt, unbuttoned just enough.

What he would have seen—through his shaded vision: a woman in a

1950’s sleeveless wool mix sweater daubed in roses—(still smelling of mothballs). Hair—dark and unwashed—pulled back in an authentic ponytail circa 1980. He would have questioned his desire, after all, she wasn’t sexy in the traditional sense. More homely, second hand rose. Less minx, more kitchen sink. But he still walked over.

The wool was itchy on my dry, winter skin, but I tried not to itch unattractively as he circled the wreaths that lay on the ground, like a beautiful obstacle course.

I was wishing I had taken longer over hair and make-up, and never entertained a second hand shop for its worthy realism; dubbed the must have mix with high street essentials from every sartorial fashion magazine. Who has the time to rummage these days? And who died so I could sweat in this?

Megan was sobbing gently into the arms of a young man whom I assumed would be her next boyfriend, the palliate for the cold, hollow death of her lover. John lay in the box we had just watched descend below the floorboards.

Drinking and driving is a past time that the country dwellers take upon themselves much as cowboys take on steer wrestling or Spaniards take on bullfighting. It is part of the culture; a necessary evil to prove that bravado, beauty and stupidity can still go hand in hand in civilized society.

The much loved past time of puddle hunting in four-by-fours was never enough for most warm blooded country males. They needed to fuel the taught realism of cow shit and cold air with cart loads of alcohol. Enough to make it scary, dangerous, and life threatening.

Megan thought she could finally hang up her on line dating cuffs when she met John. He was kind, generous, and had his own tractor. Not to mention the fact that she blurted out later, once the alcohol had taken effect, that he had an enormous penis.

Indeed, nobody would forget him. The crematorium was packed. There wasn’t a pew left vacant, and the standing room was full too. Hand stitched logos of his tractor adorned the pulpit. A giant floral tractor lay on the ground amidst the many other floral tributes, kisses’s scrawled out after his name like bird tracks.

“You’re a friend of Megan’s aren’t you,” Mr Dark Shades opened with.

“Yes, are you a friend of the deceased?” I offered feeling that this was like some wedding gone wrong where the bride and groom’s friends adorn different sides of the church; this time we just mixed in together with our grief.

“Yes. You write that sex column don’t you?” A smile crept out from under his shades.

“Well it’s not—“ I fumbled to find the right words, “–technically a sex column—more a look at dating in the modern world…”

“Can I be in your column?”

“That depends on how informative you can be…” I smiled.

He peeled off his dark shades, revealing his lets-go-to-bed eyes, beltingly blue, “I’m Clive by the way.” He extended his hand. It was a firm handshake.

At the bar come wake afterwards, Clive pulled up a bar stool as the barman passed me my order.

“What are you drinking?”

“Water”

I necked two aspirin.

“Have you got any more?” He nodded towards the pills.

I dished out two into his outstretched palm, and passed him the water.

As he swallowed and looked grateful, I quipped, “You do know you’ve just taken ecstasy don’t you?” His eyes widdened.

“Just kidding. You’ll be fine–just paracetamol.” He looked understandably relieved. “So do funerals always give you a headache or is it just last nights hangover?”

“A bit of both.”

Megan wheeled over, her tear streaked face, sallow with grief, “Have you got any more of those?”

I handed out two more, feeling like the camp nurse. Clive took up the joke, “You do know it’s ecstasy don’t you.”

“Good—drugs—good,” Megan confirmed, and wheeled away, her eyes wild.

Penny pulled up a barstool, misreading the signals I was trying to give her to stay away.

“There’s already a couple making out in the bathrooms. It will be shaggageddon before the evening is through.”

“It puts the fun in funeral,” I mused.

“So who’s your friend?”

Penny now no longer part of Singlesville, her new lover holding up the other end of the bar, doesn’t feel the need to spare singletons any embarrassment. If they can’t survive in open terrain they need to get hardier skin, and hunker down on the nearest lone target.

Even the trauma ensuing from her daughter’s recent encounter with her dildo has left her unmoved by the harm she could be inflicting on others with her now healthy sex life. The questions from her daughter were forthcoming, the answers less so. It seems the child will be left in the dark a bit longer.

“Clive,” he says ignoring her impropriety, and smiling.

I could see him ploughing a seam through my winter wonderland in my mind. It might be time for a little horticultural strimming of my lady garden.

Penny smiled her all knowing, coupled up smile, and slunk—finally–away.

But alas Megan was back.

“Was that seriously ecstasy?” Her eyes are wider now, and I can’t tell if she is happy with this possibility or distressed.

“NO, it’s not ecstasy. Are you ok? Do you need to get some fresh air?” She looks positively pale. Trying desperately to struggle with the need to sort out my sex life over the need to sort out my friend, I decide to ‘do the right thing’ and steer Megan towards the door for some fresh air, casting a plaintive look over my shoulder at Clive where he leans tantalizingly at the bar.

“I’ll look after you drink,” he says cradling my glass of water in his massive paw. Massive hands, I muse—another point in his favour.

Outside there are several people huddled around a poor excuse for an ashtray—a Carlsberg coaster on a large beer barrel. They seem to be flicking the ash everywhere, and using the beer barrel as a point of reference. The incoming inebriation is showing itself in the droop of their eyelids, the gentle slur of their words. Megan’s tears are now mixing with the rollie she is trying to build. Her fingers look positively numb with cold, her alabaster thumb turning the tobacco in on itself.

“Whose up for a round of jager bombs?” she calls as if to war.

I volunteer with the sole intention of getting back to the bar before Clive gives me the slip—or rather so that Clive can give me the slip.

To Be Continued….

Not since the invention of the candlestick has waxing found such favour with the masses. No man would come near a woman these days who hasn’t previously been stripped of every pubic hair till she looked like a pubescent girl.

The case for the defense sights a particularly well thumbed 1970’s Playboy edition where the sunlight bathes the soft, lustrous pubes of the young blonde with a gentle warmth, and her lady garden has some semblance of reserve, dressed as it is with a modicum of garden verdure.

Surely this is how God, if you believe in Him, chose us to be clothed—with a plethora of hardened curl to mark this sacred spot? A gentle trail leading to the Holy Grail.

Surely it says something deeply disturbing about the evolutionary male that he should seek his women in the guise of an underage girl—lacking all but a landing strip of hair, or even less, no landing strip at all? Bare as the day she was born. Lending itself to the notion that not only Jimmy Saville has a penchant for the youth of today. It would seem that there is a worrying trend for the early debauchery of the young. And if you can’t find one young enough to suit your pleasures the would be male has his woman unveil her womanliness and feign girlishness.

It’ll be jelly tots for tits next.

A hairless bush is not in keeping with the ripened breasts of a woman. Half woman, half girl is not a Greek myth it is a modern dilemma–underage rape in the name of lust.

This worrying new bias has its roots in porn where a woman will just as happily take it up the jacksy as remove all vestiges of womanhood. Here men indulge their fantasies to their hearts content without the slightest need to dish out a compliment, a warm dinner, a line in foreplay, or a peck on the cheek. Here a woman is simply a piece of garden furniture to be sat on, and left to bear all the breezes of the great outdoors without her original fur. Vestiges of this mass denigration ooze into the sex lives of women who have never even cuddled up to a porn flick with their nearest and dearest.

They suddenly find their man more interested in their back passage than their front passage, and only able to get it up if she is bent over in sling backs. And the popularity of ‘Fifty Shades’ has done nothing to convince men otherwise. They probably believe that in our hearts we are all leather bound vixens begging for a beating.

Women first hear about the ‘Brazilian’ or the ‘Hollywood’ and think it sounds like the latest in movie trends, only to find they are expected to look like a celebrity porn star in the bedroom now. No longer are women expected to be a whore in the bedroom, a cook in the kitchen, and a mother in the nursery. Now they are expected to be a porn star in the bedroom, bent over the kitchen sink, and nursing a deep desire for a threesome in the nursery. Plus if you aren’t bi-curious you’re lacking home skills.

I wonder what other attributes of woman hood we will be expected to give up now that we are the living epitome of walking adolescents? We already strap ourselves into towering stilts in the name of sex, squeak into tight skirts, and leave our coat at home on cold nights in the name of ‘pulling.’ Whose to say we won’t go the whole hog and just become one big pleasure hole? As long as we put the dishes in the dishwasher there should be no complaints.

Image referenced in top Banner: The Elder, Lucas (1472-1553) Adam and Eve

Bee, Megan and I look on with our mouths open. She is certainly improving. Her one piece, however, is riding dangerously high up her crack.

“Honey be careful, that’s the kind of flossing that can only create problems,” croaks Bee, ever the dental hygienist.

As Penny slides to the floor, she adds a flourish of the arms, and we all clap appreciatively.

“Right,” she says red faced, “whose next?”

“Oh God—no!” We chorus.

“C’mon—it’s easy!”

Penny comes over and grabs my hand, and pulls me over to the pole. She demonstrates what she assures me is a simple walk around the pole, pointy toed, and then swings one leg around, and swings full circle with annoying ease.

“I can’t do that!” I wail. “I was crap at sports—and gym—and track! And—“

“Stop it!—Just try it—put everything out of your head—all the ‘I cant’s’.”

I look to Megan and Bee for encouragement, but the look of panic on their faces tells me that they are just so glad it is not them attempting this impossible stab in the dark with a tall, steel pole.

Half an hour later I have callouses on my hands, and bruises on my thighs, but I am still swinging around the pole in wild abandon as Penny gives up on me and goes to make tea.

“This is fun!” I am like a child with a new toy.

Bee and Megan look tired of the sport, and go to help Penny in the kitchen. I have just perfected the half arabesque, and am toying with the idea of buying my own pole.

When I join them in the kitchen Penny is once again regaling us with the exploits of her incredible sex life. There was a time when Penny would NEVER discuss sex, infact I don’t think she liked sex, but then sex with Ivan must have been a thoroughly stomach churning experience. One to be performed with your eyes shut, and preferably your legs crossed. He was not good looking in any sense of the word, and had a slimy arrogance and creepiness that made you think of Uncle Fester. It wasn’t until Penny met Peter that she discovered, as that famous 60’s opus proclaims, ‘The Joy of Sex.” Now we can’t bloody shut her up.

And it’s not just us who are getting an earful.

“I have to tell you what happened the other day—Oh my God!” Penny begins, getting all our attention.

I am adding the third sugar to my tea, having depleted my sugar levels on the pole, when she launches into her story.

“My daughter,”—her tenderly teenage daughter—“was in our bedroom, and she heard this noise….” She pauses for effect, we all look clueless. “She went over to where the sound was coming from—this weird buzzing noise–and opened my knicker drawer…” She pauses again for effect.

“Go on!”

“She found my dildo!”

We all scream with her embarrassment, and that of her pubescent teenager—flung into the arena of perversions at such a tender time in her development.

We all scream with her embarrassment, and that of her pubescent teenager—flung into the arena of perversions at such a tender time in her development. Coming face to face with a dildo should be reserved for the hardened sexual enthusiast, with years of coitus under their belt. Not flung in the face of virgins. We gasped in horror. Penny seemed positively pleased.

I suppose that we should be grateful that she doesn’t act the prude these days when we talk about sex, but rather seems to be the one with the last word, and the dirtiest stories. Lord help us all, the worm has turned—into a sexual butterfly.

“I’ve lost my dildo,” I muse, almost to myself, but they all turn their hot little eyes on me.

“How can you lose a dildo?” Pipes Megan.

“Did it get lost up your pie hole?” asks Bee.

“Pie hole?!” I ask aghast.

“What the fuck?” Megan has to push the point to expletives.

“Look—I don’t know—it’s just missing ok?”

“No—wait—you don’t just lose a dildo.” Megan again.

“Well I always put it back in the same place and it simply isn’t there ok?”

“Do you think someone nicked it? Like a pervert.” Penny, curiously perverted herself. “They are probably sniffing it somewhere.”

“Oh, God shut up,” I wail.

“I’m sorry—I hate to push the point—ha ha, but how do you lose a dildo? I mean seriously?” Megan is perplexed.

“Look I don’t know,” now pissed off that I even brought up the subject, “can we just drop it?”

“No—I just think that this is weirder than weird I mean where did it go?” Still Megan.

“Well it didn’t walk away on its own!” Bee now, enjoying the image.

“Look it was one an old boyfriend gave me anyway so I’m kinda glad it is gone,” I try.

“An old boyfriend gave you?” Penny this time.

“Yeah—you know—he thought it would spice things up?”

“Did it?” Penny is wickedly curious.

“Not really. It was one of those ones with a vibrating bit that you strap on the dick…”

“Wait—what?” gasps Megan—ever in need of clarification.

“Yeah, you know—it has a bit for him, and a bit for her—“ I’m trying to tie this thing down. Keep it low key, but it is spiraling out of control, and I am decrying my need to share. Damn my need.

“So it’s not really a dildo—it’s a him and her-do?” asks Megan trying to understand.

“Look whatever!”

“I still don’t see how it can disappear,” says Megan, clearly disturbed.

“Shit happens,” says Bee mater of factly.

“Yeah but it’s not like losing your keys is it?” Asks Megan.

“No,” I acquiesce, “it’s not—it’s a damn fucking mystery, now can we drop it.”

“You brought it up,” says Megan ever the pragmatist.

“Yes I did, and I’m wishing I hadn’t.”

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Penny picks up the baton.

“No it must have been stolen,” says Bee.

“So somebody broke into my house and just stole my dildo?” If you can’t beat them join them.

“There is no other logical conclusion,” says Sherlock Megan.

“You’re right,” I mock, “I have been a victim of the pervert burglar.”

“Don’t laugh,” says Megan, “these things happen. People steal underwear off washing lines.”

“Yeah, but they don’t just break into your house to steal your dildo?!”

“It would have to be somebody who knew you had a dildo and knew where you kept it….” Penny is really getting into it now.

“Which means,” Bee joins in, “that it would have to be one of your x boyfriends.”

“Ok so you guys are telling me that one of my x boyfriends broke into my home and nicked my dildo? Why?”

“Cause he missed your smell?” offers Megan.

“Eww” yells Bee.

“Yeah, really, Megan. C’mon.”

“There is no other logical conclusion.”

“Ok, you know what, I think it is more likely that the ghost took it.” I offer as some kind of escape route.

“The ghost?!” Penny looks worried.

“Yeah, my place is just a little haunted.”

“A little? That is one big haunting if it goes around stealing things—intimate things!” squeals Bee.

“That’s serious poltergeist activity,” says Megan.

“C’mon guys, that’s enough—I wanna try some more pole dancing—if I can get it to vibrate then all my problems are solved.”

The girls follow me through to the living room, another of lifes mysteries not solved, but certainly explored.

For ten years I had scoured the backwaters of Weston-Super-Mare looking for something akin to a Yogic buzz; somewhere that reminded me of that Palace of Tantric Cool—home to every Primrose Hill Mobster with it’s white walls and green tea lattes—Triyoga. It had been my London addiction when I was a city girl, but nowhere could I get that old kick of kundalini. My chakras were clogged, my asanas  bunged up. Until…

‘Oh lucky you,’ the receptionist said when I told her I fancied trying out the new yoga class my health club was promoting. “Wish I could get away for a class—he has an amazing aura….”

HE? A man teaching yoga? Usually in my neck of the woods it is some middle aged mama, more eating disorder than body beautiful, with a strange take on ambient music.

And AURA? This is Weston-Super-Mare. Auras were the kind of thing you got instead of something else–as in–‘or a’. Weston is about as tantric as Heath Ledger in ‘Batman’.

“There’s one last space,” said the receptionist, “Just tell him when you go in that you’ve been added to the list.”

“Ok…thanks.”

“They’re in room 2…”

I literally sprinted up the stairs.

Room 2 beckoned at the end of the hallway, I pushed through the heavy wood door, and behold!–there was a hunky male stripped to show ample arm muscles and pecks with not a man boob in sight, and music that was decidedly Eastern, right down to the bells and mantras. Well hello…

I stumbled across the darkened room, around bodies draped in semi darkness and bendable ecstasy to the poised figure who rose phoenix-like above the room. His chin raised in chakra driven ecstasy, a hawkish superiority gathering around the temples, his eyes dipped to take me in.

“The lady at reception said she had put me on the list…I mean that there was room for one more…I…” words were proving especially difficult to form, and release. His withering look took me in at a glance. He nodded some form of acceptance.

Turning to the room, and the floor bound statues, I realized I would need a matt to lie on. I had to turn back to face the scary guru, and with humbling embarrassment, ask where the matts were. With growing annoyance he sent me through a door at the far corner which sent light flooding out into the darkened room the moment I opened it. The yogic bodies, in their dense mass, seemed to recoil from the light like so many vampires.

Quickly grabbing a rolled up matt, I tried to find a place amongst all the writhing bodies. I eventually threw down my matt in the middle of the room, throwing myself into sharp contrast as everyone else was in a neat line down either side. The slap of my matt on the floor made me wince, and I quickly chucked my shoes in the corner and was about to throw myself down on the ground with the others when HE was infront of me with a pen and paper poised in his hand.

“What is your name?” The first name went down fine, but after I was half way through spelling out my last name he seemed to tire of the ordeal, and hurrumphed away, satisfied with half.

The bells and chanting rose in hypnotic waves from the speaker in the corner, and our guru paced the room, barking out instructions. I looked around me at the others so as to gain an understanding of what on earth we were doing. These positions were not unfamiliar, but it had been many years since I had bent my body the yogi way. Suddenly he was upon me:

“Have you done Yoga before?”

“Yes…”

“You won’t have done one like this,” he stated imperiously.

“Ok…” I ventured, unwilling to tap his reserves of pomposity.

And so it was that we writhed and bent, straightened and lengthened, curled and uncurled, in the sweaty darkness. He walked amongst us like lilies of the field, pulling an arm out here, adjusting a leg there. And when he came for me, I found his touch firm, but fair; gentle even. It had been so long since I had been touched by any man that this alone was enough to make the yoga experience worth its weight in kundalini. His hair greased back off his forehead like a middle aged Fonzie he had a definite sexual allure, and all the women in the room seemed to respond like automatons to his instructions as if to their own desires.

One young woman in particular, her body honed to perfection by yoga and youth, was obviously besotted. His every instruction was imprinted on her DNA; she responded to every direction, almost before the command had left his lips, and with such eagerness that I didn’t need to look in her eyes to see the love there. I imagined them doing incredible tantric sexual positions together; managing back-bending,  limb-tastic rubberyness that only improved the allure of their karma sutra sex. Yes, she would be a willing student for his limbery love.

Another position was barked out to us, and as I tried frantically to figure out which limb went where he was suddenly visible through the arch of my left leg,

“Do you know the anantasana? ……..”

“Not by name…” I ventured peevishly, bent in on myself.

“ The baddha konasana?……”

“Ahh..not sure…” Clearly disappointed in my grasp of the language of yoga he moved on. It’s hard enough getting the moves never mind understanding the lingo—couldn’t the guy see that I was no swami?

As I strained into the many garrulous positions, my joints straining, my body perspiring, I would look over, and see him sitting with one leg casually draped over his ear as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

Finally he bent his legs together in the lotus position, and with his hands to the floor lifted his entire body.

At the lessons end, having folded away the foul smelling matt, I walked past our guru, and managed a giggly ‘Namaste’. I will be coming back for more yoga that is for sure. If only for the occasional touch of a guru.

Monsoon, Elizabeth Sequin Dress.

Why is it that grown men would rather date women the age of their daughters than women their own age?

When your young paramour prattles on about ‘Made In Chelsea’ or the latest cliffhanger in ‘Hollyoaks’ do you have a clue or a care what she is talking about? When you’d rather watch ‘Top Gear’ you may ask if she has ever held a stick shift in her hand, one that wasn’t attached to your waist?

When you go out does she get mistaken for a young relative? Does it make you feel proud to be dating somebody who should have been in bed hours ago?

I ask this because it is hard enough dating as a mature woman without having to compete with our own daughters for the dwindling males thrust back on the marketplace after their various divorces, and co habiting separations.

Gentlemen, once you get past their pert breasts, and wrinkle free smiles, does the fact that you are their springboard for all information, like God on earth, make you feel more manly? And does the fact that they have no past to wrinkle your present with mean that there is a real connection or just a lack of any real conversation?

Cause lets face it, she won’t remember the era you grew up in; you won’t be able to joke about the same things over her bowl of Special K, and your bowl of Al Bran.

She is a blank canvass upon which you can paint in decorative semen the life you wish you could have led; now that you are older, wiser, and don’t want any woman to tell you what to do. This young lady won’t put up much argument, because she won’t know who she is yet; so she will be more than happy to go along with what you want, like a lap dog in tight trousers. She won’t challenge you on your opinions because she doesn’t have opinions, apart from the fact that she prefers One Direction to Westlife.

She is, let’s face it, easy to negotiate because she doesn’t know the route. She won’t tell you to take a right down Lexington, or not to wear a tie to a dinner party at somebody’s house because she’s never been down Lexington and doesn’t know the etiquette of a home cooked dinner party. She looks good on your arm, but she is as much use to you as a living doll. Sorry. And apologies to the young ladies who should know better. Get your daddy complex out of the way in your teens with Uncle Peter.

And leave the big boys to the big girls.

And another thing those young girls won’t be able to do properly is suck your cock. Yes, you heard me right. I said suck your cock, big man. Because a woman who is older is not just confident in her body, but she knows how to use it, and she knows how to blow your mind. She has been around the block and she knows when to stick a finger up your arse, and how to blow you till you think you’re seeing the Christmas lights go on in Oxford Street. You have no idea what you are missing do you?

And that’s because you are so busy denying your own wrinkles, and your own age that you would rather bed down with a lie then give an older woman a try.

Are you scared of a good argument? Of a woman with an opinion? Of somebody who won’t just lie down and take one for the team? But who has thoughts on all kinds of subjects—just like you, who wants to have a say—just like you, who has baggage—just like you, and who wants a healthy second chance—just like you?

Be a man—date a woman.
P.S Least I be accused of dating toy boys, I have no case for the defense save to say…..I am trying to resist!

Yes, I’m pissed off with the male population. I literally threw the gummy bears at those poor little trick or treaters with their blood soaked clothing and chalk white faces.

One particular bloke behaving badly had, as the Daily Mail headline this week suggested, created ‘Hell-oween’, and I was hurricane Sandy.

Now I’m not pointing the finger at the entire male race. Half of them aren’t old enough to vote or date, but I am pointing the finger at those guys who can dial your digits into their phone quick enough, but also have half a dozen or more other maidens on speed dial. Yes, you know who you are!

I’m no saint, let’s get that straight from the onset, but there has to be a point where I ask the question, “If a guy asks for your number and then tells you he has a girlfriend after he’s been texting you for over two months what are you to surmise?”

A)   He likes to keep his options open?

B)   He is greedy? Or,

C)   He is a dickhead?

After polling the nation I have surmised that it is a proportion of all three.

The problem with modern day dating is that there are too many options. You can e mail them, online date them, facebook them, text them, and all in a virtual world where these virtual lotharios are faceless and free to roam.

The text is the cowards way out. While he’s fingering your digits he is fingering another ten girls along the same lines. Their numbers a series of movements that he can perform in his sleep, eyes closed, one hand down his pants.

We’ve all had the phone sex, and many women have told me they don’t like it. So why do we do it? Who are we satisfying? How many of us do they have on speed dial?

If you ask me we are giving way to much hand service when they should be giving lip service: pick up the phone if you are man or woman enough. Otherwise go dial some other poor fools number.

It was a night out with the girls. Penny and Megan were wearing dresses that could have been spray painted on. We were unified in our desire to drink, and forget the monotony of our sexless lives for one night. Well, at least Megan and I were. Penny had her boyfriend waiting at home to give her cunnilingus. Yes, cunnilingus. He had told her that he would be waiting at home to perform this on her when she returned! Megan and I were incandescent with envy. I wondered how she made it out the door that night at all….

When Simon submitted to my occasional smile in his direction (submitted on behalf of Megan’s crash course in dating: “Smiling is your way of signaling to the male that you are happy to engage; otherwise they may lack the encouragement,” was her course masters suggestion. Yes, she took a course in dating.). He was a painter, it turned out, had trained in Italy. I was wholeheartedly enthralled by this revelation; a sucker for an artist any day of the week. When I told him I was a writer he said his friend was a writer too, and called him over.

Out of the crowd oozed this tall, dark stranger. As if the crowd, uniform in its blackness, had given birth to him. He walked across the expanse of floor, filtered around our table, and sat in the space between the wall and me. I never once more turned to face Simon.

Judah (the name alone should have rung alarm bells) introduced the novel he was working on, about human relationships, by telling me how the female orgasm was little understood by a large part of the male population. That 80% of women did not climax clitorally. I high fived him right then (you will recall my preference for the high five in sexually charged moments. I fear it may have become a staple.) Having caught me with the female orgasm he then went on to regale me with talk of religious iconography (another pet subject of mine), twentieth century Renaissance Art (a plebian appreciation to be sure), and the general foibles of 21^st century male/female relationships. I was hooked. There is nothing like intellectual foreplay to get me well and truly in the mood.

Plus he was very easy on the eye. His casual jeans and T shirt were accented by a smooth, tan leather jacket, as smooth to the touch as I imagined his stubble free skin to be.

He and his accomplice followed us to the local dance club, where we all showed off our moves on the dance floor, until Megan, worse for wear, succumbed to the impediment of her six inch platforms, and we had to hail a cab and wish them farewell.

He tapped his digits into my phone, after breathing heavily down my cleavage in a corner of the club, and I thought it all a promising start. He was the right age—40’s—of similar intellect—curious—and a good dancer. Those three ticks alone were not often filled in on my dance card.

My brother cautioned, “Any man who opens with the female orgasm is a player.” Oh, how I should have listened brother dear!

Three months of texting later he reveals the girlfriend; casually dropped in text conversation. Like a red card at a football match, it takes many a game player off the pitch. I am happy to walk off the turf for a while I can tell you. But I will be back! And when I am, and when he does ask for my number, I shall tell him, “Don’t even THINK of texting me. Call me or throw my number away. I’m looking for a man, not a speed-dial-predictive-text-love- rat.” LOL!

Penny, and our plethora of children fall out like used McDonalds packaging from the cluttered interior of the car, stretching our legs, and marveling at the view.

We are met by my new best-gay-friend, Andrew Rogers, who sashays over, like a tall grasshopper, all legs and arms, rubbing his hands together in glee, and leads us through a side door into the world of the 7^th Marquis of Bath.

Rounding the bend in the garden, his lordship is ensconced in a deck chair on the outskirts of an umbrella, overlooking a wooden picnic table. Dogs lie panting in the heat.

I am introduced to a group of bluebloods whose descendants peopled these very hills and dales.  Sordid tales of intimacy with their nearest and dearest gave rise to the very infrastructure of our great isle, never mind the plundering, pillaging and raping of invaders, or the general familial buggery that birthed the resounding belief that incest is not best.

I shake hands with John and Naomi Coventry, and their teenage daughter Isobelle. Naomi tells me that they are “very distantly related to Alexander” and laughs plummily .  Her Royal Highness Princess Katarina of Yugoslavia, and Lady Jane Duncombe Townsend, whose niece is married to George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, are also in attendance, as is Sir Benjamin Slade, and the Sloecombes (Rosemary and Malcolm) who own most of Glastonbury.

Of Her Royal Highness Princess Katarina, Andrew informs me, “Her cousin HRH Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia had a romance with the late actor Richard Burton, she herself being two descendants shy of Queen Victoria; her mother the niece of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.” I nod, feigning sagacity.

Most winsome of all, however, is the Lord of the Manor himself, Lord Bath. Dappled in the sunlight that plays upon his child like dimples, the Saint Nick glow of his cheeks as bright as the shirt buttoned up to his neck, in a fushia chinese cotton; his purple Afghani pakol cap anchoring the white cascade of curls that fall to his shoulders.

Tara Newley & Lord Bath

No small amount of charm it would seem has played its part in the history of the Thynnes. His lordship’s ancestor, John Thynne (originating from a compounding of John o’th’Inne, being a large house with or without ale) had extricated himself from the tower when concerns were raised about the origin of his wealth by calmly replying to a packed courthouse, ‘My Lords, you have a good mistress, the Queen, I had a good master, the Duke of Somerset.’

Indeed the Queen is rumoured to have held a grudge against him for his lack of attention, and as if to clarify that there was no love lost historically between the Thynnes and Her Majesty’s line, Lord Bath quips mid conversation, “I’m all for the abolition of the monarchy.” His ancestors, the Bottevilles, from whom the Thynnes are descended, hailed from Poitiers in France, and we all know what the French did to their monarchs….they were rather mercilessly separated from their heads.

Beverages and cheese lay in various states of decomposition in the heat. The Tesco’s cola and lemonade at blazing sun temperature; the cheeses oozing delicately into the crackers. I was offered a bowl of strawberries drowning gently in cream.

Talk was of the mating possibilities afforded the bluebloods around the table; one gentleman in particular was looking for an heir. He sized up my childbearing hips with some disapproval.

Young Timothy, Penny’s rambunctious young teenager, was eyeing up the lone, warm bottle of cider on the picnic table with some longing. He was about to reach for it when, Isobelle, the fawn haired daughter of Mr and Mrs Coventry took it upon herself to regale his lordship, the gathered gentry, and ourselves, with a falsetto rendition of Ava Maria. She took her place upon the lawn, and burst–a cappella and  al fresco–into song.

Penny and I tried not to look at each other; unlike the others present, we are not used to impromptu serenades on the lawn. With the sunlight glittering off her tawny locks, Isobelle punched out the song with mesmeric temerity.

When she climaxed, her cheeks rosy as a country lass in heat, our little gathering let out rapturous applause. Young Timothy goes back to eyeing the cider longingly. It was now Lord Bath’s turn to offer a riposte. He sang, his voice steady and strong, a little ditty he entitled, ‘The Mulberry Coloured Venus’ from his LP ‘I Play the Host’, one of several works by his lordship. Half way through he forgot his place, and the rest, but we forgave him everything. His merry cheeks and his charming apologies were more than recompense.

Timothy could take no more. He was determined to have the cider smouldering in the sun; as he reached out to claim it Lord Bath informed him that he would have to sing for his cider. So sing he did. He burst forth with ‘I Wanna be Like You,’ from Jungle book, complete with aping gestures as the mammalian king of the jungle.  He got his cider and his applause.

Conversation returned to the importance of dating a blueblood, or failing that–the rich, or failing that–celebrity. At this point, I was unusually relieved to be offered a guided tour of Lord Bath’s most intimate parts…

My current obsession with all things feathered meets the fashion worlds similar fetish with this oriental masterpiece. Rocking the kind of stitched detail that would make Dolce and Gabbanna envious! And whomever said peacocks were unlucky can kiss my bag!

Chinese Phoenix Embroidered Shoulder Bag, Accessorize