Speed Dating Events

In fairness, even the most dreadful line can work. A handsome Aussie has made himself the Terror of Earl’s Court with his killing parodies of the Private Eye gag, ‘Let’s uncoil the one-eyed trouser snake’. He could also pull out ‘pyjama python’ and the whole armoury of cod okkerisms when he felt like a textual variant. Read the rest of this entry »

Not all men are wolves in gorilla’s clothing. There is a successful proposition for every unsuccessful one, and many men discover for themselves the truth of the old biblical adage, ‘ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find’. They don’t have to be great stylists. They simply have to make a woman feel as if they mean it for her, and for her alone. If they can do that, they can get away with the most . . . laid-back approaches. Read the rest of this entry »

Now boys, three cheers for Venus, hip hip hip hooray. Oh how I enjoy sex and oh how I enjoy it. There have been many funny things about sex in my life that have made me laugh and so now I will tell you

`Will you be mine?’ This question which enshrines the classic marriage proposal can and does carry another meaning. Not all love encounters are fated to end in marriage. Ardent suitors frequently have something more immediate in view. Read the rest of this entry »

In this sad moment, the fate of the couple is sealed. We can see ahead for them vistas of a lifetime of nappies, bills and rows, first the overcrowded house and then the empty nest. But Vic can think only of himself, and Ingrid’s tears provoke him to another spasm of disgust:

She’s sobbing away like billy-ho now. The hanky’s out and the waterworks are turned on good and proper. Read the rest of this entry »

DOLLY LEVI: Horace, you can’t deny it, your wife would have to be a SOMEBODY. Answer me: am I a somebody?

VANDERGELDER: You are . . . you are . . . A wonderful woman.

DOLLY LEVI: Oh, you’re partial.

VANDERGELDER: Dolly, everybody knows that you could do anything you wanted to do Read the rest of this entry »

Brutally Ransome fights off all remonstration, all reproach: ‘do you suppose I pretend not to be selfish?’ he demands. ‘She’s mine or she isn’t, and if she’s mine she’s all mine.’ Even the pleas of Verena herself have no impact on him:

‘Oh, let me off, let me off . . . its too terrible, it’s impossible. Now I want you to go away — I will see you tomorrow, as long as you wish. That’s all I want now; if you will only go away it’s not too late, and everything will be alright!’

In answer, Ransome simply states:

We shall catch the night train for New York, and the first thing in the morning we shall be married. Read the rest of this entry »

‘I want to ask you a question.’

‘What?’ I said, in a small unpromising voice. ‘How would you like to be Mrs Buddy Willard?’

‘Man proposes, God disposes’, runs the proverb. And women have to put up with the mess they both make of it’, as one of England’s premier duchesses observes in her irreverent moments. Since society and custom have traditionally favoured men with the right of proposing, all too often women are no more than sitting ducks — and there are some terrible bird dogs around. Read the rest of this entry »

Yonder a maid and her wight

Go whispering by,

War’s annals will fade into night

Ere their story die.

It is LOVELY WHEN DUKES FIND their Duchesses. Or any kind of lord or lordling, baron or baronet. But making a magic proposal is not the monopoly of a titled or educated man. The wonders of falling in love and wanting to marry are available to all comers, high and low alike. It’s a real- life drama of dreams come true for every new couple. Read the rest of this entry »

Signed, sealed, delivered. Cecily’s dazzling adroitness at tying the knot, in the absence and without the knowledge of her intended, can only evoke the purest admiration. Sheer professionalism, that’s what it is. Wilde more than once makes the observation that men often propose for practice. Judging from Cecily’s expertise, they must all propose to the same girls!

That is certainly the experience of the heroine of Judith Krantz’ Scruples, the fabulously sexy Billy Winthrop, who learns from her best friend Jessica to rate her men out of ten, and keeps score in quite the literalest sense of the word: Read the rest of this entry »