No linguists

Here’s a picture of Bush and Medvedev at the APEC summit I didn’t get around to using. Dignitude!


It’s been over a year since we’ve heard from Riverbend, after she left Iraq.

It’s also been a while since I’ve had some London Review of Books personal ads, so here are some. As ever, more can be found here.

Aardvark lover, M, 37. Not really I just put that hoping to be at the top. Non-aardvark lover seeks F with similar interests. Box no. 16/01

This ad is a web of deceit, spun with threads of fabulation, arranged in radials of hubris and hanging with the vestiges of good intention between the washing line of virtue and the gazebo of dissipation. If you reply immediately it will leap off the page, wrap itself around your head in a split second and cling there for the rest of the day. So maybe wave a broom about a bit first. Box no. 16/06

“Don’t worry about overeating; you’ve got enough on your plate as it is”. Excruciating knuckle biter of a gaff prone dinner guest (M. 31), seeks not easily offended lady for patient exchanges about anything other than weight, age, height, dress or popular culture. Mature correspondents welcome, age before…never mind. Box no. 19/04

I really wish I’d studied anthropology instead. Box no. 21/06

Some of the LRB personals are intended seriously. It’s not always easy to tell which is which:

My profile here boasts the index carding skills of Miss Marple, the sexual ambiguity of Tank Girl and the wardrobe of Cadfael. Kinky junior librarian (F. 34), lurking in the boondocks of XY9802, tripping over re-evaluations of Nick Cave in back issues of Parallax and her own hem line, WLTM nice academic man or woman to 40 unphased by evening wear once described as “Mrs Doyle Does Dallas”. No Linguists. Box no. 22/04

Female LRB readers, in the course of reading this edition you have unwittingly submitted your intellect to an ingenious algorithm designed by me (intense male sub editor and amateur neuro-linguistic programmer) to gauge your suitability as a long term partner and mother of our children. Congratulations, you’ve passed! Now ditch the boyfriend and move to New England. No arguments, this isn’t a matter of faith, it’s science. Box no. 22/06

You like walking barefoot on cold beaches in the winter, movies that make you cry and baking cookies that you have no intention of eating. I like defending my home against the government forces that are trying to destroy me and knitting carpet samples from fibre remnants found in the back of the dryers at my local launderette. Are we fools to think it could ever work? Moron and amateur carpet sample enthusiast (M, 35). Box no. 23/02

I’m everything you ever wanted in a woman. Assuming you’re into fat 47-year old moody bitches who really don’t enjoy the mornings. Stop talking and pour the bloody marys at..
Box no. 23/05

I am Mr Right! You are Miss Distinct Possibility. Your parents are Mr and Mrs Obscenely Rich. Your Uncle is Mr Expert Tax Lawyer. Your cousin is Ms Spare Apartment On A Caribbean Hideaway That She Rarely Uses. Your brother is Mr Can Fix You Up A Fake Passport For A Small Fee. Man, 51. Box no. 23/06

Would you be able to carry on an extended erotic correspondence with a filthy-minded forties man on the basis of a one-off coffee in the Long Acre Pret a Manger? Box no. 23/01

It’s deep philosophical questions like that that make the world go ‘round.