Low life
Candidates
Jeffrey Bernard
Ifyou answered that extraordinary Dateline computer dating ad with ab- solute honesty I wonder what on earth you'd get. Well, I don't. I mean I wonder what I'd get. They ask, in the bit you fill in and send off to them, 'Do you consider yourself Shy, Extrovert, Adventurous, Family Type, Clothes-conscious, Generous, Outdoor Type, Creative, Practical, Intellec- tual.' Then the loons go on to say, 'Indicate which activities and interests you enjoy' etc, and they list a load of guff whereby you could con anyone from a distance and land yourself a meet with something really awful.
Now, one is fairly civilised and likes classical music, poetry and knows that there's nothing like half an hour's chat with the barman on the subject of the polyphonic motets of Lassus but who on earth wants to meet a woman whose idea of a swinging weekend is two hours in the British Museum Reading Room followed by a nut cutlet picnic in the park reading Keats out loud before setting off for an ar- chaeological dig with knapsacks stuffed with tapes of the St Matthew Passion, Under Milkwood and the Late quartets? I have a vision of pitching a tent by the dig, diverting her attention by pointing out a lesser crested grebe, quickly going through her handbag and discovering she's not on the pill. Thank you and goodnight. You could tell a woman like that that it was opening time and she'd think you were talk- ing about the British Film Institute.
On the other hand, if you ticked off in the list of activities and interests, Pubs and Clubs, Jazz, Sport, Good Food and Travelling you'd be landed with an equally ghastly disaster area. She'd almost certainly have laddered stockings, eyes that had worked overtime at crying, a handbag con- taining a rubbish dump, thrush, a smoker's cough, an Equity card, and a bedsitter with a single bed in Clapham. (Sorry about the Clapham bit, Sheila.)
But the list of what you may consider yourself to be is a trifle daft, not to say short. Shy? Extrovert? Well both of course. Generous? Yes, and mean and selfish too. Outdoor type? Well I've never found a secret tunnel to the Coach and Horses but I have occasionally managed to unwind in the gutter after a hard day's work. What about Family Type? I've tried to start more families than you've had hot dinners, madam. Clothes-conscious? I am aware of the fact that they're mostly on the floor and under the bed if that's what you mean. Creative? Yes. Freud tells us that all babies are creative. Practical? Well I'm still breathing but I believe that walls should be painted by decorators and windows cleaned by window cleaners. Intellectual? As an ox.
Two other things that strike me as a little odd are, firstly, that there's no mention of sex. It still takes place I'm told and, come to think of it, I hope it's like riding a bike. You'd be odd to want to date and meet someone through Dateline who wasn't in a possible legover situation, I should have thought. I mean, it is in the 'back of one's mind occasionally. The other odd thing is the question about whether one is interested in conversation. Do they mean that there is any possibility that you couldn't be? Have they got mates lined up for us who've had their tongues cut out? Perhaps they've got the charwoman of the British Museum Reading Room on their books and are try- ing to shift her. What Dateline should do is to differentiate between conversation and anecdote and so, I'm afraid, should many pub acquaintances of mine. In fact, as the excellent poet and gentleman George Baker once told me, 'Anecdote is not a form of conversation.' (A sign should be so printed and hung on the wall of every pub in England.) No, I shan't fill in the form, I'll simply wait and hope to bump into the stranger who'll laugh at my jokes and worship the ground I walk on, as the man said.
Previous page
