A gem in today’s Daily Mail, penned by John Stevens:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2514852/Canoe-conman-John-Darwin-told-Ukrainian-blonde-satisfy-woman.html

Now John Darwin is no paragon of virtue, it has to be said. But he’s 63, not a George Clooney lookalike, and to say he was being optimistic with regard to the toothsome Ms Avramenko (25) – her website photograph is in the article – would be something of an understatement. He bombarded her with emails over a period of time before travelling 1,700 miles to meet with her. She said to the Daily Mail reporter:

Some of his messages were disgusting. I only eventually agreed to meet him because he was so persistent. But I regret going to see him because he was just interested in trying to have sex with me.

I’ll be 56 shortly, and what I take from this story is that the key to landing a date with a stunning tall young blonde is persistence on the emailing front. I may be devoting less time to this blog over the coming few weeks…