by David Rose
The body of Salman Rushdie, but the head of Gerald Kaufman; like some horrific Kurt Neumann film.4 But don’t think I want your pity (just practical help and loving.) Box no. 1576.
Trendy Zoroastric nancy-boy (35) seeks non-pantheistic cohort to 45 to help prepare for the mighty battle against Angra Manyu.5 Must like coffee bars and Alan Bennett. Northampton. Box no. 4789.
You may call it indecent exposure, but I call it the divine hand of God. Spiritualist of the Asda car-park (acquitted) seeks docile woman for easy brainwashing and to help bring the tinned stuff home. Must have own trolley and strong arms. Beds. Box no. 3696.
‘92–a retired physician/ He couldn’t know about his future ignition’–Fortean poet currently on the path to the world’s first SHC epic–‘For almost a century he’d been a fighter/ Now a human cigarette lighter.’6 Publishers, or desperate women, please write to stigmatic man, 36, with uncanny powers of bi-location and the ability to bend raining frogs. Anti-gravitational love, and full back-catalogue of Orbis Publications’ The Unexplained7 (issue 2 free with issue 1), from box no. 4459.
Chew your food. It’s better for your digestion and improves the facial muscles. Also it breaks up the signals from the taps government agents place inside potato-based products. Want more tips? Write to South West man (41) with big heart and untraceable phone-line. Box no. 7431.
‘All he needs are some psychiatric treatments to reduce the strength and regularity of his biorhythmic brain explosion episodes. For one so young, his powers of telekinesis are far beyond that of any project we’ve developed so far. His brain has the power to rule the world. It may cause you some problems at home, but the benefits of the bionic mind far outweigh the pitfalls.’ My school report, 1979 (Porton Down Preparatory School).8 So much promise then, look at me now. Ex-superhero, now librarian (M, 31) seeks solvent woman to 35 for Scrabble, real ale and spontaneous morphing. Wilts. Box no. 1179.
TheLRB’s own Son of Jor-El, stuck in the Phantom Zone of the personal ads for three years now.9 Reckon I could still lick anyone of you wusses. Man, 36. Alone. Tonight, and very possibly for ever. Box no. 4723.
This column reads like a list of X-File character rejects. Woman, 34, able to bi-locate and start fires with the power of her pre-menstrual tension. Seeks human/Jovian hybrid with whom to start genetic processing plant (Bicester). Must have own car. Box no. 5258.
‘If you can’t take a little bloody nose, maybe you oughtta go back home and crawl under your bed. It’s not safe out here. It’s wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it’s not for the timid.’10LRB personals are the Next Generation. Serial advertiser (M, 37) knows it but still comes back for more (and more). Please help me. Box no. 6311.
With enough love I can teleport like Mary of Agreda.11 That’s got to be worth something here, right? Right? Transvective surburbanite (F, 38), unwittingly adding to the growing list of LRB Googlewhacks12 at box no. 8556.
More Grand Moff Tarkin13than Darth Vader–not quite evil enough, but working at it M (35) WLTM gullible F to 40 with whom to annunciate ev-er-y syllable whilst taking over the un-i-verse. Join me in my Tooting Death Star for canapés, intimidating silences, and perfect posture. Box no. 2306.
This ad is the final phase in my plan to conquer the earth. Man, 41, seeks puppet-like trillionaire F with vast army and intergalactic fleet, ready to hand over total control of all affairs. Must also enjoy canasta and be a non-smoking vegetarian. Box no. 3510.
But what the authorities didn’t reckon on was my ability to stop a goat’s heart with my mind. Ex-Master Criminal and Super Villain (F, 42), now Dorset museum curator, WLTM bald, wheelchair-bound, telekinetic biophysicist with morphing powers to relive old times thwarting the do-good citizens of Weymouth. For tomorrow we take on the world. Box no. 1379.
Attention maleLRBreaders: ‘Greetings, Earthling–I have come to infest your puny body with legions of my spawn’ is no way to begin a reply. F, 36–suspicious of any men declaring themselves to be in possession of a ‘great sense of humour’. Box no. 6413.
Whenever I try to cancel myLRBsubscription, I suffer stigmata and holy visions dance around my bedroom like so many drunken midgets. Man, 41, Leicester. Possibly the Messiah, or something. Box no. 6108.
1 Does not exist.
2 The advertiser is alluding to Battlestar Galactica, an American television series that began with a three-hour pilot aired in 1978 and starred Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict as part of the crew of a battleship of near-extinct humans in search of a fabled planet called Earth.
3 Andromeda: American science-fiction television series.
4 Salman Rushdie: author. Gerald Kaufman: Labour Member of Parliament. Kurt Neumann: director of the 1958 horror classic The Fly, in which a scientist experimenting with a teleportation device accidentally merges his molecular structure with that of a fly trapped in his machine. Gerald Kaufman was first mentioned in the LRB personals in 1999 after chairing that year’s Booker Prize. His name was mentioned in many ads over the course of the next two years, earning a cult-like status among personal advertisers for no apparent reason whatsoever.
5 In Zoroastrianism, Angra Manyu is the ruler of the forces of evil.
6 The advertiser is thought to be referring to Dr John Irving Bentley, who died in mysterious circumstances aged ninety-two at his home in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, on 5 December 1966. Don Gosnell, a meter-reader from the North Penn Gas Co., had been doing his daily rounds and called at Bentley’s home on North Main Street. While reading the meter in the basement, Gosnell noticed a strange smell and a peculiar blue smoke. He went upstairs to investigate and found Bentley’s cremated remains in the bathroom. The lower half of Bentley’s right leg was all of his body that remained intact, yet the rubber tips on his walking frame hadn’t been damaged and there was very little scorching on the nearby bathtub. Indeed, apart from a hole burned through the linoleum floor, there was very little fire damage to the bathroom at all. The coroner recorded a verdict of ‘death by asphyxiation and 90 per cent burning of the body’. The story of Dr Bentley is one of the most documented cases of spontaneous human combustion (SHC), which is a theory applied to instances of death where a person has seemingly caught fire without any obvious explanation.
7 Partwork magazine focusing on the paranormal and published by Orbis in 1982. Re-issued regularly since then.
8 Porton Down, in Wiltshire, is home to the Porton Down Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, a facility for military, chemical and biological weapons research.
9 Jor-El is the biological father of Superman. The Phantom Zone is a fictional dimension in the Superman comics that is used as a method of imprisonment. From here, prisoners can observe the normal dimension but cannot interact with it.
10 The advertiser is quoting an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, an American science-fiction television series continuing the Star Trek franchise.
11 Maria de Agreda, also known as Maria de Jesus or the Blue Nun. Born in 1602, she is believed to have endured ecstasies and divine visions from an early age. Four years after her death, Franciscans reported that, whilst alive, at twenty-two she had been mystically transported to Mexico to convert indigenous tribes and had subsequently made five hundred journeys through the air for the same purpose in just one year.
12 Googlewhack: internet search term consisting of two words (without quotation marks) that yields a single result. When this ad was originally published, it was indeed a Googlewhack. Now, however, the search term yields no results.
13 Commander of the Death Star, the Galactic Empire’s ultimate terror weapon.
“Failure? Pah!
I invented the
word”
The most used button on my keyboard is the underscore. I haven’t used it once in the making of this ad. I don’t know what that says about my personality, but I’m fairly confident it isn’t good. Woman, 32. Box no. 8653.
I used to have the sharpest mind in the land; no
w I can’t even find my pen. Wait–here it is! Pens, and offers of sex, please, to retired professor (M, 71). Box no. 8308.
I used to be exactly 29 days ahead of my time. I’ve just wasted all that writing this ad. Currently I stand at just 3 hours. I’ll spend that regretting not having stamps. Box no. 6354.
This personal ad is in excellent condition when packed. When used however, it may be found to contain some crystals. These crystals are common salt and are perfectly harmless. The condiment of love demands your Pot Noodle;1 the fork of reason your reconstituted soya. Loser (M, 33) fishing out all the dried peas before the kettle is boiled at box no. 3621.
But it was all over at the main course, when the lobster made his neck enlarge and the waiter had to perform a tracheotomy with the dessert spoon. After that, any sort of physical love was out of the question. Yet we remained good (if largely silent) friends. Sound familiar? Stop me if I’m wrong, but I think this girl (buxom, 51, all woman) is talking your language. Don’t be afraid–this sort of intimacy is only natural. Box no. 4721.
Terrorist Amazon reviewer: ‘1 star–this book sucks big time/I’ve had more fun operating on my own cataracts/this book is the most entertainment you’ll have providing you use it for smacking geese in your local park rather than actually reading it.’ Sound familiar, publicity departments of the fourth estate? M, 43, holed up at home with chicken pox during the marches of ’68, now reinventing anarchy in his own impotent way. Box no. 6273.
Married, divorced, married, divorced, but that doesn’t mean there is a pattern developing. Optimistic lad, mid-fifties, seeks woman, for NE based relationship. Box no. 8765.
It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees. Unless your house has very low ceilings. In which case, come and view our latest range of spacious waterfront properties. Tasteful new developments, modern décor, off-road parking. Ex-revolutionary, now beaten but unbroken estate agent (41). I’ve made better pitches than this, you know. And had better-looking women than you. Box no. 5643.
Grave disappointment all round WLTM serious mistake in a nightie. Box no. 6453.
Failure? Pah! I invented the word. On the same day I also came up with the word ‘hoosler’ (noun: a person who makes a living screwing caps on to bicycle-wheel inner-tube valves) and followed that up later in the week with ‘ledgtentrible’ (to describe a downward sloping chin). Only the first really took off. You have to appreciate the irony. Man, 78, bisexual. Box no. 3175.
Born under a bad sign: ‘Skelmersdale next exit’. After that it was a life of emotional service stops and never-ending circuits on North West ring roads. Are you my final Little Chef or an emergency pull-up on the hard shoulder of despair? Man, 32. Cries like a girl and phones his mother a lot. Box no. 5285. Junction 13.
The uncomfortable mantle of guilt, the heavy cloak of ignominy, the coarse socks of denial, the iridescent trousers of doubt, the belligerent underpants of self-loathing. All worn by the haberdasher of shame (M, 34, Pembs.). Seeks woman in possession of the Easy-Up iron-on hem of redemption and some knowledge of workaday delicates. No loons. Box no. 4635.
I once trained with the nation’s best and most respected architects–now I can’t erect a garden shed. Did lust destroy your creative energies too? Great–write immediately to suburban love wretch (M, 39), Tooting Broadway. Box no. 8525.
Make love to me. Or at the very least buy my car. 5-door Astra, J-reg. Good runner. 8 mnths tax, 10 mnths MOT. 60,000 miles. One careful owner. M, 38, alcoholic, bankrupt, divorced, sleeping in the ex-wife’s Micra. £2,000 ono (sex is extra). Box no. 5342.
She signed the letter ‘All yours, Babooshka’.2 Little did I know that Babooshka wasn’t, in fact, my wife trying to catch my infidelity (thanks for nothing, Kate Bush), but a gorgeous East European minx looking for no-strings love and a place to rest her tired head every now and again. If only I’d realised when I replied with a parcel of my smalls and a request to use non-bio (I have very sensitive skin). The bad-luck fairy sits permanently on the shoulders of male doofus (38) at box no. 3121.
Sexless, dour and uninteresting–and that was just my driving-test report. Post-plucking woman (41) representing a real challenge to the sternest of male egos seeks cavalryman to 45 ready to throw off this knitted plaid mantle and cast it into the fires of lusty abandon. Or else we could just play Jenga. Shropshire borders. Box no. 2542.
Attracting a mate with these ads is like shooting fish in a barrel. Blind marksman (M, 38), firing blanks the wrong way, seeks bigger target fitted with klaxon for narrowing of implausible odds. Dulwich. Box no. 5363.
If Mother could see me now. Fortunately her bad hip prevents her coming up the stairs too often. Man, 36, seeks woman to 40 before the stairlift engineers are called out and my love life has to run its course in shopping-centre food courts yet again. Box no. 6407.
‘A game hardly worth the candle’ (ex-second wife, Jan. 1997). Box no. 2549.
By the time they publish this personal ad you’ll have found someone else. Two weeks too late woman (37), always at the mercy of LRB publishing cycles. Box no. 3542.
Ladies: naturally apologetic man, 42, predisposed to accepting the blame. Whatever it was, it was my fault. Sorry. Sound like heaven? Box no. 5233.
One day all these ads will be collected in a huge best-selling volume and a question on them will appear in Oxbridge undergraduate finals. Mine won’t be there, of course. Entirely forgettable man (43) hoping to find humdrum woman for eventual long-term disappointment. Replies when you can be bothered to box no. 2787.
Das echte Dividuum ist auch das echte Individuum.3 At least that’s what I tell my mother. And her cats. Please hold me (M, 68). Box no. 7664.
Don’t reply to this ad–it’s a fake. Just like the man who placed it. Deny nothing, regret all, but live to fight another day with phenomenologically ashamed, melanin-deprived, testosterone-poisoned scion of the patriarchal ruling class system (32, Worcester). Box no. 7590.
How can I follow that? Man, 47. Gives up easily. Box no. 9547.
HOWZAT!4 Ex-Sherbet groupie (mulleted F, 46), currently lecturer in Fine Arts. The good days aren’t coming back, are they? Please kiss me. Box no. 7958.
Don’t reply to this ad–I’ll only end up confessing that the thing about having a second book deal was a lie and there is no author tour in the pipeline. Man, 39, just secured second book deal and about to embark on author tour. Box no. 8676.
The room was silent and the tree in the corner still, its delicate baubles shimmering in the moonlight that crept through the frosted window. Outside and in the distance he fancied he could hear the jingle of bells, fading into the Northern Lights. The ground outside was blanketed thick with fresh, crisp snow. He would be out there at the rising of the sun, building snowmen and dressing them with his gloves and hat, but for the moment there were more important things to consider in the parlour. Slowly at first, so as to make the moment last that little bit longer, he teased the shiny wrapper from the corner of the box, then, with excited fingers and eyes wide, he stripped it bare, throwing the paper behind him and tearing the cardboard lid until he could see its contents peeping out. Suddenly a darkness fell upon his face. Oh no, Santa. This isn’t right. Why have you let me down again? Why have you betrayed my trust? All I wanted was a woman to 40 (preferably within the M25). ‘Damn you, Santa!’ he cried, flinging open the window and letting the icy night fly in. ‘Damn your very eyes!’ ‘Are you all right, son?’ asked his 64-year-old mother, whom he had spent most of his adult life caring for, without any thanks, without any consolation, and without any willingness on her part even to look through the care-home brochures. ‘Yes,’ he sobbed softly into his sleeve, before looking up through tearful eyes; ‘please hug me, Mummy.’ The bells in the distance had vanished. The sun had started to rise. ‘Is Santa coming back next year?’ ‘Yes, son, Santa always comes back for good boys.’ Box no. 7966.
These ads are a sudden heady rush of pleasure in an otherwise sterile world (Runcorn). I have little to of
fer other than my willingness to embrace failure and a clear view of the ICI plant. Man, 45. Box no. 8653.
Lacks imagination, talks too much, frequently absent. Look at me now, Miss Webster of Year 4. History professor, 56. Lacks imagination, talks too much and is frequently absent. Seeks woman. Box no. 8025.
With Oxford bi-plane modeller (M, 51), patience and innovation are a daily experience. So too, however, is gluing my head to my shoulder. Cyanoacrylate,5 and a whole lot of lovin’, please, to box no. 7990.
Shake hands with Dalkeith,6Midlothian! Official greeter and face of Dalkeith Cheese Festival, 1974, seeks woman to 50 who is no stranger to failure, debt-consolidating mortgages, and wool. Must enjoy beards and harbour contempt for any music that isn’t Belgian jazz. Box no. 8970.
1 Reconstituted noodle and vegetable ramen-style snack available in the UK. Popular with students and people whose only cooking facility is a kettle.
2 Taken from ‘Babooshka’, single released by Kate Bush in July 1980. The song relates the story of a man who is sent a sequence of love-letters. He falls in love with the writer, reminded by their contents of his wife in the early days of their relationship ‘when she was beautiful’. The author of the letters is, in fact, his wife who is writing under the assumed identity of Babooshka in an attempt to prove her husband’s adultery. Reached number five in the UK charts.
3 ‘The genuine dividual is also the genuine in-dividual.’ From Das Allgemeine Brouillon by German author Novalis (1772–1801). Novalis, together with Friedrich Schlegel, developed a theory of the fragment as a literary form of art.
4 ‘Howzat’: single released by pop group Sherbet on 25 September 1976. Reached number four in the UK, staying in the charts for ten weeks.
5 Major component of substances such as methyl-2-cyanoacrylate, also known as superglue, and the surgical glue 2-octyl cyanoacrylate. Can be softened by liberal applications of acetone, which is found in nail-polish remover.
