Slut in the kitchen, chef in the bedroom

Friends, you've really been depriving yourself if you haven't been reading the London Review of Books classifieds all these years. Self-deprecation, irony, and desperation have never been so attractive; indeed, if these ads are any indication, my long-held but hitherto secret hunch has proven true and I may, therefore, now reveal it to you: everyone in England is so inherently hilarious that I would marry them all, sight unseen. The LRB personals are online here; unfortunately, the site hasn't been updated in a while. Not sure what the status of the print version is.

In the meantime, the editor of the LRB classifieds has put together a bookish collection of some of the best ads posted over the years, called "They Call Me Naughty Lola": Personal Ads from the London Review of Books. Unless you hate hilarity, wit, and good grammar, you'll love this book. I recommend reading it out loud with someone you like (or who, at least, has a good reading voice); this is what hubby and I did, up until the last section anyway, when things had to be accelerated so the book could be returned to the library on time.

Some samples to whet your appetite (and to alleviate your shock over my post title):

Slut in the kitchen, chef in the bedroom. Woman with mixed priorities (37) seeks man who can toss a good salad. (!!!! Okay, maybe the shock just increased. Heh.)

I've divorced better men than you. And worn more expensive shoes than these. So don't think placing this ad is the biggest comedown I've ever had to make. Sensitive F, 34.

It takes a real man to wear a dress. It take a revolutionary to wear those shoes with that blusher.

I am not afraid to say what I feel. At this moment in time I feel anger, giddiness, and the urge to dress like a bear and forage for berries at motorway hedgerows. Man, 38.

And my favourite:

Allele, anatta, arrear, arrere, bedded, bettee, breere, caccap, ceesse, cobbob, cocoon, deesse, dolool, doodad, effere, emmele, emmene, ennean, essede, feyffe, gaggee, giggit, googol, gregge, hammam, hummum, hubbub, jettee, kokoon, lessee, lesses, mammal, mammee, mossoo, mutuum, nerrer, ossous, pazazz, pepper, perree, pippin, powwow, reeder, reefer, reeffe, refeff, retree, seasse, secess, seesen, sensse, sessle, settee, sissoo, tattee, tattoo, tedded, teerer, teeter, teethe, terrer, testee, tethee, tetter, tittee, treete, unnung, veerer, weeded, zaara. Six-letter words with one occurrence of one letter, two occurrences of another letter and three occurrences of another letter. By Christ, I need a woman. I'm 41, but if you've got a pulse, cable TV and a smoothie-maker you'll do.

Ah, love.

I clearly have nothing to say about this book except "Yay!" so let this post be both a directive as well as a lesson to you: Eating well can be much kinkier than you think. Also, the Brits are probably not as sexually repressed as you are; unless you're a Brit, in which case, have I just created a Mobius strip of dubious hilarity? And finally, because I can't count, and for no good reason except that spring really seems to have arrived, a little Chaucer (Parliament of Fowls) for you:

Now welcome, somer, with thy sonne softe,
That hast this wintres wedres overshake,
And driven away the longe nyghtes blake!