writer's moll

You’d need a GSOH – a Scouse one as it happened – to launch a lonely hearts column with a first entry that reads: ‘67-year old disaffiliated flaneur picking my toothless way through the urban sprawl, self-destructive, sliding towards pathos, jacked up on Viagra and on the lookout for a contortionist who plays the trumpet’. But David Rose, the Liverpudlian advertising director for the London Review of Books (the biggest selling literary magazine in Europe) accepted the ad 8 years ago and his baby has developed into a unique column, attracting an increasing number of admirers. That they appear like so many nutters, competing like peacocks to attract a mate with elaborate displays of silliness and eccentricity can be seen as refreshingly different or a smidgeon scary depending on whether you want to read something more interesting than the clichéd GSOH who WLTM their alter egos, or the darker sort such as: ‘Don’t let distance come between us. Or metal bars. Or restricted access. Or the magic sweeties that make the night terrors go away. Write now to bubbly (others say “Maximum Security” but what do they know?) F, 34, before the clowns tell her to do things the clowns shouldn’t do.’ It’s not only funny, but clever too, because the contributors get to hide their fear of rejection behind the pretence that it’s just a game, although at 80p a word, it looks as though the man behind the idea has the most fun. Mr Rose says that he does get some complaints from people who tell him the magazine’s rubbish because they didn’t receive a single response, but you’d have to be the ultimate optimist to expect a reply to this one: ‘Must all the women in my life take the witness stand? Serial embezzler, gangster, fly-tipper and – crucially for the prosecution against an otherwise watertight defence – bigamist (M, 48) WLTM easy-going, dizzy fems to 50 who don’t ask too many questions (it’s a busy trip – I’ll be back on Tuesday)’, or the one that captures a stereotypical image with simply: ‘I am an accountant’. But the one that most intrigues me is: ‘Indifferent Woman – blah, blah, blah, go ahead and write – like I care’. Being married to a Scouser, I know what clever blokes they are, so I’m sure Mr Rose knows there’ll be a response even if it’s not to the advertiser. Will more people buy the magazine for the high-minded literary content or the adverts? - like he cares. And a bonus is a new book called They Call Me Naughty Lola containing the best of the adverts.