For about a year now I've been getting the London Review of Books, thanks to a friend who put my name on some free list. I don't think I've read it once because, frankly, I have more exciting celebrity-focused magazines to read. But anyway, the other day I actually sat down to peruse some of the backlog, feeling all intelligent and literary-like. I tried a few lines of "Provincialising Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference", then moved on to "The Fortress of Solitude". Within about five minutes I was reading the personals at the back, and this is what I've found worth mentioning, inspired by Serepax.

Anyway, it struck me that there's something particularly horrific about overly smart personals, like the following:

"Only the good die young. And sea-monkeys. Providing you flush then. Re-claim those years of bitter disappointment, waiting for the turgid little insects of your life to blossom into webbed-toed critters, with good honest cephalopod. Underwater Kingdom and x-ray specs available...".

OR

"Had an accident at work that wasn't your fault? My God I love you. Junior Lawyer seeks winnable case/easy sex..."

OR

"Do you like Chekov, Don Giovanni, Gothic fiction, Burgundy, Venice, lobsters straight out of the Mediterranean? F academic still beautiful! seeks fun, laughter, joi de vivre"

I'm not saying these are particularly lame, but rather disconcerting 'cause, really, it kinda reminds me of blogging - the whole i'm sort of reaching out 'cause I'm writing this stuff, but I don't want it to seem that way, so I'll act all smart and detached and what not. Although I guess there is no other way to write a personal. Or a blog. It is actually scary reading of all these educated, professional (mostly academic) type people who are looking for someone to kill the hours with. A bit too close to home maybe? Not really, 'cause if I had to write a personal, it certainly wouldn't be in the London Review of Books.

Speaking of magazines, I've been reminded that one should perhaps feel shameful about reading car magazines by coming across (on two different occasions) the description "trouser-tent inducing" being applied to cars.