Desperate Times, Desperate Measures - Revision #3 - February 24, 2008 1:22:01 AM UTC

In the old days, picking up the ladies was easy. Working for the Citys' third largest brokerage gave you built-in kudos. All I had to do when I spotted my target was crack open a few bottles Dom Perignon and offer a glass to everyone around her, except her. If she male companions, banter with them abd make doubly sure they get some. Let her stew for a about a minute, wondering if she's got pimples or something. Ninety seconds tops. Then, hey, suddenly you notice her, how could you have missed her, offer her a glass, and you're in. Pour on the attention and the Champagne. Champagne was definitely the key... you had to keep it flowing. And when it was time, all I had to do was just slide up to her, flash my perfectly lined veneers with award winning smile to match, and say “I’ve been tested and it came back negative, but I have these anyway", and show her my box of trojans. When you're the dogs bollocks, it's that easy. Often, I even got away without a glove.

Then the bloody bubble burst. We all knew it had to happen eventually... just thought we'd be smart enough to see it coming and jump at the last minute. We laughed when Peter pulled out and went to Stockholm. His Swedish girlfriend was like the blonde ABBA bird... I do her any day... but still, Stockholm !? I should have followed him, an got his girl to boot.

Now it's got a lot harder. After the burst, we became lepers.. all us Essex boys. No one would touch us with a barge pole. No one was interested in the kind of high risk high pressure dealing that we did... the only business that we knew. They wanted to go back the old traditional old boys clubs that had "built the country"... relationships built on a gentlemans honour and trust. "And frankly", as one interviewer had put it bluntly "it's not your fault, but you were just born in the wrong class for the business, and I should never have got a licence in the first place". Fuck him... fuck thm all. The bastards. I did think about joining al-fucking-qaida and showing them how to break "the business".
But you probably don't get laid in alqaida... you probably have to give them all you money.. and your life. Fuck that!

Being a free-lance loan and mortgage broker was the same game, only for less dough less kudos. At the end of the day it was the same shit. Buying money cheaply, and selling it off for a lot... usually to people who had no other options. And charging them an arrangement fee too. As they say, a new sucker is born everyday.

But I still couldn't understand my declining success with the ladies. Yeah, I was reaching the big four oh, and maybe I grew a beer belly and my dark hair has thinned and become salt and peppery. But I could still keep cracking open them bottles of twenty pound Chales Rougemont champ. And my eight thousand pound guaranteed for life veneers were still sparkling. And no problems in the lower department. I’m still a fine specimen of manhood. Hell, I make myself horny thinking about me. So why am I being left to pound my own spud more often? Even changed cologne and deodorant. Thought I'd try this Lynx stuff which they keep showing on the telly.

Last month was the last straw for me though. Went to Hard Rock Cafés' seventies-eighties night, following my usual rotation. After being rejected by all sort of women... some of them didn't even want the champ.. what the hell was the wrong with these country bumpkins. Jesus mary and joseph. I decided to go for broke. I hadn't had a shag for a few weeks. So I approached this mature woman. I’m being kind, she must have been in her mid-forties. I did the usual champagne routine, and things seemed to be going according to plan. So I showed my pearly whites in the most alluring smile I could manage and gave her, The Line. Maybe it was too soon... maybe my desperation was showing... I don't know. She laughed. She, laughed at ME. Fucking bitch. “Do I look like I’m THAT desperate?” She asked in between guffaws. “If I ever get that needy, I just put out a personal ad or join an online dating service!”. She walked off leaving me steaming. Later that night, I had to slap the salami. And I fantasized a hundred ways of brutalizing her.