The Incomplete Tim Key. Tim Key

to chalk up sexual partners like they’re going out of fashion. Do we blame Tiger Woods for his dismal conduct? Hang him out to dry in our redtops? Damn him in our poetry anthologies? Or do we blame mean Christians for not putting more coins in the velvet bag? I know one man who’s screwed six girls called Claire Smith, and has his eye on a seventh. Thankfully, you do still get exceptions to this morally bankrupt norm. You can still find the odd square waddling up to his date with a bag of posies, pecking her on the cheek and steering her into a community organised dance, but largely things have become much more aggressive, immediate and grubby. Where possible, of course, I make a point of bucking this trend. I am always at pains to be as romantic as the situation allows. Recently, I cooked dinner for a young Spanish lady. She was very appreciative. I was ladling beans and spice-infused cress onto our plates like a man possessed – Norah Jones belting out of my Sony Hi-Fi as God intended. I had lit candles and joss sticks and hollowed out a pumpkin by way of effort and she was glowing in the face of my commitment to romance. It was quite a night! My only complaint was that she insisted on leaving in a taxi prior to pudding. Once she had left, I sat in front of the snooker and, reflecting on my evening, became deeply annoyed. It struck me that, having splashed out on flowers, dinner ingredients and a residential cooking course to get me to a sufficient standard to approximate Spanish cooking, I had in fact spent more than it would have cost me to hire exactly the type of professional sex worker I had been trying to avoid paying. And yet, owing to my old-fashioned, romantic obsessiveness, I didn’t even get to experience anything remotely intimate with Martina. Not a handshake, not nothing. In short, it was a fucking washout.

POEM#948

      ‘ONLINE BULLSHIT’

      Two ugly bastards

      Gave false faces to an Internet dating site.

      But they got each other.

      When they met they were both bloody furious.

POEM#1129

      ‘THE SAD TALE OF CHRIS AND SIAN’

      Chris and Sian started having an affair.13

      But Sian couldn’t wink properly.