Sorry, on reflection, this post was not a good idea. Memory... What was that?

Yeah, I want to be judge of that...no more like I just want to enjoy what you write about this topic Wrigley, cause all my thrills are vicarious

There was a PARTY? Nuts, missed it and all that's to show for it is carbon dust in my undies.

e) presume she is making a joke, and not actually offering herself to you. That makes b) acceptable - you too are making a joke, and not actually offering youself to her.

This procedure is known as FLIRTING - a common enough practice in most circles, but alas, an unknown concept to some men, who have such big egos, that a mere joke from an aquaintances wife can be misconstrued, even at Christmas!

PS: To some men (esp construction workers), merely saying a polite 'Hello' or simply walking past can be an explicit invitation to sex, often prompting phrases such as 'she is gagging for it', so don't feel too bad about it.

I have no doubt that she was NOT offering herself to me. It was just a bit of, er, horseplay. Or, more likely, she was just drawing my attention to the fact that I was staring at her bum.

I just thought I would share the cascade of my thought processes, that show how crude the masculine brain is. Not to mention when awash with festive spirit and other cocktails.

This might help some women NOT saying hello to builders, or "I'm dressed as a Christmas present" to me - We men are all rapists on a leash, regardless of our trade.

It might also stop some writers from writing idealised portraits of love and romance: it doesn't exist. What exists is the line in The Good Soldier ("There comes a station in a man's life when the next woman he beds will be the woman he will stay with for the rest of his life" OK, I paraphrase, but that is the gist of it).

Until the good soldier moment, however, all men want to be is the bay stallion with the humongous schlong, who is led up to a compliant, complicit and well tethered female and then, after intense but suitably brief intercourse, can go back to eating his hay without further attachment or care.

Women must steer a different course. The lady in the red bow was probably playing to a gallery of one, her husband. He looked rather tired, so he probably needed a little reminder of marital duties, and what could be better to pepper him up and get his sperm off their crutches than a drizzle of jealousy?

In life, routine needs to be shattered on a regular basis. That is what Christmas parties.

I like my friend in her red bow. It occurs to me that both couples affected by the incident had a very merry Christmas. Not quite a foursome, but no harm in a little quantum entanglement.

As to flirting, it happens all the time. It is part of the quantum frenzy of human relationships, virtual pairings that appear from the vacuum and disappear again into nothingness. I can fall in love 5 times in one trip on the tube, and never remember them all again or even miss them. We all need egging on, something to prise us away from routine, from writing long, long post on YWO's message board, from the computer, from work and into the sack with the lady. It is a necessary part of the unromantic Universe full of brain dead locusts.

And as to sex, what would we do without sex?

Anyway, now that Christmas is behind us, I am working on dirty little poem for Byrne's night. An exploration of the dim interiors of the masculine brain never goes amiss when doing that.

This is a sample from yesteryear.

Second Coming

Come home
Come home
Come home
Standing still
Still stilted
Clenched
Waiting
Weighted
Driving
Striving
Tooth on tooth
Nail on nail
Hip on hip
Lip on lip
Holding on
Holding off
Never do
Never say
Never come alone
Only you
Could take so long
To come
To come
To come
And come again
Memory... What was that?