At this point, I thought I’d take the chance to answer some of my fan mail, which seemed reasonable enough. However, I failed to take into account the fact that my entire readership probably consists of about three people - one of whom is myself and another is probably just a spambot trawling for email addresses. Just as I was about to give up hope and just fake an email, however, along came this:

From: "Clare Knight" {clareknight@optushome.com.au}
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 18:23:55 +1000

TAKE ME OFF YOUR ADDRESS BOOK PLEASE & DONT SEND ME ANY MORE E-MAILS, IT IS CAUSING UN-NECCESARY SHIT BETWEEN ME AND MY BOYFRIEND.

Now, I actually was going to write a proper response to this, expressing my disappointment and disgust at such a poorly presented argument (surely it wouldn’t have taken that much effort to turn off caps lock and use some proper punctuation) at the premise on which it is based. On second thought, though, I came to the conclusion that I could do no better than restating the advice I gave her in reply (although she’s yet to thank me for it): if your boyfriend is that upset over a simple email, obviously you need a better boyfriend. Or, better yet, you can avoid the problem of male insecurity altogether by adopting lesbianism. So, if any of you loyal readers out there think you can offer Clare the prospect of a more fulfilling relationship than she has with her current partner (and, let’s face it, that can’t be all that difficult), go ahead and introduce yourself; I’m sure she’d be overwhelmed by your interest.