I asked Germaine Greer out on a date today.
That's not a sentence I ever expected to write, but being a modern-day Hercules can do strange things to a man.
Fortunately my request was in letter form (via her agent) as I don't think I would have had the balls to ask her out face to face. Nevertheless it was an odd letter to have to write.
Regular readers will know that this is all part of my attempt to procure the famous feminist's brassiere for my new Edinburgh show and (perhaps appropriately) I have decided to be up front about my intentions. So I explained who I was, what my new show was about and went through a few of the other challenges, before getting round to saying why I was writing to her.
Now, it is quite difficult to write to a respected academic and say you want to steal some of her under-clothing without looking like a lunatic who is probably a sex pest. The more I wrote attempting to explain my motivation the more it felt like this was an extremely elaborate attempt to get hold of an elderly lady's underwear. Goodness only knows what she will think if and when she reads the letter. I hope she thinks it's a funny idea, but in all honesty if anyone wrote a similar letter to me (and they do very occasionally), I wouldn't be thinking for a second that I might meet them for dinner. Tragically, I have just noticed that I failed to save a draft of the letter, so I won't even be able to use it in the show for humourous effect if she fails to respond. I guess this means that this will only remain a task if Germaine is good enough to reply.
What probably won't help is that in order to bolster my credentials, I also enclosed a copy of my book. Now, if there was any doubt that this letter was from some kind of pervert with an underwear fetish, then I am sure it would be dispelled by the inclusion of a lengthy tome entirely about the penis.
I also pointed out that I use a quote from Ms Greer in the final chapter, and next to that quote is a photo of her. The caption I added to this was something along the lines of "Germaine Greer looking a bit sexy and coquettish in this picture. I wouldn't say no."
I only remembered this once the book was in the post. Oh dear.
I think if she does reply then at least one of my 50 dates might end with some action!
But there is also a chance that I might be arrested.
