Oh dear oh dear oh dear

Last night, at 20:48, I sent the following text message to my friend, Kate: 'Help. Am on date with short gay version of Piers Morgan with horrific aftershave'.

In retrospect, I think I was being generous. Sure, the appearance thing wasn't great. Apparently he'd had a previous date scowl at him when they met, "not even bothering to hide her displeasure. Admittedly," he admitted, "I did have longer hair in the picture, and it was dyed black." No shit. He looked about three decades younger in his photo. I'm fairly sure that he had been a bit clever on Photoshop by airbrushing out his terrible pockmarked skin, and he'd wisely chosen not to pose wearing the two inch thick black leather cuff that he had buckled round his right wrist last night. Ew.

My text to Kate, however, didn't even touch on the issues that really bothered me. It was not the way he looked that was the principal issue: it was his personality. A more cocky, unapologetic human I have not encountered for a long time. He spoke fast and loudly, with an affected, slightly camp accent. When I spoke, he lent forward, chin in hand, elbow on table, saying, "Mmm, mmm, right," after every three syllables that I uttered, with an expression of cloying sincerity that was so over-hammed, it was as though an eight year old had been taught how to playact the role of a stuck up shrink. Eventually, we got onto the subject of making judgments: who (if anyone) has the right to do this. His arrogance shocked me.
"I know I'm extremely bright," he said, without any hint of embarrassment. "I know I'm clever. I'm not going to hide that. I am prepared to admit that my opinions might change in the face of compelling evidence, but basically, I'm pretty confident that I've thought about things more than most people, and that I'm right." He had 'cruising for a bruising' written all over him.
"Well, I'm afraid I find that kind of attitude repellent," I said, as he laughed and mimed being stabbed in the heart. "No, I'm serious," I went on, looking (I hoped) deadly serious. "It's obviously fine to be clever. It's even acceptable to think you're clever. But it's quite another thing to go around boasting about that intelligence to a total stranger. It is alienating and fundamentally unattractive." Harsh, you might think - but I swear I could have said anything to the man, it wouldn't have come within a mile of denting his self-confidence. He was armour-plated like an armadillo in a bomb shelter, it was extraordinary. I've never met someone so far from subtle.

Consequently, I had an absolutely brilliant evening and laughed all the way home. It takes all sorts. He'll probably be married in a fortnight.

Today I have continued to be shocked by the publishing of the BNP membership lists and the ensuing furore. I am a free speech gal through and through, though, and think that if someone wants to be a member of the BNP, that's a failure of society, and not really the fault of the individual. Demonising the members, firing them from their jobs - it's all worryingly creeping towards thoughtcrime as far as I can see, and I don't like it one tiny bit.