I arrived early at the Copper Steampot,
the tea rooms with an authentic olde worlde ambience,
which I’d chosen as ideal for meeting women from that new dating site,
Easy Romance For Little Pence.

An old pal had encouraged me to move on, saying,
‘It’s time you got off the fence, you’ll get a sore ass.’

As I waited I reflected on this sage advice, repeatedly glancing at the clock.
You may wonder how I’d fared in my quest for love on the internet
– if indeed the fish had swallowed my hook.

In fact it had all been a bit of a farce.
You see, I hadn’t often progressed beyond the first date.

‘Well,’ I mused, as I waited, ‘meeting them is all very well,
but that metaphorical Cupid’s arrow has not even taken flight.’

I glanced at the time again – nervous, as was usual on these occasions,
and there had been a few in my quest to find a new woman.

The first had been Athletic Annie, who insisted we go ice skating,
and we got drunk on steaming hot punch.

But after telling me she’d run five kilometres in just under an hour,
and I quipped, ‘What took you so long, did you stop for lunch?’, our relationship hit a patch of ice.

I explained that I used to run, and, ‘I broke 15 minutes, so I was reasonably fast.’

She responded, ‘You’re getting fat, stop drinking Guinness.’

Next up in my quest for romance, was Mathematical Millicent,
who sported a shy pensive look, and we hit it off until I confessed I couldn’t add up.

It was then I wondered if my ex-wife would have me back.
She was different, a lover of art and a fan of oddball movies like Fargo and Men Who Stare at Goats.

She’d even consented to indulge my passion for old-fashioned music,
by trying to sing George Formby’s Leaning On A Lamppost.

But deep down I suspected she was a box ticker – like not eating meat and banning the bomb,
and married a Conservative MP called Boris Briers-Bishopsong,
who as a student had sported a T-shirt saying ‘Hang Nelson Mandela’.

I did briefly come near holy padlock again, to Maud, a lecturer in English.
I organised a romantic trip to Blackpool, most of which we spent
at the George Formby Symposium, and she, like the ex,
was temporarily fascinated by fans paying tribute to their idol.

She blushed at a rendition of Formby’s My Fanny’s Gone all Yankee,
and I told her he’d written an unrecorded one called My Fanny’s Ticklish,
to which she was not amused, but did sing along to Chinese Laundry Blues.

I realise I am digressing - I’ve a habit of becoming distant and talking to myself.
Maybe that’s why I spent long periods ‘left on the shelf’.
For I never fitted in, I wasn’t into football or disco, in fact I was a bit of an oddball.

As a kid I used to hang in the vines of the Monkstone Priory,
listening to the brothers do Gregorian chant,
then in my teens bought a wind-up gramophone instead of a stereo.

‘I know I’m not hip,’ I explained to the lady who turned up at the Copper Teapot,
her arrival heralded by a blaring radio, playing Radio 2’s Sounds of the ’70s.

To start with our conversation was a bit stilted, but when we talked about music,
and I said, thinking it would impress, that I like some ’70s stuff,
she rattled on about The Who and their hit My Generation,
saying it was a lot of drug-induced angst.

And then she asked why I’d got divorced,
and my answer sparked a most amusing conversational joust.

‘I’ve always been a bit of an oddball,’ I said.
‘I should have told you that when we met online, but I thought we would never meet.

‘But guess what? I have seen Robert Plant.
Hasn’t he become very cool, singing with that country singer Alison Kraus?’

Ignoring the question, she asked incredulously, ‘Have you? With Led Zeppelin?’

‘No, it was with those uncool folkies Fairport Convention.’

‘Who?’

‘They’re folk-rockers.’

‘Oh, like Mumford and Sons?’

‘No, not really.’

She laughed saying, ‘Anyway, Plant must have felt a right fool, 
playing with them instead of Led Zep.’

My next riposte hit home, ‘Didn’t I hear you listening to Radio 2?
Johnny Walker played Louden Wainwright The Third, he’s not considered cool.’

She seemed nonplussed, then recovered, ‘Yes, but that comes under Americana.
According to that radio guy, Stuart Maconie, that’s a whole new genre.’

We had another date, and as a tease she put on a CD,
laughing when I said, ‘That’s Mumford And Sons!’

‘Yes,’ and she laughed, ‘I have one by that band you mentioned.
What were they called, Airport Confusion?’

To my pleasant surprise we discovered a love of puns.
So we saw Tim Vine, a great punster and my favourite comedian.

Afterwards she surprised me by saying she was learning the banjo ukulele,
and we were soon heading to the annual George Formby symposium,
where she got up and sang Auntie Maggie’s Home-made Remedy.

As we basked in the applause, I declared, ‘I never thought I’d get another
girlfriend to accompany me to celebrate my hero George in Blackpool.
When I tell women I like him, they say old-fashioned singers aren’t cool.’

Then she looked at me and said the magic words,
‘That’s why I love you, darling - you’re just so uncool!’