I read somewhere recently that men habitually experience a frisson of sexual excitement upon discovering that there is new correspondence in their e-mail inbox. All I can say is that whoever came up with that particular gem is clearly not on the same mailing lists as me.
Take George Byrne, for example. Now, while I am always delighted to find that the controversial rock critic has sent an e-mail with my name on it hurtling into cyberspace, the only thing I have ever pulled out of my trousers upon seeing it queuing patiently in my inbox is my wallet. This is because on the frequent occasions I hear from George, he is either suggesting a wager, or dropping me a line to crow about a coup he has pulled off invariably at my expense.
Most recently, it was the FA Cup Final. The day after the appalling encounter I discovered to my horror that very late on the preceding Friday night, I had drunkenly agreed, via e-mail, to bet twenty pounds on Aston Villa winning a football match. That s right! A score of my own money on that rabble.
I have little or no recollection of this bout of Tequila-fuelled lunacy, but further investigations revealed irrefutable evidence, there in my outbox, looking tremendously expensive and unsexy. Some men drink, get drunk and wake up in jail with an ill-advised tattoo. Others bet on The Villa.
Frissons of sexual excitement are also conspicuous by their absence whenever I receive electronic missives from my old flatmate Buzz O Neill. Readers of last fortnight s issue will remember Buzz as one of those entrepreneurial whiz kids who is managing to get by just fine in life, despite not doing too well in his Leaving Cert. (And he did it back in the days when it was really easy.)
A leading publicist specialising in the field of dance, Buzz was put on this earth to keep the masses informed of the movements of various movements. Whenever a new strain of bleepy-bleepy music mutates in the darkened bedroom of some spotty oik, Buzz is first on the case, keeping Ireland abreast of the developments, and letting us know where and when we can dance to them. In short, if Ali G really wanted to know whether the Big Bang was louder than drum and bass, he should have asked Buzz.
However, what Buzz doesn t seem to realise is that some of us have been left in dance music s dust. We know nothing about it and pretend to care even less because we are ashamed of our ignorance. A decade ago we thought it was a passing fad, so we chose to ignore it safe in the knowledge that it would go away. Unfortunately for us, it didn t. Now we have been left behind.
On the rare occasions we attempt to enthuse about how much we like dance music , we end up sounding as pathetic as Colm Connolly does whenever he mentions the Hit Parade while reporting for RTE news from Slane.
Don t get me wrong, there isn t a day goes by when I don t regret not clambering aboard the dance music bandwagon when it passed my house, instead of waving it on it s way with a lemon-slice smirk. And I am trying, God knows I m trying, but it s hard.
The fact that there isn t a day goes by when I don t receive at least five e-mailed press releases from Buzz telling me what DJ is playing what records in what Irish venue next weekend doesn t make it any easier, though. However, for some strange reason he continues to bombard me with information I don t want. Whenever I ask him to stop, its volume doubles. I can only conclude that he misses having me in da house.
My e-mail inbox hasn t always been entirely devoid of sexy material however. There is one annoying jerk in America who keeps pleading with me to subscribe to an Internet site full of promiscuous sluts who look underage but, crucially, aren t. Perhaps he thinks my name is Barry Glitter
Then there s my good mate from Birr, who regularly sends me pictures of scantily clad women who like to stick things in themselves. He gets them from someone else, naturally, and is just providing a public service by forwarding them to the rest of his mates. They make for grim but compelling viewing.
Believe it or not, the sight of beautiful women with wine bottles, root vegetables, baseball bats or live eels (no, really) protruding from places no wine bottle, root vegetable, baseball bat or live eel was ever meant to be is not even remotely sexy. Amusing? Yes. Intriguing? A bit. Sexy? No. Today, though, was the straw that broke the camel s back.
Today I was mailed a photo of a man with a spoon sticking out of his todger.