1. Make sure your profile photo is clear, recent, and with a fun and flirty look.

2. Use language that is fun and flirty.  This means something different for everyone, so know something about who you’re flirting with before you start the flirting.

3.  Give someone a compliment that doesn’t require them to reciprocate.  Everyone loves a compliment with no strings attached.

4.  Always end a flirt with a smile.  Even if it doesn’t work out you’re a better person if you end the flirt on a high note.  Leave something positive for the other person to remember you by.

Happy New Year, Flirts!

Now then my dear friends, you know me, if I were the owner of a trumpet, where possible I would prefer not to blow it. Instead I would leave it resting against the sideboard and allow other people to come along and blow it for me. However in the absence of any available puckered lips I must do a little trumpeting of my own and say I was pretty damn pleased to hear that so many of you queried my whereabouts over the last few months. I’m touched, I really am (although, sadly, not in a sexy sexy way). Given this …erhem…outpouring of grief I thought it only right and proper to fill you in on the details of my extended leave.

Well, around about late December last year I was doing the standard Chrimbo shopping bit. Fish slice for mother. Pipe tobacco for father – you know the sort of thing ­ – when I spotted one of those Santa’s Grotto set-ups. Never one to miss an opportunity to sit on the knee of a man bearing gifts I polished my buttocks and headed over. I queued, as one must, but eventually it was my turn to follow the little green elf through the tinsel curtains and into Santa’s private space. The mere sight of him, sitting there, with his manly stomach pressing against the taut fabric of his outfit and his heaving sack resting at his feet – oh my goodness! And then, as I placed my cheeks upon his knee, I had a vision. Me lying upon a lion skin rug, in my best pants and bra, in front of a roaring fire. Him kneeling down and letting the soft bristles of his big white beard caress the bare flesh of my thighs. Ladies and gentlemen I could stand it no more. I launched my lips upon his and attempted to insert a ripe tongue.

Santa, a chap not well known for his salacious ways, was seemingly taken aback. He pushed me away and I landed in a heap at the feet of a gob-smacked elf. There was a to-do. A policeman arrived. Unfortunately I also enjoy the sight of a man in a helmet and so I afforded him the same tongue thrusting behaviour as I had our Christmas hero. There followed further rejection on the part of the copper. And then a small white van appeared. Oh dear. I was bundled into the back and driven to a sinister building in the middle of some even more sinister moors. And there I stayed. For five long months. Men in white coats prodded and probed at my brain as I licked my lips, flicked my locks and fluttered my lashes. It seems they believed me to be suffering some sort of disorder. ‘An obsession for flirting’ they said. ‘A mania for seduction. A passion for tantalization.’ These ‘doctors’ wanted to fix me. To take away the temptress and leave but a hollow shell.

No chance pals!

It took me five long months but eventually I escaped -with the help of an orderly who wasn’t quite so displeased with my femme fatale personality. I snuck out under the cover of darkness and bolted to a little safe-hole I know (again the owner of which would not be happy to see my cheeky little ways turn to dust).

Of course it is imperative that we keep this a secret between you and I. You must tell no one my true identity. I am no longer Mel, your happy go lucky blogger of years gone by, from here on in I shall be Miss. Tallulah Minnelli McFlashalot. Hoorah!

So, people, now that I’m back, how about we get this show on the road, eh.

Yours,

Miss. Tallulah Minnelli McFlashalot (formally know as Mel) x

It wouldn’t be an issue however if he hadn’t pointed his delicious wares in my direction and made it clear I was welcome to help myself to the goods on offer! When he was with Leanne I always coveted him in envy but he never so much as hinted that he would be keen to munch on my action, which is of course a marvelous thing – there’s few things worse than a man who thinks dallying around with his girlfriend’s mates is a smart idea. But what to do now?

Yesterday he sent me a cheeky little text enquiring as to whether I might be available for a small trip to the cinema and a nibble on something delicious afterwards – I presume he meant dinner!

I am tangled up in a monstrous web of dilemma, and frankly my friends, it’s damned annoying. What if he turns out to be the chap of my destiny? Maybe the baby Jesus (and/or any other religious deity) has a plan for us to wander down the seafront paw¬–in–paw when we are both grey haired and wrinkly, but I go and scupper his plans by refusing to date him. Maybe I’ll never find love again? Zoiks! Nobody needs that worry on their conscience. So perhaps I should go. Perhaps I should pop all memories and thoughts of Leanne in a small box and stick them in the cupboard under the stairs with the Blue Peter tortoise and see whether Jesus really does have such a plan for Simon and I.

I suppose that if I keep it under the proverbial cloth cap for the immediate time being no harm shall be done. And if this does become a love affair on a scale of Ken and Deidre I can decide to confess all to our Leanne and take it from there.

There is of course, always the chance that he will be an aching great toss–bag of enormous proportions. After all, Leanne did decide to hand him the raspberry and call it a day. But in these situations it seems sensible to keep the mind open and the underpants in place, at least, that is, until his potential toss-bag credentials are fully ascertained.

Deception, sometimes, can make the day pass with an interesting zip and I often employ it as a way of pepping up dull conversations – perhaps I’ll pretend I’m related to Debbie McGee, or maybe fake a severe fear of jumpers – any such nonsense to keep boredom at bay. Some lies, however, take things a smidge further than your everyday entertainment injection…

Pete, a colleague of mine with a hook–nose but a cracking pair of buns, was enjoying a bit of internet dating on, I’m sorry to say, a site in no way as binky-bonky as our dear Flirtomatic. He’d been chatting to several fillies, exchanged a few personal details and was dreadfully excited about his first date with a girl who, I have to say, from her pic, had a stonkingly tremendous facial arrangement.

So, the evening of his date I sent him on his way with a hearty cheer and wishes of all things pant-moistening and set about polishing my ears in anticipation of news…

Well, the story goes that at first poor Pete thought that he’d been stood up. Having been in the bar for a good twenty minutes looking for this lovely creature he couldn’t spy her for peanuts. Just as he was about to scarper a girl tapped him on the shoulder and ‘huttt-hummed’, he swiveled to face her. “Are you Pete?” she queried. “I believe that I am” he replied. And low, he had found his date. However it was no great surprise that his eyeballs hadn’t detected her earlier, the similarity to her photo was about as real as unicorn poo. He, being a man who believes in the straight line, laid it out there. “You aren’t the girl in the snap?”. “No” she confessed, “that’s my friend Daisy, we all call her Frogslegs” as if the nickname provided some explanation?! Pete stood agog, the reason she’d used her friend’s picture was clear – this girl had a face like a sack of smashed crabs! But more to the point, she’d fibbed! It goes without verbal explanation to assume he legged it, sharpish.

Of course I have no doubt that if he’d followed my words of great wisdom and stuck with Flirtomatic this situation would not have arisen. Deception? Us? No way. The Flirto-Crew are way too fit-a-roo, you just have to check out our pics to see that…

What’s that you say? Why yes, I suppose I do bear an uncanny likeness to Angelina.

Who are all those children and that fit guy with me in the picture, you ask?….oh erm you know, just some school kids and their teacher I was passing…honest!

Really? Never?

Well my friends, it sounds to me like you’ve never been in a classic ‘narrow squeak’ situation.

That’s no bad thing of course.

I had one such escape this week and let me assure you, I feel absolutely peachy to have slithered out all limbs in tact.

Once again, I allowed a chum to set me up with a young gent. Now, these blind date scenarios can be a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to results, so, erring on the sharp edge of caution, I asked said pal to put me in touch with my potential love match so we could have a natter on the old blower before we actually committed to meet. So that is exactly what we did…and very well it went too. We spoke for a good 47 minutes 23 seconds about all manner of things and seemed to get on like the proverbial cheese and pickle. Ending the call with an arrangement to meet on the following Sunday I popped the receiver back in its cradle with visions of songbirds and pink rose-petals fluttering through my mind – maybe, just maybe, this fellow was ‘the one’.

Well isn’t it just like Beelzebub himself to come and poke his beak in whenever love tries to make an entrance. Come Sunday I felt absolutely dire. My onion throbbed, my throat felt like a barrel of rusty pins and as for my tummy, well, dear reader, some things are best left understated so lets just say it ‘wasn’t good’

It was all I could do to raise an index digit and text said chap with the apologetic news that I felt near to Heaven’s pearly gates and ask if he minded if I slipped under the rope on this one and postponed until the following week.

Oh yes, he really did mind.

You would have thought I’d suggested feasting upon the rotting spleen of his long dead grandmother! The torrent of anger that he displayed in his return message was the stuff of nightmares! Gordon Ramsey would have struggled to match his swears!

Of course I didn’t reply. Mainly because I was too busy fighting off the Grim Reaper who had knocked at my door in the form of this silly bug, but once I had recovered I actually had cause to thanks the little germs that had so infected me. If I had not fallen ill I would have happily gone along to meet this nut–job, completely oblivious to the fact I was on a date with the spawn of Satan himself.

A squeak, I’m sure you’ll agree, of the very narrowest kind.

This became apparent last week when I was nattering away to a distinguished chap I’d met on the 2.15 to Chipping-Norton. Having mentioned I was considering popping the old homestead up for sale, he, being in the business, suggested we get together back in London for a small snifter so that he could give me a bit of advice on the matter.

Well, he had a few more grey hairs on his lemon than I would usually plump for, but he had buckets of charm and the sort of confidence that makes a girl go fizzy in her tummy, so I accepted, and a couple of days later we met for said drinkaroos.

It was all going like a dream. Initially he gave me lots of property advice as promised, but then, as the magical elixir worked its usual wonders we relaxed into normal conversational nonsense.

I started bandying about all the classic flirtation shenanigans – twiddling my locks, gazing into his peepers, pampering his ego – but I hadn’t really been getting too much back by way of the same – oh sure we were nattering away like a pair of old biddies at a bus–stop, but he hadn’t yet poked me with his flirtatious wares.

The grey–matter kicked into gear and I hazarded he might have been a bit unsure as to whether I was really keen – what with my popping out of my mother’s undercarriage in the same year he was enjoying his first legal booze-up – so I figured I needed to step it up a notch and show him the clear green light.

I changed my seating position to right next to him, and, at what I considered was an appropriate interlude, I placed my digits and palm upon his upper thigh and gave it a significant sqquuuueeezzzzeeee.

Well, the man jumped so high he almost biffed his bonce on the ceiling! When he finally landed he yelped, “What, in the name of Hades, are you doing?”

It’s fair to say I didn’t really know how to answer this. I blustered something about wanting to show him that I liked him and blushed hideously. Eek.

Still decidedly angry around the gills he pointed out how inappropriate it was given we’d spent the last hour talking about his recent wedding day!

Yikes! My brain, so used to flirting in every situation, had gone into automatic mode. It seems I’d been nodding and smiling along with the conversation but not actually taking any of it in – I was too concerned with my flirting techniques.

All this lovely man had wanted to do was generously give some advice to another human being and I’d rewarded him with an improper grope. Oh dear.

So my friends, this is why I really do need that holiday – but bugger Spain, I reckon a nunnery is the best place for me, anyone know where I can find one?

Fortunately most of us know how to put such a man in his place – with barely concealed pity and disgust etched onto our faces we politely but firmly tell him to “bugger–the–hell–off”.

It’s a shame that these ‘gentlefellows’, whose accumulation of years should have given them experience, knowledge and sophistication (the very things a lady’s heart – and pants – keenly desire), so often disregard it all in favour of waving their metaphorical winkie in our faces in the hope we’ll be impressed.

A sorry state of affairs when men behave in this manner – even worse when it’s a woman!

We’ve all seen them, those sexually aggressive females in their middle years who’ve spent too much time watching American Pie and developed the bonkers theory that all young men need a MILF experience!

They don’t.

Most of these ladies are, in reality, decidedly saggy round the gizzards (in case you’re wondering, yes, that is a polite way of saying ‘boobs’), or they are resplendent in hues of plastic, from eyelid–implants to fake¬–toenails. Yuck.

Again, it’s not the genuinely elegant and attractive older lady I’m bashing here, no no, it’s the ones whose brains have taken a serious turn for the worse and prey on unwitting young men in a somewhat sinister fashion – with the belief that ever brighter shades of red lipstick and a skirt that recedes in length with every passing birthday will halt the ravishes of time.

Oh those poor male victims. They don’t know what to do with themselves. Perhaps initially flattered by the attention, you can, if you watch closely, sometimes see the very moment that flattery turns to terror – their eyes widen and their faces pale – often after their ears have received information about a burning passion for rubbing lard into intimate places… or some such hideously frightening statement.

Of course most lads, if raised by parents who believe in good manners and clean underpants, will find it difficult to reject an older lady, feeling that it is perhaps disrespectful.

But boys, I urge you, should you find yourself in such a scenario, be firm, and reject those advances in no uncertain terms…or if all else fails run, run for the hills.

That is my advice, take it if you will – unless, of course, you quite fancy standing starkers in a lavender scented bedroom smearing cooking grease onto the bare flesh of a woman with nipples that rest upon her upper thighs. Each to their own my friends, each to their own.

Dave, Heaven help him, has a distinct face. And by distinct, I of course mean, hideous – ears so large and sticky-outie crows often try to roost upon them come nightfall. A conk with a tip so bent to one side you wonder if it wouldn’t be better employed as a pointing tool for assisting lost tourists. Skin as grey and dull as the feeling one gets on a damp Sunday afternoon in November.

In short, the sort of chap for whom a Halloween mask would be a marked improvement.

However the spirit of the season had really got my gizzards going – after all, you can lay a fiver down that all those be–warted and blood–gargling creatures–of–the–night set about a bit of romance when on a break from all that scaring nonsense. So I decided that if hairy–knuckled werewolves and mouldy old zombies could get a bit of pant action, there was no reason that my poor prune Dave, couldn’t.

Flicking through the list of my single female friends my eyes began to fizz with excitement when they rested upon Karen.

Beautiful, lovely Karen. This blighter’s face starts where Helen of Troy left off – so you wouldn’t necessary pair her with the gargoyle that is Dave – however, despite her cracking facial arrangement she lacks somewhat in the body department; rather lumpy round the middle, yet with no lumps where lumps would be welcomed. Legs, no more than fleshy stumps, and shoulders that stoop forward as if always looking out for runaway snails.

So I had Karen with her delightful face yet unfortunate body, and Dave with his facial unpleasantness yet appropriate body and cracking personality. Between them they seemed to make one perfect human being. Yahoo!

Like dutiful singles they happily agreed to meet for a blind date and I waited next to the blower the next morning to hear how things had gone…

Karen was first off the mark.

Within seconds my lugs were aflame! She accused me of implying she was desperate and made no bones about the fact his face was totally unacceptable to her – apparently she’d wanted to puke on sight. Yikes.

Seconds after Karen had finished licking me with her abuse Dave tinkled up and the ranting began all over again! The thrust being that he was horrified I thought him so unattractive as to set him up with a hideous malformed monster like Karen.

Zoiks! I hadn’t banked on this at all. Both Karen and Dave considered themselves a serious cut above the other – despite their equal swings and matching roundabouts.

The vanity of both parties prevented this pair from over-looking the not so smashing parts of the other and seeing through to the bloomin’ brilliant bits – a situation they both share in buckets. Idiots.

2. Softly whispering confessions of adoration to a decidedly large root vegetable.

3. Watching a documentary on the mating habits of the conga eel with your trousers about your ankles.

These, I am delighted to report, are three somewhat compromising situations in which I have never been caught.

However, it would be true to say that this week I was involved in a small incident of which I would wholeheartedly have preferred no other eyes to be privy.

This episode happened to star myself (of course) bereft of clothing in the upper region of my body (i.e. norks out) and another gentleman, with whom I should not have been in the company of, enjoying the exposed norkage. Eek.

Moving you swiftly to the nub of the matter I have, in short, been engaged in an illicit affair with a colleague. Nothing wrong with this of course – he is a young single chap with an enjoyable face and there’s nothing in my world that prevents me from pursuing a bit of jiggery-pokery – the issue is that we both very much enjoy undertaking our flirtations in the office.

He’ll touch my thigh under the table during meetings, I’ll glance a hand across his deliciously pert buttocks as we pass on the stairs. Barely disguised innuendos about ‘raising points’ and ‘servicing needs’ are bandied around afore the very ears of our blissfully unaware colleagues.

Oh it’s such fun…

And very very erotic. Spreadsheets are rendered all-to-cock due to lack of concentration!

Well of course we could only keep a reign on the sexual tension for so long, and this week it rather spilled over into action.

Holed up in one of the private offices, finally alone, there was, as one might delicately describe it, some significant tongue-sandwiching and a smidgen of upper-body fondlearoos (hence aforementioned naked nork situation).

The release of the longstanding tension had left us completely unaware of our surroundings and so it took some serious “hut-humming” on the part of our boss – newly arrived on the scene – before we realized he was there…

Well, ecologists would have us believe the beloved baboon, like his orangutan cousin, is near extinction, but should they be concerned that the colour of said baboons bottom will never been seen again, they need not fear, the faces of both my booby-loving friend, and I, matched it exactly.

We tried to cover our tracks of course.

I babbled that I’d seen a spider crawling down my top and so removing all items of clothing seemed the swiftest way to locate it. My ‘chum’ chipped in by reasoning that he’d heard that spiders are attracted to human saliva and so logic (and chivalry) had encouraged him to apply his tongue to the area in order to efficiently dispose of the dastardly creature.

We weren’t believed.

One piece of advice for you my friends – should you wish to put yourself in a ‘risky situation’ ensure you have a plethora of ready excuses, because the excitement of a dicey scenario is all well and good, but the embarrassment of getting caught will render you fully shamed. Forever.

2. Avoid eating Scampi ‘n’ Lemon Nik Naks in respectable company.

3.Never stay on a bad date longer than necessary.

These, my flirtatious young prunes, are rules to live by. Never waiver. Never flounder. Never deviate.

If my friend Gertie Longbottom (yes, really) had paid heed to said rules, her Friday evening would have told an entirely different story.

She’d had her mincers on a particular young buck for a while so when he finally invited her over for supper, she grabbed the opportunity as eagerly as a toddler reaching for the last fudge-finger. Quite right too.

Dapper from thatch-to-sole Gertie rang his doorbell and awaited her long dreamed of evening to commence.

Finally he answered the door and she was greeted with a real treat for the peepers. Our man, be-trouser’d in cream slacks and socked to the hilt, lacked one key wardrobe ingredient – a shirt.

He ushered her inwards and was swift with the offer of a drink. Well, if Gertie was ever in need of a decent restorative, this was the moment. She gulped down the gin in one swift movement and awaited his explanation.

He’d just come out of the shower, heard the doorbell ring and didn’t want to leave her standing in the cold – perhaps?

He’d split a glass of wine down his front and was in the process of changing – maybe?

Bizarrely the explanation never arrived, and nor did the shirt.

Continuing as if it was perfectly acceptable to great guests semi-clad he proceeded to ask how her week had been, whether she had seen any good films lately and other queries of the same ilk. Well, astonished, she answered as best she could whilst avoiding all eye-to–nipple contact.

He then said he had a surprise for her (as if the bare chest wasn’t enough!) he wanted to play a song on his guitar.

Oh Lord.

Ramming rolling pins up ones nostrils is perhaps the only thing more painful than sitting in silence while some poser bangs out an idiotic tune and sings to you. I mean what is the expected response in that situation? Stand up and dance? Sway your head? Grab a saucepan and attempt to accompany on percussion?

Awful. Just awful.

At this point poor Gertie wanted to bolt for the hills. But good manners prevailed and she stayed…

A clear mistake.

He then asked her to be seated whilst he finished preparing supper….

Beans. On. Toast.

Seriously.

Not even a fish-finger to give it a spatter of class. Just beans. On toast.

Of course she politely ate it and even managed to munch a significant slice of Vienetta for dessert. However when he asked if she fancied watching a film, the thought of sitting through Top Gun whilst he expected her to fondle his now slightly bean–encrusted bare chest was too much even for her breeding so she made her excuses and left.

Had she had followed my advice; she would have bolted the second the naked upper was presented at the door. Hideous.

But then again I don’t suppose I’d be able to regale you with this tale had she had done just that. So for our Gertie I think this is one exception to the rule we can happily accept – but if I ever see her reach for those Nik Naks then I’ll give her a swift one to the chops, some things really should only be done behind closed doors. Fish flavoured crisps, scrumtastic as they might be, are, in my opinion, top of the list.