Husband-Hunting

IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

So said Jane Austen. And to prove it, the dating agencies abound

There’s this one

…which I originally mis-read as Parsnip

and then there’s…

[that’s the one with the ad where they tie their shoelaces together]

and…

I am so grateful that none of this online stuff was around in my youth. I did have friends who put small ads in the newspapers. They knew all the mysterious abbreviations WLTM, GSOH, SWF etc etc.

I am not aware that any of them found their soul-mate through this process.

But I was utterly intrigued this week when Liz and Jon told us about a lecture they had been to about the mating habits of birds.

Do you know how a lady blue tit finds her husband?

Apparently, according to the experts at the British Trust for Ornithology, the front of a blue tit's head glows under ultra violet light. As birds see in UV it's thought that this is how females choose a partner.Trials performed in the laboratory indicate that females prefer males with the brightest crests. I am utterly amazed by this information. Isn’t Creation wonderful?

[in case you were wondering, I met my other half in Church on a Sunday in 1978. I was not aware of his halo glowing at the time]