A Spin Doctor writes...

WELL, I'm back. I have returned from my Indian honeymoon with the young woman who is proud to call herself Mrs Normandie Friendly. As we gazed at the Taj Mahal in the moonlight, Normandie's fingers shyly, secretly interlaced with mine, and the tiny, knowing smile we exchanged alluded deliciously to the night of love that had passed between us in the honeymoon suite at the Delhi Radisson Edwardian.

Having, as they say out there, bathed in the Ganges of conjugal exertion, I am mystically renewed and rejuvenated and ready to take on any image consultancy brief.

But I have to say that coming back to this country has been a little dispiriting. I left Normandie sleeping on her day bed while I caught up with my emails. Once again, I see that GB plc has been afflicted with the Whingeing Disease.

Honestly: it's depleted uranium this and depleted uranium that! Shall I tell you something, loves? It's not the uranium that's depleted - it's this country's ability to believe in itself.

And I was very saddened by the news about my old friend and client Laurent Kabila, a man who believed in Congolese entrepreneurialism for the 21st century. It makes me so angry to see him slandered by the Newsnight nay-sayers. I sympathise with Laurent; I know what it feels like to be let down by your subordinates. Frankly, I have had some meetings with my lean and hungry junior staff when I have felt that I might end up, like Laurent, staggering out of my office with two bullets in the back and one in the leg.

It's a bad business, especially as I am sure that there are some unpaid fees for me languishing in Laurent's Geneva account. I think I can whistle for those.

ANYWAY, I must now focus my mind on my two newest clients: Alan and Judith Kilshaw, two super people who have suffered the agony of childlessness and now wish to adopt two lovely twins, in the process making incidental use of the latest computer and telecommunications technology. And no, thank you so much, it is not a question of "babies for sale on the internet", to quote the irresponsible press coverage. It is simply that the relevant agency has made their particulars known on the World Wide Web, and used this resource to assess with maximum efficiency the competing claims of possible parenting candidates, in which there may be a financial dimension. Alan and Judith are lovely people. I wonder, do the sneer-ers and the cynics on the metro-elite dinner-party circuit understand that? I wonder do the childless thirtysomething pundits on The Independent understand the hell of doing up the spare room as a nursery and finding it untenanted? Do they? Do they?

I think not. I first met Judith when I happened to be visiting the branch office of the Royal British Legion in Buckley, North Wales, as part of my ongoing campaign to get the Japanese to apologise for the Burma Railway. I met Judith in the bar, and she and I and some of her friends had a few drinks and a few laughs and a bit of a singsong. She is a lovely person and an exuberant free spirit.

Judith simply had a convivial evening and it simply beggars belief that the forces of political correctness have decreed that she is no longer allowed in the bar. I was there, and I can assure you that any damage to the Formica tabletops was accidental.

Anyway, Judith, Alan and I met in my office, and I counselled them that they may wish to advise the adoption agency that they are prepared to make available greater sums than the American couple with whom the twins had been provisionally placed.

Say: 8,200, as opposed to the Americans' 4,000.

What in the name of God is wrong with that? I remember when my ex- wife Janine and I were interested in a house in Notting Hill. The vendor had promised it to some other couple for 110,000. We offered 150,000.

Then someone from Dubai came up with 170,000 and they sold. Of course we were upset. Of course we'd "fallen in love" with the place. But you move on.

That's how the free market works.

FOR goodness' sake, this sort of thing happens all the time.

Before the internet, people used the phone. What's the difference, for pity's sake? As I explained to Judith and Alan in the office, when I could be heard over the yowling of little Kimberley and Belinda: we must persuade the pundits and opinion-formers that "internet babies" isn't the story here: the real scandal is the political correctness and bureaucracy of the UK adoption agencies, which force prospective parents to seek other means. Just then, the telephone went, and it was my new young bride, Normandie, on the phone. After some cooing endearments, she said that she was "late".

"Late, my love? You mean late for your aromatherapy " There was a pause while the penny dropped and my face became drained of colour.

Oo-er.

Copyright 2001
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.