Pucker Up

I realise it has been a difficult week in business and finance, and you probably don’t need any more bad news, but I’m going to give you some anyway – this development is too shocking to ignore. I’ll get straight to the point: this week I received an e-mail that ended with the signoff “x”.

Of course, this wouldn’t have been a surprise if it came from a PR – publicity professionals gush constantly and “x’s are as common as misspellings in their messages. And I wouldn’t have been taken aback if the message had been from a female friend – I routinely send and receive e-mails to them that end with e-kisses. And, actually, I could even have coped if my correspondent had been male and a stranger – I’ve lost count of the number of times blokes have sent me flirty e-mails on the assumption that Sathnam is a girl’s name.

But the stunning thing about this e-mail, the thing that had me crashing around like a Referendum Party supporter short-changed by a Polish builder, was that it came from someone who was (a) British, (b) not in PR, (c) entirely unknown to me (d) male and (e) to judge from the content of the message, evidently aware of my sex.

The experience left me winded…

Read atTimes Online