I write to Liz Jones

Liz Jones is a columnist at the Daily Mail.

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/columnist-502/Liz-Jones-The-Mail-Sunday.html

I am a big Daily Mail reader (more on that another time). If you are getting a handle on my writing style, you will understand why I have been a follower of Liz Jones for years. It’s just that sometimes her writing is raw, even for me. Once, I wrote to her. I feel empathy with her. We are a similar age, single and both have horses. I promise I don’t make a habit of this although I did once write to Vivien Clore Duffield after I saw an article about her in the Independent to try and raise funds for one of my projects. She actually sent out one of her minions to meet me, but in the end I got funding from The Tudor Trust.

Anyway, Liz’s life seems to be relentlessly sad, even though recently for a while things perked up with the pop star boyfriend.

On the 13th January 2009, I was moved to write to her as follows:

Dear Liz

How can anyone with such fantastic hair/ interesting job be so despondent so much of the time or do you just dream all this up to make money? 

I think you should stop writing these bare-all articles.  I can’t see how it will possibly help you to achieve your emotional and personal objectives.  You write enough perfectly good fashion/ other interest articles to make a living.

Why on earth did you move into the middle of nowhere when obviously a significant percentage of you is a sophisticated urbanite?  I work in London, live in Luton and have kept a horse in one of the local villages for the last 13 years.

Take it from a 50 year old, not very beautiful, single mother of 3 grown up’ish children, whose husband walked out on her 7 years ago for a woman he last knew when he was 8 (Friends Reunited), who travelled from a kibbutz in Israel to shag him while I innocently believed he was on a solo walking holiday in Cornwall – there are men out there.

In my experience the not previously married, good looking, rich ones are emotionally defunct and/or impotent.  They want a ‘when I fancy it’ sort of relationship 99.9% on their terms.

The remainder who are interested ( remember, we all get loads of rejections) are damaged goods, financially and emotionally, but can be funny, heart-warming, good cooks, good at DIY and sexually brilliant companions on the journey.Not talking to men on the phone is a BIG mistake.  You can tell a massive amount from tone and how people string words together verbally.

Please give women like us a good name and use a counsellor to offload the angst.  You are allowed to remember your ex fondly (how many of us want to trash a vast swathe of our lives?), but don’t grovel to him.  Remember you wrote he wasn’t good enough for you.

Finally, you just get out and do so much.  Why can’t you use the good bits of those lovely trips/ experiences to sustain you while you search?  Good Luck!

P.S   You need help in vetting male admirers who write in.

She replied immediately

Thanks for your honesty Hazel, much appreciated. Certainly gives me something to think about!

 Thanks for getting in touch. 

 With love, Liz and the four fur babies x

Not sure what I was expecting really. I was a plonker! She is still writing the same stuff five years later!