A. Preamble

Preamble: Some clarification on names and titles

This is a book about a book about dating. That is to say this book
tells the story of the writing of a book about dating, and also the
story of that book's author, whose name is Jeyaratnam Paul, but who is
called JP by everyone except his father.

JP's father, who is a surgeon and therefore a methodical man, calls his
son Jeyaratnam, which was the name chosen for him, before his birth, by
a Hindu sadhu according to certain auguries of the sun, moon and stars,
as interpreted by a big book full of dense Sanskrit script which smelt
of tea-leaves. JP's mother, who is English, was a bit put-out that she
didn't get to choose her first-born's name herself, but accepted the
will and ways of her new husband, and perhaps more importantly, her new
mother-in-law, both of whom she was keen to please.

Once the baby arrived, though, Mrs. Elizabeth Paul (nee Squirrel) felt
that Jeyaratnam was far too long and grandiose a name for her beautiful
baby boy, and so started calling him JP.

That informal re-naming, which Mrs. Paul is self-aware enough to
realise (she is, after all, a psychologist), was also a re-claiming of
her son from his father's family, has stuck so that now, 30 years
later, JP is JP to everyone. Except as we have said, to Dr. Paul who
has always taken great pleasure in rolling his resonant voice all
across the polysyllabic grandeur of his only son's given name. Of late,
however, that pleasure has been somewhat curtailed, because JP and his
father have not spoken, except on the telephone at birthdays and
religious holidays, for almost two years.

JP has a younger sister who the same sadhu at the apposite time,
decreed would be named Leyshani. That she would become universally
known as LP was, in the scheme of younger siblings, fairly inevitable,
even without the smell of tea-leaves.

What is interesting, though, is that even Dr. Paul conforms in calling
his daughter by her initials. Though, if we were to attempt to
establish a proximate cause for this, we would perhaps need to look no
further than the fact that Dr. Paul is resolutely a vinyl man, still
hoping futilely for the demise of digital music.

Going back to the books, both of them (this book and the book it is
about) are entitled "The Londoner's Practical Guide to Dating". It is
appreciated that the duplication of title could be a little confusing,
and so from now on the tile "The Londoner's Practical Guide to Dating"
shall refer exclusively to the book JP is going to write, and we shall
avoid referring to this book, the book you are now reading, altogether.
We do this not simply to avoid confusion, but also on the basis that to
do otherwise would be far too self-referential, post-modern and
clever-clever.

JP, who is going to write "The Londoner's Practical Guide to Dating"
(for the final time, not the book you are reading but the book it is
about) is not a professional writer, and at the point we enter his
story has not yet thought about writing a book. Not a writer, JP is a
busy film-executive; his title is Director of Business Affairs and he
works in the London office of a Hollywood studio called Parallax
Pictures. In fact it is not called Parallax Pictures, but Hollywood
studios are very litigious entities and some of the more risqu? things
that happen in this story happen at JP's place of work, so we shall
call it Parallax Pictures. This is not important. What is important is
that JP is in movies (definite article optional). Or as he puts it, he
is in the Industry (definite article most definitely required).

JP loves the fact that he is in the Industry. This is partly, but not
principally, because JP loves movies, and also partly - but again not
principally - because is very good at his job. It is principally,
because the Industry throws a lot of good parties which enable JP to
meet a lot of beautiful and sometimes famous people; many of whom are
women, and some of whom he is able to persuade to sleep with him. JP
likes meeting famous people, and he prefers it when they are beautiful
and in particular when they are beautiful women, and he likes it most
of all when they are beautiful, famous women who sleep with him.
Whilst this quadruple concomitant does not happen quite as often as he
would like, it, and its various sub-component events (JP sleeping with
women who are beautiful but not famous or famous but not beautiful
etc), do happen with reasonably frequency. This is partly, but not
entirely, because JP is very good looking: his-Indian father and
English mother's genes have combined well to give him an exotic,
international mystique and appeal; if we say honeyed skin; lush black
hair; dazzling white teeth and six foot of broad shouldered litheness,
you can probably fill in the rest yourself, yes?

The principal reason that many people, oftentimes beautiful, sometimes
famous sleep with him is that JP is rather good at persuading people to
sleep with him. He is in fact very good at it indeed, and certainly
better at it than most heterosexual London men. Once he realises this,
JP comes to the decision to write "The Londoner's Practical Guide to
Dating", a book about the process of persuading people to sleep with
you. A process which JP calls dating.

We can start now.