The Escort
Game
Catherine of Eden Escorts. has spent the last ten minutes trying to recall the name of the journalist wag who took out one of her best girls and then wrote about it in London's Evening Standard. ‘He looks like a bloodhound' was the give-away clue. Clement Freud was not impressed with his date — he complained about her perfume and her gastronomic credentials — but the rapid growth of escort agencies suggests that plenty of other users are, well. fulfilled. ‘We don’t match people up like a dating agency.‘ says Catherine. ‘If a client wants someone who is 25, tall and blonde it's up to us to find them that person.‘ It‘s certainly not difficult to find Eden Escorts,
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‘It is legal for a man to offer money for sex providing it’s not on the street. Obviously some are going to take advantage ot the offers they get, but it’s nice to have the choice.’
sandwiched between Ergonomic Services and Estate Agents in Edinburgh’s Yellow Pages. Until last year it was advertised as ‘attractive escorts for all occasions.‘ leaving up to the imagination what such ‘occasions‘ might embrace. The fun was spoilt by a ‘shock expose” in that respectable family journal the Sunday Sport. prompting Yellow Pages to ban the ads. while the Sport‘s own admen nipped in smartly and grabbed the new — and profitable — market. Customers like the efficiency of escort agencies. One telephone call can fix them up with a dinner date for a fee of £35. cheap at half the price for the elderly gent who likes to impress. Dubious calls are dealt with swiftly. and Catherine calculates that about half are turned down. ‘Johnson and Thomson are the suspicious names. If] get a Smith I know it‘s okay.‘ Eden Escorts began life in 1978, when Catherine decided that her dating agency was increasingly unprofitable to run. ‘People expect you to do for them in a few months what they have failed to do for themselves in the last 30 years,’ she complains. By contrast arranging escorts for the night is a dawdle. ‘Clients don't want to form relationships because they’ve got a wife and kids at home.‘ Mr Smith can
rest assured that discretion is guaranteed.
Some agencies only offer genuine dates, but it‘s no i secret that most will offer more. The Mother‘s Union, which supports the legalisation of brothels. would
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certainly approve. The moral majority would not. Catherine dismisses suggestions that escorting is a sleazy bUsiness, but neither does she harbour any it. illusions. ‘lt is legal for a man to offer money for sex providing it‘s not on the street. Obviously some are going to take advantage of the offers they get, but it‘s
Catherine illustrates her point with the tale of the escort who earned only the standard £10 an evening, and managed to carpet her entire home at £10 a yard without having to oblige any sexual advances. ‘She was requested by the same people over and over again,‘ recalls Catherine. ‘She was clever. because
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she kept pretending that the following occasion would be different. until eventually they got wise to
Paying for a new carpet is one of the more obscure reasons forjoining an escort agency, but money is the obvious motivation. Catherine‘s escorts have been requested as far afield as America. and are wined and dined in some of Britain‘s best restaurants. The secret, according to Catherine, is style. ‘Too much jewellery, plunging necklines and bare legs are out. When new girls come to me they are advised to dress like Margaret Thatcher.‘ Therein. one supposes, lies every Tory‘s dream. (Aaron Hicklin)
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LOVE LIES BLEEDING
love, ain’t it grand. Well, no, actually it's a bit of a pain, as a briet glimpse through some of the great romances of history testifies. . .
I Antony And Cleopatra He was a jobbing Roman tribune with an eye for the main chance. she the queen of all the Egyptians. Played to perfection in
the classic movie Carry On Cleo by Sid
James and that woman who‘s married to Mike Baldwin. He got hammered at the battle of Actium, she reached for her asp. Tragic.
I Romeo And Juliet The Montagus and
Capulets mixed like an Orange Lodge and the Parkhead Jungle but R and J didn’t let a little thing like that get in their way. Their love knew no boundaries. Careful with that poison though kids. Tragic.
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I Sid Vicious and llancy Spungeon. He was the ‘bassist' in a rock ‘n' roll band, she was his poor little rich girl groupie. Smacked up one night he stabbed her to death, and died of a heroin overdose some months later while awaiting trial. You don‘t get that sort of stuff in Jackie do you? Tragic. I Paris And Helen Of Troy Hers was the face that launched a thousand ships but didn‘t look too bad considering all the battering it must have taken off those keels. Paris stole her away to his home-town while her husband was cooking the moussaka or something. Anyway a giant wooden horse showed up and you know the rest. Tragic.
I Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson He was a nasty piece of work and first in line to the throne, she was a loopy American with a beehive hairdo who’d
just divorced Homer and got custody of i
Ban. Eddie abdicated and the not-so- happy couple headed off to France to hobnob with Nazis. Tragic.
I Othello And llesdemona He was a flash general, she his chaste and damned sexy missus. He mistakenly got it into his head that she was playing
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away and strangled her. He realised that i
Judge Pickles wouldn't be in session for his case, and duly topped himself. Tragic.
I Abelard and Heloise He was a randy monk with more than a hair-shirt under his cassock, she was a willing piece of under-age skirt who happened past. One thing led to another, he had his vitals lopped off as a punishment. and she kind of lost interest. Tragic.
I Napoleon And Josephine He may have been short of stature but what do you think he was doing with that arm inside his jacket all the time? No
wonder he had to say ‘Not tonight‘ to the missus when he got back to the palace after a hard day’s campaigning. In the end he divorced her and married. some Austrian bimbo. Tragic.
I Paul McCartney and Jane Asher They were the 60s. Everybody loved Paul and Jane. Bright. breezy and colourful, and that was just the Paisley trousers. They split up and had
painfully happy mariages to other people. One of them carved out a carceré creating over-elaborate sickly-sweet confections for middle-aged people with too much money. Jane Asher. on
. the other hand, ntakes designer cakes.
So there you have it. Love equals suicide. murder. eastration. poisoning. drugs. disease. war. madness and exile (see also: Myra and Ian). Makes that meaningless drunken shag seem quite attractive after all (toes)! 'I it."
The List 12—25 February 1993 7