My First Date with John Simpson, Chief Editor OED

Ok, Ok. It is clear that I'm going to embarrass us all. My terrestrial friends. My vast & frequently rabid Fan Club in The Ethers. All embarrassed. Earthside, I'm generally regarded as, well, rotund and orotund perhaps; a roly-poly fuddy-duddy. My violence and promiscuity are affairs of language, not situational.

In The Ethers, well, setting aside my more scarlet holovid roles, in my private lifes, I'm known for my pretty unswerving devotion to a certain Cosmic Cad, voodoo upon his gonads.

So how am I scandalously in love with John Simpson before first sight? I can already see your eyerolling and hear tut-tutting, yet Simpson and I haven't even exchanged our first billet doux.

Well, maybe there have been men? Maybe there have been many men -- stage doors, roses by the dozens, crisp conversations, pitchers of the most expensive champagnes -- I've heard the rumours about my putative amours, the scuttlebutt. (Scuttlebutt was gossip around the water barrel on a ship. The first water cooler.) The Cosmic Cad prefers Our Galactik Public to think that he is the spattered and shattered one, laid waste in his stalwart heart by my gorgeous, gorging, extravagant nature. Piffle. Of course it's not so, but his PR people are good.

So, before the rumours begin to fly like flocks of tens of thousands of Monarch butterflys migrating to the Mariposa Reserves in the Transvolcanic Mountain Ranges, I'm declaring that I'm going to have An Affair with John Simpson. The Galactic Gazette can tabloid this pre-deed confession gaudily -- Viv Id Falls Hard For Chief Editor, OED. There! Love before first sight.

Usually you scope out the merchandise. Does he flaunt considerable cod? Does he have intellect worth pause? Will he flatter constantly and skillfully? Will I remain amused after any salacious events? Ho ho hum, usually, sad to say. There're a lot of duds out there amongst the asteroids. But John Simpson has already trampled on my heart before our first absurd word.

I've often quipped that I'd run off and be, say, Gehry's love slave. Or Clive Owen's. Or Paul Krugman's. But I just mean it as a tip of the putative hat, an hyper-bole to how damned good they are at what they do. I'd never actually betray Cosmic Cad for such as these. What empires did Genghis, Alex, Julius, Bonaparte have to offer? Shrug. John Simpson, however, is Chief Editor, Oxford English Dictionary. The OED currently contains 263,917 entries (741,153 meanings), illustrated by 2,931,547 quotations.

You may be must be pre-ashamed for me, pre-gasp at the appalling gall of me. But please send actual carping ethermails of Derision & Dismay to Cosmic Cad's chief PR lout, Randy Louse.

Of course John Simpson has a lovely wife and lovely children all of whose lives will be bedraggled and tormented by this inevitable affair. I'm sure it's too bad. I cannot fight fate.