There is a saying: the first cut is the deepest. I had originally met her in the Purple Bar of a glitzy West End Hotel. Elegant, cool, and erect, she stood right in front of me. In a sleeveless turquoise dress, slashed to the thigh, there was just everything spectacular about her. The white opacity of her skin was heightened by the marble glow disseminated from the light above. I had the notion of a Meissen figurine, prominent cheekbones and strawberry-blond hair around a heart-shaped face, translucent, glossy and exquisite, a siren covered in silk. From that moment I was walking on clouds. In this adoring memoir, Penelope One bears witness not only to fictitious events but also to those biographical vignettes which are superbly authentic. Though this chronicle undoubtedly harbours darker elements, its most conspicuous mode is dead-pan humour. In short, po-faced parody of bozo conspiracy and certain strains of Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy are central to the case...