Bert, I take it you mean the revenge. The pick up line wasn't much. He had a fancy middle name, which I had suggested sounded Arthurian, so added that to his introduction to the other woman. We were at a badminton club for school staff, friends and colleagues - he was from another school. Everyone went to the pub after, but I had taken to not doing so, so as to be able to walk home before the pubs closed. He, living near me, had offered a regular lift so I could do so. He started chatting up a student from Eltham in front of me - since he had been gazing at me as if I were Helen of Troy (very disconcerting) until then this was not pleasing. Hearing my own words in the pick-up lines was more so. I went to the pub. He offered the student a lift to the station, telling her it was not out of his way (twice round the one way system, it was), and then realised that there was a problem. He looked at me, as if I were a bloke who would conveniently leave him free to give her the lift. I looked at my watch meaningly. It was late, and he had offered to protect me from being a woman crossing the town alone. "Oh," he said. So I sat in the back seat of his Morris 1000 as he drove her to the station, feeling very smug. It seems very petty, looking back. I really knew that the situation would arise, so it was a little maliciously that I did go to the pub with the intention of putting a spanner in the works.

Penny