From a mile away it smelt like the fermented bum crack sweat of the chronically unemployed, but pretty eyes, voluminous hair, and toned legs can be very persuasive, and alas I am but a red-blooded man. Don't even ask how I fell for it, but I never thought I'd see the day that I became a victim of an investment scam. Happens to the best of us. God damn.

She had the trained demeanor of a premier airline stewardess, her smile disarming and her laugh natural. She was attentive and knew how to let you know you told a great joke. Her eyelids, she told me conspiratorially, were tattooed with dark lining so she need never again spend a minute of her life fixing the symmetry of her eye make up. The calves on her long legs had muscle but not bulk, steering my mind towards the FTSE and away ......