I kind of feel it will be throwing good money after bad, but for GBP45 I can 'upgrade' findaflame.com to allow people to post their profiles for free, and pay to contact others. At present you have to pay even to post your profile.

I suppose I will have to do it, or I will never know whether I could have got the site to work better...

Well, findaflame.com is still not doing much. In a way, I am not too surprised; there are better dating sites around... or perhaps I need to qualify that statement. The sites are "better" in that they allow more precise criteria for matching. They are "worse" in that they are more expensive. They are perhaps marginally "better" places to find a partner because their "better" criteria encourage more people to join. But, in reality, I haven't had much luck with them either. I must have e-mailed well over 200 women over the last year or so, and had maybe 5 serious replies, and met two. For such a long time spent trawling through search results and galleries, the results are pretty desultory. I am probably going to let my membership lapse. I could meet more women on the bus (if I had the nerve to talk to them...).

So, what to do? Well, there is a new technology to the rescue! Speed Dating. I have seen three different formats so far:

a) Xdate: 30 or so women sit at tables, the men move from one to the next every 4 minutes;

b) The Single Solution: Everybody hangs out in a bar and tries to make conversation, with a mini-speed-dating thing on the side for those that want it;

c) Ladies' Excuse Me: 30 or so men sit at tables and women choose to speak to them, or not, at the womens' option (but be prepared to be ignored much of the time unless you radiate whatever it is they are looking for - good for judging the results of your presentation though).

I have to say, the results have been impressive in comparison to Internet dating. At event b) I met one woman that I got along with, although after one look at me she decided to emigrate to Canada. Still, it was a start. At event c) I met a woman too, and have met up with her again outside the event. So... better results and, indeed, less effort. If I go to one such event a month, the cost is about the same as joining one Internet dating site (Internet daters join an average of 5 sites) and the results seem to be much, er, "better".

Well, findaflame.com isn't doing much yet; but then again, it took a while for ringamoby.com to get going too - maybe it is the same. I don't know about that though: this time I'm using Google Adwords to publicise findaflame.com right from the start, and although I'm getting a fair number of hits each day, people aren't buying (there have been a number of declined credit card transactions, though - what's with that?).

Well, I visited the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square yesterday; it was a nice sunny day, and I was bored at home, so I thought: maybe I'll meet a nice young lady if I go out. No such luck, as usual - anyway, I was too busy looking at the paintings (multitasking problems here? Hmm...). I'll have to go back: after a few hours I had still only seen perhaps a quarter of the pictures available.

Incidentally, ringamoby.com is offering free mobile phones to UK residents who take out a phone contract... but enough blatant advertising!