So, you want me to tell you what my hidden talent is. In a story, just like at school? Oh, blimey, I’ve not had not had a job interview like this before! Well OK then. My name is Dianna, but my friends call me Di, and I was born twenty four years ago in Buenos Aires to a German father and an English mother. Dad travelled a lot for work and I went to a boarding school in England: a bit jolly hockey-sticks, like Mallory Towers really. As I had no brothers and sisters, my school friends like Lottie and George became my family. Lottie is now my flat-mate and all meet three of us meet up every week. At the moment I’m working as a secretary in another advertising agency in Soho called Spark. It’s always pretty crazy and sometimes quite hard work, but full of such lovely peeps.  Now, I ‘d better get back to your question: my greatest hidden talent, and by the way I promise you I am not playing for time waiting for inspiration – really! But I’d like to show rather than just tell you about it. It’s just that sometimes, you can’t display psychic ability on demand. Yeah, that’s right. I have a gift – don’t laugh please- I’m serious. Actually I am not sure that gift is the right word for it. I first discovered I could do it it at school one evening, larking about with the girls. I was about fourteen and we all were writing letters home to our parents in our study. It wasn’t anything like a séance, and there wasn’t a Ouija board in sight but all of sudden I just started to write down what other people were saying to me in my head. Lottie and George freaked out a bit and looking back I suppose it was a bit scary at first but I’ve got used to it- well mostly. The strange bit is how my handwriting just changes as different people talk to me.  When it happens, I don’t know I’m doing it or what I’m writing. Sometimes I need to, need to, need …Queen, queen, queen and two jacks a-shagging. What did he have? Aces? That’s absolute shit, and he knew it, the Toe-rag! A prial of dames and a couple of jacks always beats three aces, so I told him to just leave that pot to me. I said to him, ‘Sunshine, are you going to find some more money or do you want call it a day? He shook his head and it told me he wanted to settle, which was just as well because the artillery fire was getting closer. ‘Well, that’s ok with me, Tosh,’ I told him ‘there’s not much time for us to get away before one of Nasser’s tanks puts a very large one up our rear end, eh Sarge?’ Shit, that was bloody close, c’mon my lovely ladies, it’s time for you to get back into your little box and we need to, need to …So Mr. Adman, you’re probably thinking my friend Dianna is either a fraud taking the piss or raving bonkers. Now, isn’t that right? But all is never what it quite seems in this world, is it? Take you, Mr Adman Interviewer. All your friends marvel at your marriage, they think that you and Caroline, the domestic Goddess of Notting Hill, are brilliantly matched; you’re so happy and so lucky to have met the love of your life. Whilst you might – like most men, of course – admit to looking around occasionally, and we both know how much you like looking, you’d never touch, would you? Isn’t that right, Mr Huckster-Fuckster? Or is that just another load of the wishful thinking bollocks you sell to your dickhead clients? Well, as it’s a kind of party, it’s now time for me to show you my little magic trick – and do watch out for the modest little coup de théâtre that’s coming very soon. So Mr. Adman and HR Big Cheese, I bring good news and bad news. The good news, Liebling is that the love of your life’s name does indeed begin with the letter ‘C’. Phew, that’s good you’re thinking, whether or not you actually believe it. But the bad news, my friend, is that the love of your life is not the C for Caroline whose arse you’ve been banging for years but someone you haven’t even met, well not quite yet.  Incroyable, monsieur, ne c’est pas? But I can see that I do have your full attention now, because deep down in that lightweight mind of yours in the perfectly formed strong-room where your darkest secrets are kept, there’s a note to self you wrote which says ‘she’s not the answer’. So who is, you want to know. Let’s make this a little interactive now, shall we? Here’s a question for you. Have you read any Shakespeare or was that not available as an option on your polytechnic marketing course? Thought so. Well – and cue cheesy fanfare! – from today set your security alerts to watch for a lady whose name consists of three vowels, AEI, and two consonants, CL. Oh, you’re very quick,  you’re very good! That’s right, the voice in your head is correct; the answer is ‘Celia’- A lady called Celia is going to suddenly appear and turn your life upside down.  So we do need to talk about Celia, chum, except that is, to Caroline, your charming little hausfrau of a wife. But only if you believe the scribblings of my posh totty friend and associate, Dianna, who I can always rely on to be my mouthpiece or should I say wrist? So how did she do, Mr. Adman, has she got the job? It is quite a talent isn’t it? You need to, need to…

* Automatic writing or psychography is writing which the writer claims to be produced from a subconscious, and/or external and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content.  Lewis Spence An Encyclopaedia of Occultism Dover Edition, 2003, p. 56