Well Dearies,

Fred, my diamond man, is an absolute charmer. You wouldn’t believe the things we get up to. The spontaneous visits to San Francisco and, just last week, Tahiti (very disappointing, not a patch on the Cook Islands, but there was this fabulous boy at the hotel with a superb tan all over and I’m definitely going back). But the latest? Hold on to your hats. Fred and I bought a house! Yes, you heard right. Frivolous, gad-about little me became a homeowner. I know, I know. You’re asking how a sophisticated demoiselle like myself can own a precious condo off the park and still afford a house. Well listen up. Here’s what happened. We were out in Fred’s big blue convertible, slumming by the interstate, when we passed the perfect spot for a Burger City franchise. So I told Fred that. I said, there should be a Burger City there. And he said, there probably would be pretty soon. So I said, they’ll probably also tear down the little houses on either side for parking. Well, before you could say Richard Nixon, we bought the middle, which was a narrow vacant lot where poor people drank paint thinner at night for fun, and the run-down houses on either side that had wooden planks nailed up over the windows. The interstate exit runs right past. We put up heavy iron fencing with barbs on top. Fred told the police to arrest anyone nearby. And within a month, we had three burger franchises competing to buy our little investment. We went to St Kitts with the profits and lived there for a few months. But I’m back now, with a message for all you adventurers out there: IT’S STILL FRANCHISE TIME IN AMERICA.

Fred spent a lot of our money chasing young women in small bathing suits. It’s not his fault. His ego is fragile. His mother didn’t give him enough self-esteem. He needs to hear women tell him again and again how wonderful he is. This is the fuel men need to become captains of industry. It’s so boring for us women. Mothers deprive their boys of confidence so the next generation of women can fill them up like automobiles at a gas station. It’s a secret women tell each other in our book clubs. Nowadays they’re called book clubs. They used to be sewing circles or feminist meetings or assemblies of the WCTU. We tell each other that women are mechanical gas stations for men to fill them with self-esteem. We’re self-esteem franchises.

Naturally I put my savings into the self-esteem industry, which in English is called high fashion. Look smart, smell good, drive a powerful car, and you will become smart, good and powerful. That’s what all men want. And I’ve made a bundle, dearies. Men will give you their last pennies to make them feel good, the poor boobies.

Listen up, lover. Pearls of financial advice never lose their value. Look for land that’s worthless except for location. Buy it. Better yet, put your cash into the mortgage companies that lend to the companies that invest in that land.

Avoid the bottom end of the economy like the plague. Cleave to the top-of-the-line. Look at the expensive ads, see what your friends in the downtown fitness clubs are saying. Find the messy guys, the guys who don’t fold their clothes, who leave their sports bags strewn like lost luggage all over the locker room. Fred can’t pick up his clothes. He never learned how. I’m making a fortune with Fred. And it works the same way for him. He says I stimulate him. Well, you mustn’t believe what men say. They have two brains, you know, and they aren’t the same size.

Diamonds are still a good buy. What am I saying? They’re undervalued like a Ukrainian mother at a Church picnic. Fred flies all over the world pumping the diamond market and that means the little fellahs are still looking good for our hard-earned. I’m Fred’s reward when he comes home from his adventures, and he tells Gertie absolutely all. Which I pass on to you. I’ll say this for Fred, he’s a generous man. Not a stingy ounce on his big frame. There aren’t many men you can say that about. Most button their lips and tighten their wallets after you-know-what. Fred is always ready with cash and advice. Which is a good test of quality in a man.

But these are worthless tantalizers compared to the really hot tip in my next piece which is about … [CENSORED].

Hi Dearies,

Gertie had a date last night with a wonderful man who bought her, you guessed it, the subject of today’s little exercise for your eyes only (hush, Fred) diamonds. These little precious gems that fund the African arms industry and shoot up geological elevators under high pressure are a great buy and keep well under your mattress. I’m not kidding boys and girls. What you want to do is buy a slice of the companies that dig and produce these tiny crystals, the diamond industry.

Why? The world expert used to be Al Levinson. Check out his articles and books if you want proof. Al knew all there was to know about a girl’s best friend. These stones are underpriced and take less of a hammering in bad times than almost everything else. The “girl’s best friend” moniker came after the world recovered from the dirty thirties, and it took hold because a guy who had diamonds could negotiate them anytime, when everything else was worthless or during inflation. Whatever the world financial situation, you can do it with diamonds. And take my word for it, when you want to impress a lady (even if she’s not a lady) you could do a lot worse than give her a little choker or bracelet or (be a sport) an anklet studded with clean, well-cut stones that flash in the colours of the rainbow (in a restrained loving style because we have class, darling). I don’t want to talk about last night, but let me tell you, Fred was very happy and so was I.

And the companies, not all of them but most, that grow in this little market patch, aren’t particularly scrupulous about who they crawl into bed with. That might not make governments happy or delight their morally cringing backers, but it’s great for the investors. So today, darling, as I pop Tylenols and try to remember the details of where I was last night, I’m letting the sun reflect off these gorgeous stones and thinking five percent of my portfolio isn’t too small to swing into this sector for a month or two. I’m glad I don’t have to work for a living. I like being the diva of love.

So for now, darlings, this is Gertie, your abiding angel of mercy and profit, signing off. (I can’t tell you Fred’s stories last night, because they’re buried under the Champagne he bought me and I promised to take them to the tomb and I always always keep my word, but when he was … hmmmmmmmmm…out of control for the briefest moment I pushed aside a few papers in his briefcase and saw he’d just deposited a s.u.b.s.t.a.n.t.i.a.l sum in two listed diamond companies. So it’s not just me.)