Dear Mona: When counsellors need help

	I have a bit of a problem...
	with Mona Bone-Jakon

Dear Mona, I have a rather unexpected and distressing problem. Like yourself, I am a counsellor, and like yourself I have done everything to perfection—instant solutions to complicated problems, again just like yourself—had a brilliant career with a list of credits as long as your arm, but nobody writes to me anymore! Could it be that I have been too successful and worked myself out of a job, and what can I do about it?

Gloria, Dollis Hill

Mona replies:

Dear Gloria, it's not that you've worked yourself out of a job, you are a real pro—I can tell—it's just that the world is full of losers, who would rather wallow around in their misery than accept the advice of us pros about how to turn on their happiness receptors. I do appreciate you writing to me about this, I know that it wasn't easy, and I hope you will see that what I am about to advise you is in fact the solution to all your difficulties, and that is: screw them! They don't deserve you. Also when the next enquiries come—as they surely will—hold back a little, don't give them the full instant solution. Why not setup a course, a program of treatments and take them for every last penny they've got. Always remember, they are nonentities, we are the pros.

Lovingly, ever, Mona

Due to the volume of mail received, Mona regrets that she cannot enter into any personal correspondence. Send details of your own original misery to Dear Mona.

Straw fired because Blair jealous of Condi?*

Bush & Blair Raw & Uncut

"Blair: Well...it's only if I mean... you know. If she's got a..., or if she needs the ground prepared as it were... Because obviously if she goes out, she's got to succeed, if it were, whereas I can go out and just talk" (Skynews)

Give Dorneywood to Straw. Let's make Blair even more jealous when Straw has Condi over to toast her marshmallows beside his roaring fire.

Mona Bone-Jakon

* Even in times of war, your super soaraway 'sDen gets the angles that others miss. Ed

Real estate / real politik / one state not two

Israel has seized the West Bank, it looks as if Jordan doesn't want it back, and the Gaza strip is separated from the West Bank by a long stretch of Israel. Both the Palestinians and the Israelis want Jerusalem as their capital. Isn't it obvious that the only way forward is one state including Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with its capital in Jerusalem? Forget about a state for one religion / people / nationality. It's time to stop dividing and excluding people and start bringing them together.

Mona Bone-Jakon*

*Mona's book 'Instant Solutions to All Problems' will be published next year. Note: No connection with Ayatollah Khomeini's book 'Solutions to All Problems' is intended. If you want to know whether it's lawful to have sex with your auntie by accident following an earthquake which causes you to fall through the ceiling into her bed, the Ayatollah's book is still the first place to look.

She's back - with a big new column!

Helpful Hints with Mona Bone-Jakon*

No. 1: Never got lost again in a strange city



If only you could carry that map from the station. But wait, you have a digital camera, so you can. Simply take a picture of the map and later you can use the zoom button to look closely at the streetnames if you lose your way. I had to go to Bolton this week to supervise a victim reparations encounter between some local skinheads and a small child they'd set fire to. I'd forgotten to take a map with me, but I had the camera, so Hey Presto - another instant result!

*Mona is a self-qualified counsellor who specialises in Instant Result Therapy.

Great Willesden googlewhackers and hapax legomena

Letters

Somebody should inform your correspondent Mona Bone-Jakon that there's no such thing as the Tennessee Wigwam. What she is probably thinking of is the Tennessee Wig Walk.

Isabelle Nesesari

Mona Bone-Jakon replies:
All I can tell you is that a very fine southern gentleman assured me that it was a traditional indoor sport in Dixieland.

What's On

Tell Tales with Courttia Newland, Maggie Gee, and Rajeev Balasubramanyam

If anybody can make it to Willesden, I think this event will be worth a visit. It's at 8 p.m. upstairs in "Studio 95" at the Willesden Library Centre, 95 High Road, Willesden, London NW10. Look out surprise international cerebralty guests, sponsored by the Willesden Herald. Admission is free.

"Tonight, in association with the Westwords Literary Project, you can hear three authors whose work appears in the just published anthology, Tell Tales Vol 1, edited by Courttia Newland. The book celebrates the short story, and that is just what our authors will be doing tonight. Featuring Rajeev Balasubramanyam, the award winning writer of In Beautiful Disguises, Courttia Newland and local author Maggie Gee. They will be joined by Brent Library Service's Black Inc. creative writing project, who will be reading a selection of short stories from their second anthology Turf. There are 8 million stories in the big city, and some of them will be told tonight, so come along and celebrate the wonderful diversity of short stories with us." Contact: Anne Mullane 020 8937 3485.

Local author Maggie Gee writes about Willesden, thinly-disguised. She has published 8 or 9 novels and was short-listed for the Orange Prize in 2002, for The White Family. (More)

Rajeev Balasubramanyam won the Betty Trask Award, and was longlisted for the Guardian award for In Beautiful Disguises. (More)

Courttia Newland is an accomplished writer, listed by British Council among Contemporary British Writers. (More)

Mona Bone-Jakon

Letters

Star imagines she's eating ostriches in L.A.

I was so happy to be eating ostrich enchiladas and [drinking] banana margaritas that I bounced in my seat all night at El Coyote...

Alura Allumeuse

Your letter has been forwarded to Mona Bone-Jakon. Her expert counselling can help in breakdowns like this. (Ed.)

Mona replies

I was fascinated by Mr B.B's unusual plight, and not sure how to approach the problem. So I emailed his details to a few of my contacts who have some experience in the field of sexual inadequacy. By an amazing coincidence, one of them turned out to work in the same local council offices as Mr B.B. and offered to pin my email on the notice board there. My contact assured me that they would look after Mr B.B. This is why I love this job, the satisfaction of knowing that I have helped to solve people's problems at a stroke.

Send your problems to Mona Bone-Jakon at Dear Mona. Mona regrets that, due to the volume of letters received, she cannot enter into any personal correspondence.

The Doctor Advises on....

My neighbour spies on me in the garden and I think I like it.

This week's postbag contained this dilemma from Mr B.B. (Mr B.B has asked for his full name to be withheld and, as always, we are pleased to accede to such requests.)

Dear Doctor

A most attractive lady moved to the next-door house shortly after my mother died. I am a man well past the first flush of youth but I like to think that I have kept myself presentable, and my problem is that my new neighbour also seems to think so. She has taken to appearing at the upstairs window of her rear bedroom while I am relaxing in the garden and she undresses there as if completely unaware that I can see her. She then proceeds to indulge herself in what might most delicately be described as 'tension relief'.

I have spoken to her in a purely neighbourly manner and ascertained that she is single (a divorcee) although many of her uncles visit her at all hours of the day and night, so she is not short of company. You may wonder why I should write about a very attractive lady disrobing in full view and of course I am very flattered that she should want to do so. No, my dilemma is that she has suggested that we could take it further. I think she must be badly missing conjugal relations, so badly in fact that she mentioned the sum of £80 remuneration if I would consent to indulge in 'relations' with her. How can I fulfill her need for physical communion with me without insulting her by turning down her offer to pay me £80.

Yours in confidence

Barry Barton
8, Cricklewood Boulevard
Willesden
(Please withhold my full name and address. Thanks)

______

The doctor says

Dear B.B, since this is not strictly a medical matter I have passed your letter across to my esteemed colleague, the renowned author (Crystal Healing for Pets etc) Mona Bone-Jakon.
_______

I have a bit of a problem...



with Mona Bone-Jakon

Dear Mona,

My black thigh high stockings shift drastically downward from my large, dimply thighs so that by the end of an evening, when I am most ready to reveal my hidden charms, my lovely legs, generally my best feature, appear elephantine, wrinkles, et al. I have tried various adhesives with no luck at all.

Please advise and quickly! I have a hot date tomorrow night with a new suitor.

Signed,
a Southern Belle


Mona replies

The secret of stocking adhesion was given to me by a famous supermodel, Helga Hoffenpuffen. Dispense with your present method of depilation, and get yourself one of those G-------* three blade razors. Remove the first two blades carefully and then shave your legs with the resultant implement in such a way as to leave only imperceptible stubs of the hair follicles standing proud. You will find that your stockings no longer slip. Before the night is out, your new beau will be inviting you to join him on the floor for the Tennessee Wigwam. Laissez les bon temps rouler!

*They can pay the Herald if they want an advert. Ed.

Send your problems to Mona Bone-Jakon at Dear Mona. Mona regrets that, due to the volume of letters received, she cannot enter into any personal correspondence.

Ladies, don't feel left out

Today, we're introducing a range of links for women or other housebound people. Mona Bone-Jakon is still at the ready to answer your perpetual problems. No letters yet, so she is just making tea for our journalists in the meantime. Ed.

Dear Mona

	I have a bit of a problem...
	with Mona Bone-Jakon

We are pleased to announce that counsellor Mona Bone-Jakon will be contributing a new occasional column called "I have a bit of a problem." Mona specialises in rapid solutions for problems that have proved unsusceptible to traditional methods. She is happy to tackle any of your personal problems and use her lateral thinking and innovative approaches to dispel them. Please send your questions by email to Dear Mona.