In avoidance of work

I was amused by both Kitten in Pyjamas' and yarnstorm's posts about alter egos. So, here's a go at creating mine: Her name is something risque and swarthy. Let's say Gertrude. Gertrude instinctively knows just the right thing to say to everyone. Gertrude laughs in the face of stomach fat. Gertrude has read Moby Dick without skipping the cetology chapters. Gertrude owns no sensible, black clothes at all. She only wears cocktail dresses, ball gowns, and high heels. Red ones. Gertrude cooks fantastic and sumptuous French food. The kind that people eat five courses of in 1950's European movies before someone is murdered in the drawing room and the lady of the house finds her pearls are stolen. Gertrude can speak six languages fluently. Gerturde can do the lambada. Gertrude always meets deadlines with brilliant papers and daring insights. And, of course, Gertie can play a mean guitar. Tune in next week to see what happens when Gertrude encounters her ex-lover, Lorenzo, on a Mediterranean yacht and receives those sapphires he promised all those years ago. Watch as a new chapter of her international spying career opens, and she negotiates the exchange of military secrets between a Bulgarian dictator and an English madman.