There's always room on my face for you

It is not very often that you ever get to meet someone on the other end of an online forum, or an international blog such as this one.

I have met Britta, and she is pretty (very pretty) much exactly as you would expect her to be, as openly presented on her own blog. She even puts up large self-portraits of herself, so we did not have to carry a copy of The Times under our arms, or wear a pink carnation in our button-holes when arranging to meet.

I imagine it would be the same with John Gray and Chris - he is very open about himself and his lifestyle (I even know what his voice sounds like), and I think I could even recognise one of his chickens if I met it in a bar here in Bath. I'm not sure about Winifred though - they all look like ugly babies to me. He keeps threatening to visit the Georgian showcase city, and I would much rather see him here than be admitted into his care following a car accident in Mid Wales.

I could spot Sarah Toa a mile off, mainly because of that hair, and wouldn't need the confirmation of an Australian accent to be sure who it was. If she tried to fool me by shaving it all off, all I would need to do is ask her to expose her rear end and turn away from me - thanks to that Google Streets photo of her standing on a deserted beach, staring out to sea (coordinates to follow).

Cro I have known for over 40 years anyway, and since I have not seen him for that length of time, I would just mentally whiten his hair and put a few extra pounds on him - not that he isn't good at doing that for himself, according to his foodie blog site.

Weaver would be - I suspect - just how I imagine, but probably a little shorter. I think of her as tall for her age, with hair suspiciously dark for her age as well...

Em Parkinson - I'm not so sure. She is pretty good at keeping herself to herself, which is always a good thing on a blog.

We don't hear much from Caroline Valdez Miller these days, but in every photo she has put up of herself, she is always turning her head at the exact same angle, which - I guess - is the one which shows off her best side to most advantage.

The Hattats are straight out of Brideshead Revisited, but without a world-war to enter into the frame, scuppering the gondola on the Grand Canal and ending up with the death of the Mad Boy in a muddy field in Flanders.

I could go on, but you would only get bored (unless I mentioned you) and with 127 'followers', you definitely would get bored.

One thing I have noticed is that when selecting a photo for an avatar, everyone chooses the most flattering one they can find - with the exception of Britta, who needs no flattery. All those selfies are a bit like pictures submitted to an online dating agency, and I tend to add at least 10 years onto them when deciding if I want a date with the sitter, just to be on the safe side.

My own avatar - which I have used for years on forums, long before this blog - is a doctored school photo of me aged 5, peering through a letterbox with a wistful and vacant smile on my lips. Nobody would ever make any connection between that lovely boy and the twisted monster he has become.

Rachel, though... Rachel is a tough one to crack, and not a little scary.

I know that she is a supporter of Arsenal football club, and that in itself is a little scary. I have no doubt that - unlike me - she would be able to quote the offside rules to the letter and I am just thankful that it is the Gunners she supports, and not Millwall.

There seems to be some paradox (yes, that word again) about her place of residence, and I am beginning to think that her informative years were spent somewhere behind the Iron Curtain before it was drawn to let the European daylight in on Putin. I cannot make out what her avatar photo is of, but it seems to be one of those Soviet shops which would only let you buy one loaf at a time, if booked well in advance.

Nine times out of ten, her comments left on my blog are in the form of some sort of negative criticism, often pointing out grammatical errors or minor impossibilities written with the assumed authority of poetic licence, or - more often - just to make a boring story a little less so.

Don't get me wrong, though, I love these sort of comments so much more than flattery, and I have always looked for a challenge in the women in my life - I have the scars to prove it.

She - unlike many others - doesn't seem to need to be drunk to be curt with me, and for that I have the greatest respect for her. I just wish she would take a breath between sentences, that's all.