RICHARD ORD: Flexible friends leave heatwave 'deckchair man' burning with shame

By the afternoon things were getting ridiculously hot. The lifeguards were out on their paddle boards urging the public not to swim too far out … they were paddling in the melted tarmac! ‘Stick to the sea,’ they said.

With skin the colour and texture of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a nose designated a local sun trap, so much so the council is considering giving me a licence to attach solar panels to each side during the energy crisis, my doctor has advised I stay indoors during daylight hours.

Which is the same advice my relationship counsellor gave me. ‘You look better in the dark,’ she said. Mothers eh?

Anyway, I’m newly single, so that advice may well come in handy.

Richard Ord! Single?!? I know, hard to believe. So hard to believe that even on Tinder, the women think it’s a joke. Why else would they refuse to swipe right when they see my profile? ‘I’m not falling for that one. He’s far too handsome.’ Maybe I’ve got my photographs wrong.

‘Lose the domestic chore pictures,’ one pal advised, ‘and the hobby pix.’

‘But girls like a man who can crochet.’ I did, however, relent on a few of my vintage matchbox collection photos. Kept one, captioned ‘Hot stuff.’ I may lose the cravat on my profile pic too.

Online dating was a result of that ‘get yourself out there’ call from friends. As was my decision to go to Yoga classes. Iyengar Yoga, it said on the poster, but I’ve never been that good at anagrams. I’ll work it out by the end of the course.

This was an opportunity to not only improve my flexibility, but also to meet members of the opposite sex in a fun environment. It wasn’t fun for me.

I was the only male and, bar a teenage work ex, the youngest. With one woman in her 90s, at least it would be an ego boost as we were put through our paces. It was. For her!

While these women bent themselves from pose to pose with loose-limbed and lithe expertise, I clattered about with the grace of a gibbon putting up a deckchair.

Before I snapped, in typical journalist style, I made my excuses and left. And I stepped out into the sun, diving for shade before my face melted like a Nazi choosing the wrong Holy Grail, which, given my luck on dating sites, would probably make a more attractive profile picture than my current ugly mug.