Peep Show

I happened to be walking through Soho yesterday evening when, just as I turned past the top of Berwick Street, I heard a voice call out to me from inside one of the doorways: "Gorgeous, busty girls, sir. Come in and have a look. Have some fun." She was a half-dressed young woman, displaying the requisite acres of flesh. Nice legs, as they say, shame about the face.

Anyhow, what she was advertising was, I believe, some sort of peep show where, apparently, you put money in a slot in order to be treated to the sight of a minute or so of a naked woman gyrating about to music. It seems that some people – presumably those who can't get it up - use this sort of service in lieu of actual sex. Whatever, I naturally hurried on and ignored her sales patter. Someone of my social standing can't, of course, be seen hanging around one of these places.

Later, as I dined well on potted shrimp, steak and kidney pie, and a fine bottle of South African Shiraz in Rules, I considered the situation. Paying a pound or so for a few seconds' glimpse of naked bodies isn't a particularly cost-effective method of voyeurism. You could, for example, pay little more than £150 and go to the Canary Islands for two weeks on a cheap deal. There, you'd be able to sit on a beach for hours on end, staring at hundreds of nubile women for nothing. And most probably, with better bodies than the Soho variety, too.

Obviously, then, it isn't the sight of nakedness per se that turns on the people who go to peep-shows. It's the furtiveness, aspect; the inherent sense of seediness that attracts them. Hence the need for the sleazy woman at the entrance. She helps enhance all of this.

Thereupon it occurred to me: Such a method of advertising could be applied to other goods and services, as well, thus attracting the sleazeball audience, a market-sector - a fairly affluent one, too, I should think - that may well have been overlooked by advertisers in the past. If you hit them with the same sort of marketing tactics as used by the peep-shows and the dirty bookshops - tactics they'd be used to and would therefore feel comfortable with - you'd be much more likely to win them over.

To this end, in my opinion, Soho-based banks and building societies should black out their windows and position scantily-clad women in their doorways. They'd call out to passers-by: "Personal loans, sir. Incredibly attractive repayment schemes. Come in and check out our base rate, sir. It's really come down." And so on and so forth, supplying whichever additional innuendo and double entendre was appropriate for the prevailing financial climate

Likewise blacked-out greengrocers: "Come in and see our produce, sir. It's so fresh. We toss our salads on the premises. Have a look at our melons, sir. They're really juicy." Et cetera, et cetera. Upon entering such a greengrocer, the perv would be prevailed upon to drop a £1 coin into a slot. Thereupon, he'd be presented with a brief, tantalising, 30 second glimpse of a carrot. If he wanted to see more, he'd have to put another coin in. Or, for ten quid, the greengrocer could actually come round from inside the booth and give him the carrot, which he'd then be allowed to peel and, within reason, grate.

If he tried to eat it, however, a leather-clad dominatrix would emerge from the back and beat him with a strip of celery.