We have the US to blame, of course, for speed dating. But the country has not finished yet - its devilish denizens have hatched a new variant of the cringe-making process of meeting new people, deciding if you like or loathe them, and deciding whether to risk giving them access to your bank account. It’s called speed investing. According to the San Jose Mercury News, around 40 hopeful entrepreneurs and similar numbers of wide-walleted angels attended a recent Silicon Valley event where the inventors “talked at a fevered clip as a coordinator flashed two signs, the first reading ‘One Minute Remaining’ and the second ‘Rotate!’”.

As in the dating game, frustration remained rife among those poorly socialised types who manage to turn-off every prospective partner in a lot less than the allotted three minutes. “[The investors were] actually checking their BlackBerrys while I was talking,” bleated one jilted wallflower to the News. “Maybe some of them need to see who's e-mailing them at every single minute of the afternoon, but I kind of doubt it.”

Yes, you poor, deluded, lovelorn fool, Sneak doubts it too.

06 Mar 2007