PAUL RONSON

I imagine Paul looks like the kind of guy you see in credit-card adverts, the kind of guy you used to see in cigarette adverts-staggeringly handsome and healthy, fooling around in swimming pools on sunny days with equally beautiful friends.

Paul is an entrepreneur, a suave millionaire, the director of Paul Ronson Enterprises. Being a narcissistic aesthete who can't bear being around ordinary people, he subscribes to Porsche Design ("Porsche: The Engineers of Purism"), Priority Pa.s.s ("The ultimate privilege for frequent travelers: Escape the crowds to a VIP oasis of calm. Your key to over 450 airport VIP lounges worldwide"), and so on.

GEORGE RONSON

George Ronson is a charming older gentleman. George orders from the Daily Express the CD set Sentimental Journey: "Take a sentimental journey with these 60 everlasting love songs on 4 fabulous CDs ... Henry Mancini ('Moon River') * Glenn Miller ('Moonlight Serenade') * Perry Como ('Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes') ..."

"If you do not wish to receive offers from other companies carefully selected by us, please tick this box," reads the tiniest of letters at the bottom of the order form.

I imagine that George's eyes still have quite the twinkle, but his eyesight isn't what it once was. He is absentminded and cannot find his gla.s.ses, and so he doesn't notice this infinitesimal print.

For this reason, he doesn't tick the box.

George has also entered the Specsavers Spectacle Wearer of the Year compet.i.tion ("Have You Got Specs Appeal? Our first-prize winner will be awarded a fantastic two-week all-inclusive holiday for two in the Maldives. Send a recent color photograph of yourself wearing specs to ...").

I am, unlike George, an embittered cynic, ground down by the travails of life, and so I consequently wonder if this whole spectacle-wearing beauty pageant is an excuse for the company to gather our names and addresses for their database, and to sell them on to other databases.

t.i.tCH RONSON

t.i.tch is the least favorite of my personas. He is venal. He is a gullible s.e.x maniac. He thinks about nothing but p.o.r.nography, his virility, n.a.z.i memorabilia, and extreme martial arts. Today t.i.tch takes up an offer in the News of the World: "The original BLUE PILL. Something for the weekend, sir?"

In this newspaper advert, a topless woman wearing a policeman's helmet has a speech bubble that reads, "Allo, Allo, Allo. What have we here-is it a lethal weapon I see before me?" A warning covers her b.r.e.a.s.t.s: "IMPORTANT NOTICE. Some customers find the 100 mg Blue Pill we supply TOO EFFECTIVE. If this happens to you simply reduce usage to half a tablet."

I a.s.sume the Blue Pill is some kind of herbal v.i.a.g.r.a. t.i.tch is taken in hook, line and sinker, because he does in fact see his p.e.n.i.s as a lethal weapon.

He barely notices a tiny sentence at the bottom of the order form: "If you don't wish to receive further mailings of exciting offers from us, or a.s.sociated companies, please tick this box."

t.i.tch spends his every waking hour seeking depraved gratification and is therefore tantalized by the promise of exciting offers, so he doesn't tick the box. Then he reads the rest of the News of the World and is saddened to discover that Kate Moss has got back together with Peter Doherty.

t.i.tch also subscribes to Fighters Only, a magazine dedicated to photographs of frequently blood-splattered boxers, with captions like "Psycho Steve Tetley. Lightweight. Hyper aggressive. He's called Psycho for a reason!"

There is no end to t.i.tch's troubles. He's also, I decide, a hopeless gambling addict, and has signed up to William Hill and the Loopy Lotto free daily Internet draw.

Midway through my experiment I fill in a consumer lifestyle survey on t.i.tch's behalf, attached to a "Win a Day on a Playboy Shoot" compet.i.tion. ("Get to hang out with girls like this in the flesh! There'll be naked girls! It's a once in an adulthood experience!")

The consumer-lifestyle survey is quite detailed, and so it gives me the opportunity to really flesh out t.i.tch's character and circ.u.mstances:

Is t.i.tch in employment?

No. He is an unemployed, single, thirty-eight-year-old homeowner.

His annual earnings are what?

I tick the "less than 10,000" box.

What are his annual outgoings?

I think for a moment, then tick the "10,00024,000" box. So every year t.i.tch somehow manages to spend approximately 14,000 more than he earns. How frequently does t.i.tch pay off his credit-card balance in full?

Funny question, I think. t.i.tch answers: Rarely.

Then t.i.tch tires of these relentless questions and instead scuttles away to order the PABO Sizzling Adult Mail Order Catalogue from their online s.e.x shop. t.i.tch, who thought he had seen it all, is startled by the voluminous choice on offer by PABO. Many of the items for sale involve pumps and studs and-mysteriously-"tracts" that even the grotesque t.i.tch can't picture aiding a s.e.xual situation.

I put all the things t.i.tch subscribes to in an old picnic hamper, which I keep on a shelf in my office. Rifling through the contents of this picnic hamper is a disturbing experience. Red blood, pink flesh, green baize. Although I have to say that when I troop around the betting offices looking for loyalty schemes for t.i.tch to add his name to, I always stop to play video roulette. It is terribly moreish.

EVERY MORNING for three weeks I walk the streets of London in the guise of one or other of my personas. I inevitably spend slightly less time being t.i.tch because I find the prospect of being spotted slouching into s.e.x shops incredibly embarra.s.sing. But by the time three weeks are up, I believe I've been fair and signed each Ronson up to a similar number of lists. And then I wait.

It takes three months for the first unsolicited-loan offer to arrive. And then, suddenly, I am bombarded. And which Ronson is inundated more than any other? Which Ronson receives the first and, in fact, all the credit-card junk mail?

It's Paul: the handsome, high-achieving, aesthetic, sagacious millionaire Paul. No, I'm joking. Paul doesn't receive any credit-card junk mail at all.

It's t.i.tch: stupid, superst.i.tious, venal t.i.tch.

t.i.tch has so far been offered loans by Ocean Finance, Shakespeare Finance, Blair Endersby, e-loanshop.com, TML Mortgage Solutions, loans.co.uk, and easy-loans.co.uk, and an MBNA Platinum card, and an American Express Red card.

What-I wonder-is t.i.tch's most attractive personality trait for the lenders? Is it his s.e.x addiction, his gambling addiction, his-surely not-interest in bare-knuckle boxing and n.a.z.ism? It has to be something. And then I find the culprits! They are in Sh.o.r.editch, East London. And they are called Loopy Lotto.

IN A SPLURGE of gambling addiction back in April, t.i.tch signed up for the Loopy Lotto free daily Internet draw (top prize 1 million). I remember the occasion well because I had to pick six numbers for him, and so I became-on t.i.tch's behalf-a superst.i.tious fool, choosing numbers that intuitively felt special to me. Last night, as I examined the e-mails offering t.i.tch "up to 75,000 for almost any purpose" (loans.co.uk) and "We will consider all applications, no matter what your credit rating" (Ocean Finance), I noticed the small print explaining that they came via Loopy Lotto.

And so I telephone them.

Dan Bannister, the company's director, sounds lovely and very surprised to hear from me. He says journalists usually have no interest in what people like him do, because it's terribly boring. But I'm welcome to come over if I like.

The whitewashed loft-style offices of Loopy Lotto could belong to an advertising agency or a TV production company. Boho-yuppies with wire-framed gla.s.ses beaver glamorously away as Dan and I sit in the lounge area.

"Who is the average Loopy Lotto subscriber?" I ask him.

"People who are looking for something for nothing and are into instant gratification," Dan replies. "It's not a ma.s.sively upmarket list."

Dan says they have six hundred thousand registered players. I say one of them is t.i.tch Ronson.

I tell Dan about my experiment. I explain that my fancy, upmarket personas received no junk mail at all, yet t.i.tch was bombarded, primarily through Loopy Lotto.

Dan nods, pleased and unsurprised. He explains that t.i.tch sounds cla.s.sically, enticingly "subprime."

"Subprime is the golden egg," Dan says. "If, as a direct marketer, you can identify subprime characteristics, you can do very well."

Dan says the vast majority of all junk mail-be it loans or otherwise-is directed at the subprime market: "The best thing you can tell a client is that you can accurately identify subprime individuals. Which is why, when people are asked to fill in lifestyle surveys, they'll often see questions like 'Have you ever experienced difficulty getting credit?' or 'Have you ever missed a mortgage payment?' Those are the sorts of triggers that will identify you as potentially subprime. It's valuable information."