Dating game hits billboards

A new dating service is offering lonely hearts a chance to stop their prospective partners in their tracks - or in the middle of the road.

In return for £125 the company will put your face on a giant billboard to be displayed to passing traffic.

We put forward our own Standard guinea pig, 25-year-old Georgina Kelly, an Australian blonde, to see how soon London's eligible bachelors began beating a path to her door.

And it did not take long for Ozgirl, as she called herself, smiling down on Gower Street, to produce results. Whether they were the sort she wanted was another matter. Half an hour after the picture went up there were five messages waiting for her on the lovers2.com website.

She could hardly wait. "Hello beautiful," said one. "You may call me Jaz, though I would rather you call me, Anytime."

Jacob wrote: "If you like to travel, maybe we should pack our bags, meet at the airport and let's see where we end up."

As the day wore on the bids for Ozgirl - favourite place Paris, favourite drink wine, favourite possession "my Santorini ring" - poured in. Who would win her hand? The sales rep who "just wants to live life to the full"? The "Lova" who was looking for someone "open-minded, fun-loving but level-headed"?

At least some of them made her laugh. In her website profile Georgina said her favourite celebrity was Johnny Wilkinson, so one suitor replied: "Nice to see you have taste in rugby - we'll hammer your lot soon."

Another took one look at her picture and wrote: "If I were 10 years younger." Best of all was the young man who sent in a picture of himself posing barechested, belt buckle undone. "He looks like a porn star," said Georgina.

The service - in which anyone spotting a potential partner on one of the billboards can contact them via the website - was launched in Birmingham last week and has arrived in the capital.

Managing director of lovers2.com Dan Monteith, said: "I got the idea from a story in America about a woman who became so bored of being single that she put a picture of herself on a billboard as a joke. But it was incredibly successful."

So were any of Georgina's suitors good enough? Not really - and not just because she already has a boyfriend. "They're definitely not my cup of tea," she said. "Still, it's early days ..." All names - other than Georgina's - have been changed.