The US radio program, Performance Today, aired an interview with John
Tolanski of the BBC last night about Sir Malcolm Arnold.  Tolanski in
turn included a brief interview with Sir Malcolm's wife.  In any case,
Arnold had was grieving over the recent death of his lover when he went to
Argentina.  There, he met an Argentine woman 25 years his junior, Suzanna
Gill, who worked at the British Embassy in Buenos Aires (not positive I got
her name right), and was immediately quite taken by her.  He had only just
met her when, at the close of some ceremony, he trotted up to the podium
where she had introduced him, as asked her to marry him.  She said she she
wondered if he were mad, but was nonetheless sufficiently intrigued by him
to accept his offer to go shopping the next day (single men, take note of
the clever ploy).  At 11:00 the next day, he repeated the question, as he
did each subsequent day for about the next two weeks, when each day they
would "go shopping" (single men take note: Mrs. Arnold noted they never
actually purchased anything- apparently merely the promise of shopping is
enough to bewitch them).  In any case, after about two weeks of this, he
did not pop the question.  The young lady asked if there were anything
wrong, and Arnold replied no it was a beautiful day just like any other
day.  She then noted that he had failed to ask her to marry him, and he
said something to the effect that he'd given up and would just marry the
first woman he ran across.  She replied, well, why don't you ask once more
and see what happens.  So that's how she became Mrs. Malcolm Arnold.

Larry