The Story of Tracy, Louise and Bob - A modern fairytale

Once upon a time, in a far away land called West Virginia on a magic farm known as Rambling Acres lived Tracy. Mother of three, blogger, agony aunt. She watched bizarre adverts on TV at four in the morning so that no-one else had to.

Now, I know what you're thinking. She sounds just like your average fairy tale princess. However, she's not. She's special. No regular fairy tale character ever went around saying "gosh Dern".

Tracy had long flowing locks, ideal for allowing princes to climb to the top of high towers and rescue her. However, being a married princess (now you know where the three children fit in to the story), she decided to get her hair cut. (Feel free to gasp at this point in the narrative).

Meanwhile, in the 1920s, there lived a young woman much known in the land for her "raw sexuality". This fairy tale is PG rated, by the way, which means that parents may bring their children but might get asked embarrassing questions afterwards. Anyway, the young woman was called Louise.

Louise made a few films in the days before they had sound. The most famous of these is "Pandora's Box", in which she plays a high-class prostitute whose life goes steadily down-hill until she ends up as a dead low-class prostitute.

Louise also had short hair. It was in a style known as "Bob". I'm not sure if that's named after a gay hair stylist who first invented it, but let's say that it is, to give the children another embarrassing question to ask.

When people saw Louise's Bob, they were stunned by her good looks. And that "raw sexuality" thing. One blogger and Bob fan was even inspired to produce the Bob World Film Database, devoted to films of actresses with bobs.

When people saw Tracy's Bob they were also stunned by her good looks. And the butterfly. The land was filled with crys of "Great Bob!", and everyone said how hot Tracy looked (at least a 19-year old shop assistant did). However one blogger, called Brian, was a little uneasy. He was obviously bowled over by Tracy's amazing hairstyle, but he didn't really want to say that she reminded him of that nymphomaniac prostitute in Pandora's Box. Or that she looked like someone who was born in 1906. She might take it the wrong way and send her prince round.

Louise lived well into her 70s, though she didn't make many more films. Tracy contiues to delight her fans, and Bob is apparently alive and well, and turned 100 earlier this year. Which brings us, as in all good hairy tales, to a neat (rather than split) end.