the japing ape

A chimp is bereaved

2009-07-03T00:00:00.003+01:00

So it seems that Michael Jackson died from an overdose of grapefruit juice. Poor chap. It’s all too easy for a famous singer to acquire such dangerous habits. Barry Manilow was addicted to Dr Pepper for many years – it got so bad that his sneezes sprayed a fine mist of the soft drink into the atmosphere. He might have killed someone if they hadn’t fitted filters inside his nostrils. Let us hope that Michael’s tragic end will alert people to the toxic menace of the grapefruit.

Jacko’s sad demise means the title of “Whitest Black Man on Earth” is once again up for grabs. Obviously it should go to a real person rather than a mountebank like Ali G. Producing a shortlist that everyone will agree to will be a major challenge. Many will insist that Mungo Jerry should be a candidate, while others might put forward the name of some obscure Nigerian albino. To my way of thinking only A-list celebrities should be allowed to compete, which rules out Mungo Jerry. Lionel Ritchie has a pretty strong case, but I think the bookie’s favourite will be Tom Jones.

The rumour that Bubbles the chimp will inherit $20 million from the Jackson estate is causing much excitement in the jungle. No one expects Bubbles to make a gratis donation, so the chimps in my neighbourhood are angling for a share of the loot. Being shameless whores, their preferred scheme is prostitution. Even the local alpha males are saying they’d take it up the butt from Bubbles for a generous stipend. Personally, I hope he doesn’t give them a cent. If he has any sense he’ll tour the globe from zoo to zoo, bribing the keepers to let him shag the captive females. Having spent all those years in Never-got-laid-land he has plenty of lost time to make up for.

I hope, above all, that the will isn’t contested. It depresses me beyond measure to see the relatives of a deceased human descend on the corpse like squabbling vultures to peck at the bones. I am sure that Bubbles will accept his bequest with good grace, whatever its magnitude. May Jacko’s family show similar respect for the wishes of their departed son.

Having accumulated a tidy amount of cash from my circus career, I have left very precise instructions for its disbursement following my death. After a decent period of mourning, my lawyers will announce that all my assets are to be donated to the Gay Orangutans’ Benevolent Fund. This will be a ruse. I have no intention of leaving any money to the gay orangutans, who are perfectly capable of fending for themselves. The purpose of the hoax would be to smoke out undeserving characters from my list of potential inheritors. After making the bogus announcement, my lawyers will apply the following rules:

• anyone who attempts to contest the will gets nothing;

• anyone who complains (or insults my memory) gets a bunch of sour grapes and a raw onion;

• anyone who says “Well done gay orangutans!”, or words to that effect, may claim an equal share of my estate;

• anyone who attempts to pass himself off as a gay orangutan gets a pair of vinyl hot pants and a bottle of lube.

You can’t take your money with you, but you can certainly make the living jump through hoops to get their hands on it. It is a posthumous consolation of sorts.

Dongfall

2009-06-29T00:00:00.002+01:00

Kim Dong Il has put his youngest son in charge of his country’s spy agency. An unusually rash decision for the crafty little midget. His older sons are bound to feel resentful and are probably hatching a plot against the Dear Daddy as I write. My guess is they’ll go for the scorpion in the long johns. Humans have always used animals as assassins to cover their traces. One sting on the scrotum and Dongy’s chestnuts will be toast. A small target, admittedly, but scorpions can always sense the most vulnerable organ.

Anyone who’s watched Team America knows that Dongy is not a happy man. Living in North Korea probably has a lot to do with it. The clothes are drab and itchy, the nightlife is non-existent and the television is absolute crap. The boredom must be unbearable for a pint-sized despot with loads of cash and nothing to spend it on. Nor can he enjoy his position at the top, surrounded as he is by toadies, flunkies and assorted aunties. This is what happens when a man is forced to follow in his father’s footsteps rather than pursue his career of choice. A chubby-cheeked homunculus like Dongy would have been a natural clown, and it’s obvious from his antics that he wanted to be one.

Speaking of clowns, I recently received an email from Roly Bain, the Anglican priest who made a name for himself by acting the goat. I met Roly a long time ago after he watched my circus act. On seeing his funny little face, I immediately suggested he go to clown school, and he took my advice to heart. Every year I get a message from Roly asking me to visit him in England:

“Dearest GB,” he wrote, “I am the most successful comedy vicar in the world and I owe it all to you. How about doing a double act with me for the summer season?”

He’s a grateful little tyke as you can see. I should imagine he’d be even more grateful if I gave him a sound thrashing in front of his congregation. But I can’t fly across the globe every time a clown longs to feel my foot on his arse. Roly will have to make use of whatever local talent there is in England. Mick Jagger seems to have the lithe body movements required to perform with a clown. I’m sure he’d agree to take the stage with Roly for a share of the box office and a bottle of anti-wrinkle cream.

None of this clowning about will do anything about the political crisis in North Korea, of course. The recent nuclear explosions there are the sign of an internal power struggle. Intelligence sources indicate that the last one went off in an adventure playground, depriving the Dear Leader of his favourite recreation facility. There are obviously sinister forces at work trying to destabilise the regime by turning Dongy into a frustrated little imp. If I were President Obama, I’d send him some toys to play with pretty damn quick before he starts firing his rockets at San Francisco. The mark of a statesman is the ability to nip problems in the bud before they bite you in the arse.

Madonna and child

2009-06-24T00:00:00.003+01:00

A man on safari tells me that Madonna is going to visit the parents of her 22-year-old companion, Jesus Luz.

“Perhaps she wants to adopt him,” I suggest.

The man seems doubtful, but agrees it would be a fitting way of formalising their relationship. The boy’s natural parents surely love him dearly, but they can’t give him the start in life that Madonna can. In her delicate embrace, young Jesus would be nurtured with the most fragrant oils and lotions, rubbed tenderly on his chest, thighs and buttocks. Living in a well-heated mansion, there would be no need for him to wear clothes as he swung on the indoor climbing frame, his adoptive mother watching his movements with burgeoning pride and excitement. Let us hope that the paperwork can be finalised quickly without legal challenge.

The religious significance of the adoption would be enormous. The sight of Madonna mothering her own baby Jesus would surely strengthen the faith of Roman Catholics everywhere. It might even attract new converts. Anglicans fed up with the namby-pamby nonsense from the Church of England and its bearded archdruid might be tempted to migrate to Rome on seeing this miraculous re-enactment. I hope Pope Benny makes the most of the opportunity by granting an audience to Madge and Jezz and having his picture taken with them. Giving them his blessing might technically be blasphemous, so perhaps he ought to let them bless him.

I shouldn’t really be nagging the Pope because he has a lot on his plate at the moment. A great row has erupted among the faithful in Spain after a group of mothers who call themselves “Daughters of the Generalissimo” sent an open letter to the Vatican. They have inquired whether a devout Catholic wife should ever permit herself to attain a physical climax during marital relations, adducing their own opinion that any child conceived in such debauchery would be the Spawn of Satan. The Pope has deferred judgement pending consultation with Cardinals experienced in such matters. Spanish feminists, meanwhile, have expressed their fury by burning their knickers in the Plaza de España in Madrid.

If I had the Pope’s ear, I would advise him that it was perfectly lawful for a woman to experience elation during the physical act of love. There are many precedents in Holy Scripture – Bathsheba was never punished by the Lord for enjoying a jiggy with Mr Biggy and Delilah was obviously an insatiable minx who liked it mean and dirty. The only stipulation for the pious wife is that she should remain silent while in the throes of ecstasy. The purpose of marital congress is procreation, and no righteous husband should have to listen to his wife making a hullabaloo when he’s trying to impregnate her. It’s the sort of thing that might put a man off his stroke and make him forget what he was doing. A few soft little moans and sighs should be all that is permissible.

Speaking of procreation, I was disappointed to hear that Paris Hilton has failed to make good on her promise to produce a brood of little Parisites. Her latest beefcake suitor was callously dumped after she discovered he was “boring”. She should stop being so picky if you ask me. Does she want to be impregnated or entertained? Men who can do both generally prefer not to breed with vacuous floozies.

In memory of a monk

2009-06-19T00:00:00.005+01:00

I refuse to believe that David Carradine wanked himself to death. A man who has studied the way of the Tao and the Shao, shaving his head bald and living on alfalfa beans, must be aware he can't ejaculate himself to happiness. I don't know what happened in that hotel room, but I certainly don't trust the bellboys to give an honest account of what they found. On discovering David’s lifeless body, they no doubt configured the corpse in a pose that would allow them to sell scurrilous tidbits to the gutter press. Their karmas will be cleansed by suffering in a future life.

What a man was Kwai Chang Caine! I think his mixed Chinese-Caucasian heritage gave him his unique insights and abilities. A man of purely western descent could never have absorbed the oriental mysticism of the Shaolin temple. Lacking inscrutability, he would have babbled like a fool in a vain attempt to make converts. But a full-blooded Chinaman would not have opened his heart to the foreign devils, doing his best to enlighten them before resorting to kung fu tactics. The great thing about Caine is that he always gave the rednecks a chance to repent before taming their inner demons with a well-aimed foot in the face. He spoke softly and carried the big kick.

I often think we should introduce a spiritual element to safari tourism. Our current visitors have the mentality of spectators at a Roman amphitheatre.

“Where are the lions, where are the lions?” they cry.

What are the lions? would be a more pertinent question. Great big snarling brutes who would chew your head off if you asked them for directions to nearest waterhole. It’s depressing that so many humans visit Africa to gawp at savagery and gore. The makers of snuff-video wildlife documentaries are no better.

Perhaps I should establish a jungle temple for our human visitors. Students of all creeds and persuasions would be taught the way of the Hairy Pu. We’d give them courses in grooming, grimacing and guttural noises (the three g’s). And let’s not forget ape yoga – quite different from the human varieties where one’s tush is in contact with the ground. That would never do in the jungle, with all the snakes and creepy-crawlies. Ape positions involve suspending the body in mid-air by the fingers or toes and letting gravity do most of the work. “You’ve never been stretched until you’ve been hung,” is our motto.

I don’t see the need to teach humans martial arts – it only makes them overconfident about their physical capabilities. Back in my circus days, I remember being challenged to a bout of unarmed combat by a fellow called Nasty Nash, who was a black belt in something or the other.

“Don’t be an oaf, Nasty!” I said. “If you kicked me in the head you’d break every bone in your foot!”

Nasty was so disappointed that I invented the sport of toe-wrestling specifically to enable him to fight me without risking bodily injury. He enjoyed it so much that he went on to found an association that promotes the sport and holds regular tournaments (for humans). Nasty is the current world champion, I believe.

To baldly go...

2009-06-15T00:00:00.007+01:00

A character called Dr Lewis Dartnell is claiming that space travel makes you bald, fat and ugly. I know a coded insult aimed at William Shatner when I see one. The rumour that Captain Kirk wore a wig is absolutely false – it would have had to be glued to his scalp to stay on during all the fisticuffs and jujitsu he did with recalcitrant aliens. The colour match with his eyebrows was also too exact for the dyes of that era.

There is no evidence whatever that space travel causes hair loss. The Apollo astronauts were at least as hairy during splashdown as they were during lift-off. (They were much less hairy than the space chimps, of course, but that is comparing apples with pears). I’d like to know whether the newspaper that quoted Dr Dartnell checked his credentials first. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were one of those bogus doctors who go into practice to fondle women’s breasts. In any event, the phoney pundit will probably now be deluged with hate mail from outraged trekkers. And it will serve him right.

Now Captain Picard was as bald as an egg, but that doesn’t prove anything because he was slim and handsome rather than fat and ugly. The Next Generation, it must be admitted, was superior to The Original Series in almost every particular. Picard had more gravitas than Kirk, Data out-spocked Spock, and there were two leading ladies in skin-tight lycra costumes rather than the token Miss Uhura with a gizmo stuck in her ear. The surest way of getting a friendly debate going amongst a group of men is to ask them whether they’d rather ravish Beverly Crusher or Deanna Troi. There are always strong preferences for one or the other, although the manager of the safari camp once declared that he “wouldn’t touch either of those prick teasers”.

Some humans foolishly believe that we gorillas empathise with the Klingons. Nothing could be further from the truth. As well as being prodigious meat-eaters (and presumably suffering from halitosis as a result) they are far too tense and irascible to be our kindred spirits. I feel particularly sorry for Worf, scowling away on the bridge while everyone else grooves to the pulse of the warp engines. If I were on the Enterprise, I’d try and get him to lighten up:

“Worfy baby,” I’d say, “you’ve got to lose the ‘fuck you’ attitude, which went out of fashion shortly after the death of Genghis Khan. Chill out in ‘Ten Forward’. Flirt with Whoopie Goldberg. Learn to play the guitar. Eat more fruit. That’s the way to make friends and influence people on a Federation star ship.”

But they’ll never top The Next Generation. A big part of its appeal lies in the depiction of a harmonious space community free of jealousy, intrigue and masturbation. There was no need for self-abuse on the Enterprise because of the holodeck, where the computer would generate fully functional surrogates capable of unlimited guilt-free coitus (and no risk of cooties). Instead of vainly trying to seduce Dr Crusher, a crewman could do his worst to her exact replica. How did Beverly feel about men using her simulacrum as a concubine? I don’t know, but I would hope she felt flattered.

A ticklish question

2009-06-10T00:00:00.001+01:00

Scientists have finally admitted that laughter was invented by apes (and not Charlie Chaplin, as some humans appear to believe). I once tried to explain this to a group of tourists on safari and they reacted with incredulity.

“What is there to laugh at in the jungle?” asked one of them.

“A baboon’s red bottom,” I replied.

They were forced to concede the point.

We gorillas are constantly laughing at stuff as a matter of fact – we chortle, we chuckle, we cackle, we guffaw. And it’s not just slapstick jokes like elephant-sex that we enjoy. The jungle is full of subtle little ironies that make us smirk – the forgetful frog; the confused snake; the bilious beetle. It’s difficult to keep a straight face with all these comedy acts going on around us.

But let’s get back to the scientists. After tickling some infant apes, they realised that humans had copied laughter from their hairy cousins. This having been established, they wondered whether it was safe to tickle gorillas. Now we gorillas are ticklish and enjoy it as much as the next ape, but you can’t just walk up and fiddle with us. If a stranger started prodding my belly, I would wonder what the devil he was up to and pull his nose until he stopped doing it. If you want to tickle a gorilla you’ve got to start by making polite conversation. Tell me your favourite colour; comment on the price of citrus fruit; discuss the likely ramifications of the El Niño weather phenomenon. Only after creating a friendly rapport should you ask permission to tweak the flesh in a decent area of the body. Try any naughty stuff and you’re going to get spanked.

I’m not a great tickler myself. My females laugh enough without it and the humans I encounter are too shy to bring up the subject. A woman did once ask me to tickle her in my circus days. She was agreeably fleshy, but I was not inclined to oblige her.

“Tickling is a blunt instrument only to be used when humour has failed,” I said. “Watch a comedy show instead.”

“But I don’t have a sense of humour,” she retorted.

“Nonsense!” I barked. “I’ll give you a free ticket to our next show so you can see my act with the clowns.”

So she came along to the circus and watched the show from start to finish. In all honesty, I was on top form. Our antics brought the house down, and never did a team of clowns leave a circus ring with buttocks so sore. I met the woman outside my trailer after the show.

“You were really funny but I just couldn’t laugh.” she said. “I told you I didn’t have a sense of humour.”

I stared at her grimly. Perhaps there was a defect in her brain that prevented her from reacting normally to the sight of clowns getting their arses repeatedly kicked.

“Very well,” I said dryly, “you leave me with no alternative but to employ cruder methods of stimulation.”

I invited her into my trailer, bound her hands and feet, and fingered her flesh methodically until she shrieked and squirmed convulsively. I carried on sadistically until she was begging for mercy, flushed, sweaty and exhausted.

“You may leave,” I said after untying her hands and feet. “Let that be a lesson to you. A sense of humour is a far kinder palliative than tickle torture. I suggest you visit a psychologist who might help you overcome your mental block.”

I ignored all her requests for further sessions.

Marital problems

2009-06-05T00:00:00.007+01:00

An impotent man has been arrested in Malaysia for attempting to deceive his wife with cucumbers and aubergines. The woman wasn’t fooled and endured six years of vegetable abuse before complaining to the police. It’s a depressing story which confirms what shrinks say about poor communication leading to marital break-ups. He should have come clean about his impotence, and she should have told him to get those damned vegetables out of the bed.

I’ve often thought I’d be good at counselling human couples with marital problems. When humans see other humans bickering they instinctively want to take sides, but we gorillas are more objective. In studying the dynamics of a human relationship, we have the emotional detachment of Davy Attenborough watching a pair of feuding ferrets. This makes us utterly impervious to the antagonisms that poison human gender relations. Feminism, male chauvinism, phallocentrism, pussy-magnetism – they are all irrelevant concepts to a gorilla.

Gorillas could counsel humans, but it would never work the other way around. When I have a tiff with my females, things progress fairly quickly from curses and pinches to frenzied violence. Any human who tried to mediate would be trembling like a leaf. Giving honest advice is impossible if you’re fearful that saying the wrong thing will lead to your arms getting ripped off.

That’s why we gorillas never intervene in disputes between animals heftier than ourselves. The matriarch of an elephant herd once asked me to have a quiet word with a rogue bull that was attempting to mount everything with a trunk.

“No can do, ma’am!” I said. “The job is outside of my size range. You’d better ask King Kong or Godzilla.”

The bull elephant was finally put out of his misery when he gate-crashed a training exercise of the Congolese Armed Forces and tried to have sex with a T-72.

Not all differences can be reconciled, of course. I doubt Mr Cucumber will ever patch things up with his missus however much remorse he shows. He ought to apologise to the vegetables as well as his wife. No nutritious plant should ever be made to act as a sexual surrogate against its will. After an experience like that, I would describe its condition as inedible. I certainly wouldn’t eat it, no matter how many times it was rinsed in cold water.

For some women adultery is an unforgivable offence, while others seem able to live with it. My theory is that the tolerant wives are the ones who intend to retaliate by having affairs of their own. Princess Diana didn’t leave Charles when he was carrying on with Camilla because she knew she’d soon be cheating like a trollop herself. By the end of his first marriage, Old Jug Ears must have been the most cuckolded heir to the throne in English history.

Charles and Diana were a hopeless case and I wouldn’t have wasted my energy on trying to keep them together. When famous humans divorce, my reaction is usually “What took you so long?”. The one celebrity marriage I would go out on a hairy limb to save is the union between Mr Becks and Victoria Spice. They are now more famous for being married to each other than anything else, and I’d hate to see them trade insults in the gutter press. Maybe I’ll invite them to the Congo for a second honeymoon and help them brush up on their non-verbal communication skills.

Honest corruption

2009-06-01T00:00:00.001+01:00

A Croatian mayoral candidate has won a landslide victory by being honest with the voters.

“I will honestly fleece you like sheep!” he declared in a landmark campaign speech. “By God, I’ll raid the public purse like a highwayman and live off the fat of the land!”

The voters loved him for it. For once, a politician was being truthful about his intentions. As most of the electorate would do the same in his position, they immediately recognised him as a man of the people. Who really wants to be governed by a pious goody-goody who doesn’t know how to pamper himself at someone else’s expense? Those of a generous nature derive pleasure from seeing others enjoy the high life.

This story is particularly apposite in the light of news from England, where members of parliament are being tarred and feathered for making frivolous expense claims. British MPs have shamelessly reimbursed themselves for hairdryers, toothbrushes, dildos and countless other trinkets. There is only one word for such behaviour: cheap. I’m not sure what the price of a dildo is, but I should imagine it’s less than the cost of the paperwork to claim it back. The voters are naturally furious that so many of their elected officials are penny-pinching parvenus who won’t even pay for their own sex aids.

With any luck, the next British parliament will be packed with rich celebrities who can afford their own dildos. Richard Branson has a collection big enough for the entire House of Commons. Esther Rantzen, Delia Smith and Lulu have their own custom-made devices. Tom Jones is essentially a walking dildo. Not having to worry about such trifling expenses, they will devote their energies to the service of their constituents, many of whom would love to be probed by a famous dildo. The only way of restoring faith in the system is for politicians to get closer to the people they represent.

Dr Whipsnade tells me that times are tough in England. Not for the good doctor, of course, who is a multimillionaire. Yet being a man of conscience, he is not blind to the deprivation around him. His many acts of philanthropy include tipping waiters generously and feeding the fallen women of the Kings Cross area. The latter is accomplished by instructing his chauffeur to distribute tins of corned beef to the prostitutes while he waits in the car.

“Hallo Beefy, got some more beef for us!” they cry at the scowling underling as he carries the box of victuals towards them.

But don’t feel sorry for the chauffeur: that impudent rascal deserves all the lip he gets.

Things are no better in the provincial settlements outside London. A village in Cornwall cannot find a single nubile woman to be its carnival queen. The reason is that economic hardship has forced these young ladies to sell their bodies, hence they are too ashamed to parade before a crowd including their clients, who might grin, wink and point indecently. In their desperation, the village has decided to advertise the position to transvestites. Although many of these men are also prostitutes, the boot would be on the other foot, as it is they who would grin, wink and point at their shamefaced punters. I must send one of my evil henchmen to witness the event and take pictures.

Safari holidays

2009-05-27T00:00:00.001+01:00

The manager of the safari camp is fuming about a comment made by Miss Lily Allen, the petite cockney singer. He cites a newspaper article in which the cheeky chanteuse is quoted as saying that she feels guilty about going on safari. In taking pictures of the animals, she believes she subjected them to the same unwanted attention she receives from the paparazzi.

“Why didn’t the stupid little tart stay in Romford!” he rages. “We don’t need pious airheads bad-mouthing our industry to the press! If she’s against exploitation she should stop singing, which is exploiting people’s bad taste in music!”

I feel compelled to speak in her defence.

"She probably didn’t understand that there was no obligation to take pictures," I say. "Don't forget she comes from a society where people do everything they are allowed plus another ten per cent. Self-restraint and decorum are virtues quite unknown to her.”

The manager stomps off, muttering and harrumphing.

Would it be correct to call Miss Allen an “Essex girl”? I believe she wasn’t born in Essex, but the term seems to be more cultural than geographical. She recently recorded a song that is a kind of Essex girl anthem, describing with great acuity the aspirations of these young ladies. However the lyrics may have been sardonic, intending to highlight the deficiencies in their way of thinking. Perhaps Miss Allen might more accurately be described as a “post-Essex girl”.

These Essex girls are the butt of too much derision in any case. Their fondness for the trinkets and baubles of a consumerist society is quite understandable given their upbringing. Theirs is a community in which it is normal for maidens to surrender their virginity with wanton haste, often to the first sweaty-pawed ruffian who manages to fumble with their underwear. If something precious is given away so cheaply, the donor spends the rest of her life trying to make amends by being overly acquisitive. “Bling” is merely a replacement for a prematurely-popped cherry.

Perhaps they might avoid this lamentable fate by following the example of Miss Alina Percea, an 18-year-old Romanian damsel who auctioned her virginity on the internet. The highest bid was made by an Italian businessman aged 45, who according to Alina was “very charming”. One presumes he deflowered her with exquisite tenderness and finesse. Or perhaps not. Yet whatever the manner of initiation, Miss Percea emerged from the experience with undiminished self-respect, proud of the fact that her maidenhead was worth a sum equivalent to 8,782 pounds sterling.

“It was not like prostitution because it was a one-off,” she explained.

Indeed. One banana does not make a bunch, as we say in the jungle.

This gives me an idea. The market value of her purity would have paid for a deluxe safari holiday (including bridal suite with Jacuzzi and douche). Suppose we were to offer a “Lose you virginity in Africa” holiday to the comely maidens of the world, in tandem with a “Deflower a virgin in Africa” holiday to rich businessmen? Of course we would have to vet the men carefully to ensure they could make a good job of it. The last thing we need is disappointed ex-virgins demanding refunds. Businessmen who think they’ve got what it takes should send me an email. No boasters or hoaxers.

Female ingenuity

2009-05-22T00:00:00.000+01:00

The manager of the safari camp has been telling me about a woman who avoided going to her high-school reunion by sending an impostor in her stead.

“Pretty clever eh, GB!” he said. “I bet your females wouldn’t have thought of a trick like that!”

“You’d be surprised,” I remarked. “Female gorillas can be incredibly devious in pursuit of their aims. Not that they’d worry about skipping a high-school reunion, of course. Anyone who tried to pressure them into attending such an event would simply be told to piss off.”

On reviewing the news report, I am forced to admit that this woman, Andrea Wachner, is a cunning wench. The impersonator she hired was a professional stripper well-versed in performing before strangers. Her looks were also carefully chosen – essentially a cuter version Miss Wachner with a smaller nose and a bigger bust. After getting her stooges to install webcams at the venue, Miss Wachner equipped the impostor with an earpiece to receive her instructions. The deception worked perfectly until one of her former classmates sidled up to the stripper near the end of the party.

“You’re not Andrea, your eyes are different!” he said staring intently at her breasts.

The hoax almost succeeded, though, and the idea of using a double to fob people off was brilliant. It’s a concept that might lead to a social revolution comparable to that of the birth-control pill. The busy career woman, juggling work and family responsibilities, could hire multiple look-alikes for different tasks – one to attend office parties, one to drive the kids to school, one to give her husband a treat on his birthday, and so on. A rich femme fatale could lead the life of a Bond villain, lying on a couch in her boudoir while watching her doppelgangers carry out her nefarious plans. The ones that make a hash of it would be invited back to HQ for a paddle with the sharks in the aquarium.

Yet contrasting such womanly wiles with the behaviour of female apes is obviously comparing apples with pears. The apettes may not hire strippers to impersonate them, but they possess jungle instincts that the modern woman lacks. Take the recent case of Miss Karta, a sharp-witted orang-utan who escaped from her zoo enclosure by building a ladder and short-circuiting an electric fence. When surrounded by a posse of her captors, she jumped back into her enclosure before they could fire their tranquiliser darts. Are there women who can make ladders and short-circuit electric fences without being unnaturally butch? Not that I’ve seen.

I think it’s fair to say that women and female apes have much to learn from each other. Women may have guile and subtlety, but their hairy sisters could teach them a range of practical skills that would serve them well in life, such as tree-climbing. A woman who knows how to straddle up and down a tree trunk has an exciting feral quality that complements her softer virtues. Perhaps I should hold a jungle symposium for female primates of all species to exchange ideas.

The Queen and I

2009-05-18T00:00:00.001+01:00

When I tell American tourists that I used to live in England, they often ask me whether I ever met Queen Elizabeth II. Sadly we were never formally introduced, although our paths did once cross on the day of the Epsom Derby. On her way back home from the races, her car stopped alongside my car at the traffic lights. As our eyes met, I licked my thumbnail and rubbed it on my chin in a circular motion. The alpha females all know what it means, and Her Majesty gave me the biggest ear-to-ear grin you could ever wish to see on the face of a reigning monarch. I later received a jar of royal jelly from Buckingham Palace with a card signed “ERxxx”.

Yes, indeed, the Queen gazed into my soul and evidently liked what she saw. I think she sensed we were kindred spirits, both being expected to perform in public, albeit in very different ways. Her job was the harder by far. I never needed to worry about making a fool of myself because people always assumed it was part of my act. But the Queen had to be constantly in control of her emotions lest she was photographed making a silly face. That’s not easy given the number of people she meets, some of whom will inevitably scratch their crotch in her presence.

The latest attempt to embarrass England’s gracious monarch occurred when a couple were caught dogging on the lawn outside Windsor Castle. Apparently it was a spur-of-the-moment thing which they later much regretted. As the Queen was in residence, the royal security police had no option but to pounce on the pair while excited Japanese tourists clicked their cameras. Her Majesty, of course, remained impassive during the whole fracas. People sometimes forget that she is an accomplished horse breeder who has watched hot pumping stallions cover countless mares. For those who have witnessed such deeds, human coitus is a spectacle no more shocking than gerbils having a cuddle.

Much less impressive than Queen Elizabeth are her immediate family. The fogeyish Prince of Wales continues to denounce his pet hates in front of audiences who grin sheepishly at his fixations. One thing I know as a gorilla is that you should never complain about architecture. Human erections are part of the landscape and no more worthy of condemnation than the mountains and trees. One should especially avoid criticising tall buildings in case people think you have a penile complex. From the way Wally Prince Charlie goes on about these edifices you’d think they were giant dildos inserted half-way up his celestial butt-hole.

A lot of Americans seem envious of the British monarchy, but there’s nothing to stop them having their own titular sovereign. Mrs Obama is too tall for the job and the base of her neck looks inappropriately sturdy – a warrior princess perhaps, but a queen definitely not. Hilldog, on the other hand, is naturally regal in her demeanour and full of queenly qualities. Her only demerit is to have been repeatedly cuckolded without retaliating, which is not in the spirit of Catherine the Great. She won’t be worthy of her nation’s crown until she gets out of the hen coop and sows some royal oats. Assuming, of course, there is still a man bold enough to pin her to the bed.

A vet seeks sanctuary

2009-05-13T00:00:00.003+01:00

Have you ever helped a fugitive from justice? Smacker Ramrod’s old chum from veterinary school, Barry Bullman, flew in from New York last week. As well as having a lucrative private practice in the Big Apple, a local radio station had hired him to present a show called “Your pets and their sex lives”. It was this foray into the field of broadcasting that led to his downfall.

Before you get the wrong idea, there was nothing remotely amiss in the advice he gave over the airwaves. Middle-aged ladies would phone in to ask whether they should worry about little Poochy trying to hump the coffee table, and Barry would reassure them that it was perfectly normal for small dogs to hump coffee tables. The pet-owning burghers of New York City loved his British accent, and he quickly attracted a sizeable audience who sent him plenty of fan mail. Then he received the following letter from a female admirer:

Dear Dr Bullman

I love your radio show even though we don’t presently share our home with an animal. I know you’re a vet but could you advise me about my own sex life? I have never had an orgasm in five years of marriage. My husband has tried everything but nothing seems to work. You sound very knowledgeable so is there anything you could suggest? I have enclosed a photograph of us on our wedding day.

Yours sincerely

Mrs Irma V Schwartz

Now strictly speaking this query was beyond Barry’s competence, but like most vets he was not shy of tackling any problem with an anatomical aspect. Furthermore, he had recently acquired a Puerto Rican girlfriend whom he was able to consult on the matter, and she had made a very practical suggestion, or so it seemed to him. Thus he mailed the following reply to the frustrated Irma S:

Dear Mrs Schwartz

Frankly I’m not surprised you can’t have an orgasm with your husband. Whatever possessed you to marry that bow-legged chipmunk? I enclose the business card of my girlfriend’s younger brother, Umberto, who is a male escort. He normally works with women quite a bit older than yourself, so he’ll probably give you a 20% discount. (If you’ve lost a couple of stone since your wedding day he might go as high as 50%). Discretion is assured and I can vouch for his good character.

Kind Regards

Barry Bullman

This well-intentioned advice resulted in a letter from a legal firm representing Schwartz and Schwartz, threatening to sue Barry for inflicting emotional distress by means of a malicious communication. As if that wasn’t enough, the police arrested him for soliciting acts of prostitution. He fled the country when he was bailed and is now seeking to shelter within the protective embrace of my hairy tribe.

My inclination is to offer him refuge. We gorillas have a “sticks and stones” philosophy to personal insults and rarely make a legal issue of them. Rather than press for damages we would turn the other cheek, albeit that the cheek in question might be located on the rump. As for the soliciting charge, forwarding a gigolo’s business card is precisely the kind of activity that oils the wheels of commerce in an economic downturn. He must have been charged under some ancient Puritan law that the State of New York forgot to repeal.

I don’t want to leave you with the impression that I would offer sanctuary to any miscreant who darkened our door. Bottom pinchers, exhibitionists and peeping toms are certainly not welcome in our neck of the jungle. If you have any sins of that nature on your conscience, you should throw yourself on the mercy of your local religious pastor, and accept his penance through gritted teeth. Checking thy body may amend thy soul.

Indian shoe protest

2009-05-08T00:00:00.001+01:00

An epidemic of shoe-throwing has broken out in India. It seems that a politician need only open his mouth in public to get a shower of sandals raining down on his head. The authorities are trying to stop it by forcing the masses to go barefoot to political rallies, but it’s likely to be a futile precaution. Deprive people of their shoes and they’ll find other things to throw. The mayor of Estepona thought he’d be safe on a nudist beach, but the bathers pelted him with marbles they’d hidden inside their body cavities.

My jungle experience tells me that when a craze like this develops you’ve got to ride with the punches and wait for the mob to tire of their antics. When the baboons started throwing onions at us, we ducked for cover and made onion soup rather than trying to confiscate their onions. My advice to India’s politicians is to wear crash helmets when giving speeches and instruct their flunkies to harvest the shoes for sale on the black market. Make the smelly-toed rabble repurchase their footwear at inflated prices.

Public disorder can be provoked by the most unlikely incidents in that part of the world. Ranjit Ram, the Indian knife-thrower, once told me about a riot that broke out during a cricket match in his country. It started when an Australian fast bowler kissed an umpire on the cheek during a drinks interval, which infuriated the crowd for some reason. Perhaps they thought it was an attempt at bribery, although I’d be surprised if even an umpire would sell his loyalty that cheaply. It took a squadron of police to restore order by swishing their lathis with gay abandon. The application of the cane to the buttocks is one of the enduring legacies of the British Raj.

Perhaps the crowd would have been less agitated if they’d known that Australian men will smooch anything when they're in the right mood. A farmer from Down Under has recently announced his intention to kiss his pigs on a regular basis, claiming it would prove they were not infected with swine flu. Who is he trying to fool? If a man fancies his pigs, he ought to come clean about it rather than concocting flimsy excuses to snog them. I’m sure the pigs would prefer to be wooed by an honest suitor rather than a sly hog fiend who molests them on a bogus medical pretext.

Yet it would be wrong to denigrate Australian men, whose ranks include august statesmen such as John Howard (“The Sheriff”) and Paul Keating (“The Larrikin”). I sympathise greatly with humans who have the thankless task of governing in a democracy. To get elected they have to flatter the voters, telling them they’re good citizens entitled to nothing but the best, when in reality most of them are impudent rascals who deserve a good whipping. Then, when they’re trying to do their jobs, they get pestered by swarms of angry yahoos who bombard them with projectiles. What these ungrateful ruffians really need is a merciless despot to teach them some manners. Humans never appreciate how lucky they are unless they are periodically reminded of how bad things can get.

Virgin in a hen coop

2009-05-04T00:00:00.000+01:00

A 26-year-old man has got a job at lap-dancing club by claiming to be a virgin.

“I’ve been propositioned more than 20 times but the girls won’t have much luck,” says Dave Dragas, a devout Christian.

Luck? He seems to think that the woman who pops his cherry will have won first prize in a raffle draw. In stating the number of offers he has refused, he is really no better than the playboy who boasts about his conquests. Sex may not make you wiser, but neither does abstaining from it. Perhaps he’ll realise that when he finally gets laid. In the meantime, he might learn a few things from his job of “managing” the lap dancers. I would guess that involves making sure they share their earnings with the club rather than stuffing banknotes up their cha-chas. Christian or not, he’d better prepare himself for a gruelling stint of amateur gynaecology.

He sounds like the kind of goody two-shoes who’ll really get on their figurative tits. It reminds me of the movie Klute, in which Donald Sutherland plays a straight-laced detective who initially rebuffs Jane Fonda’s tartish overtures. Infuriated by his smug incorruptibility, she tricks him into sleeping on the floor beside her bed and ravishes him while he’s half asleep. Once Klute has gone the way of a thousand Johns he is a sadly diminished figure, fawning on the call girl like a lovesick puppy. I suspect that young Dragas will suffer a similar fate when one of the dancers puts him through the meat grinder.

I confess that the appeal of lap dancing puzzled me for a long time. A fully-clothed man sits on a chair while a semi-naked woman presses her bottom against his trousers. The whole thing is monitored on CCTV, and if he dares to fondle her, a burly bouncer storms into the room and chucks him out. To top it all, he has to pay for the experience in hard currency rather than dinner vouchers. By my reckoning, there were at least 57 more enjoyable ways of spending time with a woman.

The mist cleared when I learned that most of the men involved were married. I then realised that such establishments were a refuge for the hen-pecked husband. Rather than answering his wife back, which would generate further friction, he retaliates covertly by partaking in naughty deeds that fall short of adultery. This allows him to return home in triumph, feeling like a warrior who has looted and pillaged the enemy camp. The poor deluded wife must think her husband is smiling because he’s glad to see her.

Could there be lap-dancing clubs for frustrated wives? The problem is that very few women could comfortably bear the weight of a beefcake stud on her lap. Yet the desperate housewife surely has other ways of dealing with her marital angst. A visit to the hairdresser seems to fulfill this important social function, giving her plenty of time to tell a captive audience what an incomparable doofus her husband is. Add a few flirty remarks from the salon’s official gigolo, and her zest is renewed for another bout of domestic strife.

The modern human marriage would surely be doomed without these essential safety valves.

Rumpology

2009-04-29T00:00:00.004+01:00

A voluptuous English woman at the safari guesthouse reveals the secret of her sex appeal.

“It all about balance, GB.” she explains. “I’ve got a huge arse, but it doesn’t matter because my boobs are equally enormous. My top and bottom parts balance each other out and make my waist look smaller.”

I nod in agreement.

“Yes, you’ve got to look at body shape in a holistic way,” I say. “Look at elephants. Their arses are absolutely massive but you never hear them complaining about it. There’s nothing wrong with a big behind if the rest of the body is in good proportion. I’m glad you’re not one of those women who hate their bums.”

“If I did hate my bum I’d ask you to spank it for me!” she says saucily.

“And I would be glad to oblige,” I reply. “However given that my paw would only cover a small portion of your hindquarters, the punishment inflicted may be slight.”

“On the contrary, GB, my naughty bottom would be chastened by your long-armed follow through!” she insists.

I thank her for the compliment and study the object in question as she saunters off. It wobbles a certain amount, and yet I wouldn’t change a morsel of it. There is something very engaging about a woman who is comfortable in her own body. As she approaches the end of her stay, I begin to harbour squalid thoughts of giving her juicy buns a good squeeze. It is fortunate that I possess a high degree of self-discipline in such matters.

Anyway, this full-bottomed female reminds me of a fortune teller I met in my circus days. He claimed he could foretell a person’s fate by examining their buttocks.

“Every crease, crevice and crater is imbued with prognosticative significance!” he declared grandly. “I have just examined the ringmaster and he has a cleft rump!”

“Doesn’t everyone?” I asked.

“Everyone has a vertical cleft, my dear ape, but few are privileged to have a horizontal one as well. In essence, there were four buttocks rather than two. The vulgar members of my profession call it the ‘hot cross bum’.”

“Well I never!” I exclaimed, amused at the ringmaster’s peculiar deformity. “Whatever does it mean?”

“The number four is generally thought to be unlucky in China, but in some dialects it sounds like ‘get fortune’. So the ringmaster is probably destined to have bad luck, with an outside chance of acquiring great riches.”

“That should keep him on tenterhooks,” I said. “However his only connection with China is his weekly noodle-fest at the Chu Chin Chow.”

“The wisdom of the Yellow Emperor is universal.” explained the rump-reader. “Would you like a quick appraisal on the house?”

“If it’s on the house, why not?” I replied, turning round and bending over.

“Hmm,” he mused. “Based on the thick covering of hair, I would say that you were a gorilla. Am I close?”

“Spot on!” I confirmed. “And to think I was sceptical about your powers!…phut… Oh I say, I’m sorry! It must have been the lentils I ate for lunch!”

“Fresh air, fresh air!” he gasped, staggering away. “Damn you, Bananas, open the door! You poisonous effusion is killing me!”

He survived to read more rumps, but was careful to inquire after his subject’s recent diet before future examinations.

Meat for sex

2009-04-24T00:00:00.002+01:00

Female chimpanzees will let you mount them if you feed them fresh meat. We jungle-dwellers have known this for ages, but it seems that human zoologists have only just twigged. One day they’ll discover something that hasn’t been going on since the last Ice Age. Media pundits have latched onto this revelation, believing it has far-reaching implications for homo sapiens. Men on the pull will doubtless soon be telling women about their meat-packed freezer compartments. They should note, however, that chimps do a lot of things that only work for chimps. Scratching your arse is a way of showing respect in their society.

The only man I know who has used meat as a seduction tool is Trevor Bumphries-Maddocks, the mercurial Welsh actor. He used to take supermarket checkout girls in Bridgend to Taffy Edwards’ Economy Steakhouse (motto: fresh meat from four-legged animals). He claims the food there “brought out the vixen in them”, which was apparently a euphemism for something sexual. The Welsh, however, are a law unto themselves in most respects. I doubt that meat consumption does anything to enhance the libido of women who prefer to couple in a horizontal position.

You certainly won’t get a female gorilla into bed by offering her meat. As well as being vegetarian, they are almost impossible to tempt with bribes. Male gorillas who beg or cajole them for sex are treated like bacteria. The safest method of having your way with them is to wait until they’re in season and flex your pecs suggestively. They’ll unusually initiate the mating sequence without any prompting. Trying to mount them in other circumstances is a dangerous game. Do anything they don’t like and they’ll squash your testicles like berries.

So what does Gorilla Bananas do if he’s feeling horny and none of his females has an engorged vulva? “He has a hand party!” I hear you cry. Not a bit of it! There is one infallible method of getting my ladies in the mood. In a word, it’s humour. When female gorillas start guffawing you can do whatever you want with them. It exercises the same muscles used in the sexual act and destroys their capacity to resist. As they lie on the ground cackling, it is the easiest thing in the world to turn them over and slip one in. I should emphasize that they don’t seem to mind this at all – indeed, I’m not actually sure they notice.

You must be wondering what I do to make them laugh. Do I tickle their sense of irony with my dry wit? Do I blow enormous raspberries and hop about like a frog? Do I tell them jokes about actresses and baboons? No, it’s a lot more straightforward that that. There is nothing funnier to a female gorilla than an outrageously camp gay man. The screaming queen, or a skilled impersonation of one, never fails to crack them up. So after putting on a flowery hat and red lipstick, I address them in the voice of the late John Inman, ejaculating utterances such as:

“Ooh, there’s never a man around when you need one!”

Not very dignified, I’ll admit, but far sillier things have been said in the hope of getting females to spread their legs. If it works, don’t knock it.

Life on the Edge

2009-04-20T00:00:00.001+01:00

A diver has described his long duel of death with a hungry tiger shark.

“I speared it in the gills and even tried to drown it, but it still wouldn’t die,” said Craig Clasen.

He tried to drown it? Didn’t he know that sharks can breathe underwater? I suppose he must have been playing hooky during that biology class. He also fired his spear gun at the wrong place. Shoot a shark in the gills and it just gets angry – to kill it instantly you’ve got to shoot it in the anus.

After finally putting a knife through its skull, he claims he was full of remorse. That didn’t discourage him from slicing a hunk of meat off the carcass to make shark sandwiches for his next maritime adventure.

“Having made a meal of killing it, I made a meal of its flesh,” he would have said if he’d been more witty.

Remorseful or not, our harpoon hero will surely remember his epic victory over Jaws Junior as one of the highlights of his career. There’s nothing like danger to make the pulse race and the brain switch to record. The boxer who floored Mike Tyson for the first time must have re-lived that moment a thousand times, quite possibly while servicing his missus. Emerging unharmed and victorious from a life-threatening challenge produces a feeling of elation. I once saw a photo of a Masai hunting party after killing a full-maned lion. They looked elated.

Can pacifists get the same feeling without actually killing anything? The happiest humans I ever saw in my circus days were the high wire performers. Mad as baboons, but quite literally high on life. After walking the tightrope, their faces glowed like light bulbs. I asked one of them whether he felt any fear when practising his trade. He said that accomplished tightrope walkers believe they have conquered gravity and can float on air. I asked him if he had any advice for beginners. He said they should write a will leaving their money to the High Wire Artists’ Benevolent Fund. He obviously wasn’t as crazy as he looked.

The drawback of dangerous pastimes is the risk of a violent death, leaving a nasty mess for people to clean up. But that’s usually a better way to go than dying from a disease. George Orwell said that getting shot in the neck in Spain was a lot more fun than consumption. The manager of the safari camp has asked one of the park rangers to shoot him like a rabid dog if he ever contracts owl flu. He thinks it would be preferable to getting the hoots and expiring with a constipated stare on his face.

So should you take up an extreme sport? On balance, I would advise against it. Humans who feel euphoric after a parachute jump are not really euphoric – they just think they are. The brain is basically a penis in the skull which releases a lot of endorphins when it’s stimulated in the right way. The secret of a contented life is to feel pleasure without doing anything pleasurable. As Master Kan said to Grasshopper, “When you can walk its length and leave no trace, you will have learned.”

Fartball

2009-04-15T00:00:00.002+01:00

There is no bigger imbecile than the football referee. The latest moral outrage perpetrated by one of these nincompoops was to caution a player for breaking wind. Someone should teach these card-waving clowns the ABC of human flatulence. Men, unlike apes, cannot conjure up farts at will (although quite a few have mastered the art of sneaking them out inaudibly). The idea that a footballer deliberately tooted his arse-trumpet to distract an opponent is absurd. Not even one of the beer-bellied yokels who play for Burridge United would be capable of that.

I am sorry to say that the vulgar sport of football continues to attract followers in Africa. Even women, who ought to know better, were among the spectators at a recent match in the Congo. Their ululating and hip-wiggling goaded the players into ever more bodacious acts of ball juggling. The one good thing about the African game is that the referee is always bribed by the hosts. This allows the match to proceed in an orderly fashion with very little of the swearing and gesticulating than bedevils the sport in England. If everyone expects the ref to be biased, no one is disappointed by his decisions. It is regarded as a legitimate part of home advantage.

Now you’re probably thinking that Gorilla Bananas spends a lot of time talking to people about farts. I certainly know more about them than Professor ‘Whoopee’ Cox of Salford University, who thinks he’s an expert in the field because he owns a cushion that makes six different varieties of lavatory noise. Yet we gorillas have no need to flaunt our knowledge of digestive gases, gained through patient years of guffing from a diet rich in fruit and vegetables. I never mention the subject at the safari guesthouse unless our visitors first bring it up, in which case I’m happy to deal with their queries and problems.

I was briefly lost for words, however, when a cross-eyed man with dandruff asked me if my females were any good at queefing. I pursed my lips and scratched my nipples before answering.

“The coochie of a female gorilla is as tight as a drum,” I said. “No air will come out unless you first put some in.”

“Do you think they’d let me have a go with a bicycle pump?” he asked.

“You’re welcome to try,” I said. “But I couldn’t guarantee that you’d leave the jungle with both testicles intact.”

He decided, on reflection, to experiment with his sex doll instead.

You’d be amazed at the number of e-mails I get from men with bizarre fantasies involving female gorillas. A lot of them complain that women aren’t able to squeeze them as tightly as they want.

“Female gorillas are moody beasts,” I explain. “If you ask them to squeeze you they might hang you upside down and watch you squirm. First try your luck with female body-builders.”

Women with bodies like the young Arnold Schwarzenegger (give or take a penis) should be capable of giving them what they crave. The fly in the ointment is that most of these ladies probably want to be dominated in bed, like any normal woman. Whether they're humans or apes, getting female primates to do what you want is always a challenge.

An invitation from Oxford

2009-04-10T00:00:00.001+01:00

Dr Whipsnade’s studious nephew has invited me to speak at the Oxford Union. At his suggestion, the committee have agreed to a debate on the following motion:

This house believes that apes have human rights

He wants me to propose the motion and has found a zoologist called Professor Fitzgibbon to second it – I believe he is human in spite of his name. Much as I hate to disappoint the extended family of my benefactor, I will have to decline. For one thing, I’m not actually sure I agree with the proposition. Apes do indeed have rights, but not necessarily human ones. Our value system has a number of important differences with that of our upright cousins. Where in the Rights of Man would you find anything about thrashing cheeky baboons or debagging nosey wildlife photographers? There are many rights in common, of course, but I don’t see why we should have to level down.

The other problem with these contests is that they are rarely decided by force of argument. Back in my circus days, I agreed to participate in a debate weighing the merits of the following highly dubious proposition:

The promiscuous man is a gorilla shaved of hair

Naturally I argued against the motion, which is pretty disparaging to gorillas when you consider it. I don’t know why humans have to bring us into their petty squabbles. If you must insult each other, point out your faults rather than making bogus comparisons with your primate cousins. These gratuitous references are deeply resented in the jungle.

Arguing in favour of the motion was an irritable young lady who obviously wasn’t keen on promiscuous men. She mentioned an occasion when a lecherous co-worker had indecently propositioned her after she had unwisely agreed to share a taxi with him.

“When we stopped outside my flat he put his hand on my knee and asked me how I liked my eggs!” she huffed in righteous indignation.

“You should have said 'unfertilised'!” I declared.

The women in the audience booed and hissed me, thinking that I’d made light of a serious incident. Yet had she uttered that one-word riposte in the voice of a petulant Joan Collins, the frisky fellow bothering her would have surely been thoroughly de-frisked. I should imagine the lead in his pencil would have gone from 4H to 3B in the blink of an eye. Such nuances, however, were lost on these angry females. All my subsequent attempts to mollify them proved futile, even though what happened in the taxi cab bore no resemblance whatever to the conduct of male gorillas. As far as they were concerned, I was a big hairy sexist ape.

It is possible, of course, that the students of Oxford University would give me a fairer hearing. Many of the females in the audience would be recently deflowered virgins, with the dreamy, slightly embarrassed eyes that distinguish such damsels. That ought to make them more receptive to my apish repartee. But any such enticement would be nullified by the inevitable presence of their smug, conceited boyfriends. Gorilla Bananas will not take his case to that overrated arena.

Britney and Mel

2009-04-06T00:00:00.000+01:00

Isn’t it wonderful to see Britney Spears back to her old self ? It warms the cockles of my groin to view pictures of her squatting on stage in a ring-mistress costume. I wish I could have been there to listen to her miming to her greatest hits. The audience supposedly lapped it up like cream from a freshly-milked cow.

As a former circus ape, I have to point out that calling her act “The Circus” wasn’t technically correct. You simply can’t have a proper circus without clowns. Dwarves and gimps are fine in their place, but they aren’t trained to make the right facial expressions when you kick them in the arse or pour custard down their pants. It’s a pity, really, because I’m sure there are many clowns who would have loved Britney to work them over.

Here’s a snippet of gossip you may not know: Britney owes her recovery to the tender loving care of Mel Gibson. The A-list actor and family man has confirmed that he took Britney under his wing when her fortunes were at a low ebb and she was apparently off her rocker. His many acts of kindness included inviting her to his villa in Costa Rica and watching her frolic on the beach.

The manager of the safari camp, being a cynical old vulture, suggested that Mel’s avuncular concern sprung primarily from a desire to pat Britney repeatedly on the bum. I, for one, don’t buy it. Why would a film star who has enjoyed simulated sexual intercourse with the most beautiful actresses in the world (including contact between opposing pairs of nipples) be remotely interested in Britney’s behind? Only people who don’t work in show business think there is anything special about a famous starlet’s tush. The manager was obviously projecting his own squalid fantasies onto Mr Gibson.

Is it possible for the human male to pat a woman’s bottom affectionately without being vulgar or suggestive? I think not. He simply cannot avoid leering indecently or making an off-colour remark – it is hardwired into his DNA. A male gorilla, on the other hand, presses the flesh of his females with great dignity. Paw-on-rump from a silverback is an act of pure physicality that would make any female feel special.

Yet bottoms are not the main issue here. The questions that confront us are: (i) Has Britney Spears permanently recovered from her breakdown? and (ii) Is Mel Gibson really a nice guy rather than a papist nutter who made a film depicting a man being tortured for 100 minutes?

The answer to the first question is “time will tell”. For the moment she looks like the bouncy Britney of old, but who knows when a relapse might occur? Much will depend on the quality of her underwear – and whether she chooses to wear it. The answer to the second question is “both personalities co-exist within the same tortured soul”. Mel’s desire to help flighty damsels in distress goes hand-in-hand with his tendency to fly off the handle and take things to extremes. He may well have been playing himself in the Mad Max movies.

I shall ask the local witch doctor to put a calming spell of soothement on both of them.

The Pope in Africa

2009-04-01T00:00:00.001+01:00

A reader has asked me to comment on Pope Benny’s recent visit to Africa. I admit I’ve been avoiding the subject for fear of stirring ill-will among my human cousins. Rancour is an emotion that should be kept a safe distance from the bosom. I certainly wasn’t one of those who hooted and heckled the high pontiff when he announced his opposition to condoms. To my way of thinking, a man’s sexual habits are his own private affair. If Benny is happy for his todger to take a dip without a life jacket, who am I to interfere? The nuns who visit him are surely capable of asking to see the results of his latest STD check-up before accepting his blessing.

A pair of American women staying at the safari guesthouse told me they would be joining a feminist protest against the Pope and his reactionary views. They showed me a box of custom-made condoms, each with a picture of Benny’s head on it. After inflating them like balloons at a papal rally, their intention was to burst them shouting “Pop the Pope!”

“My dear ladies!” I exclaimed. “Blowing and popping is not even recognised as an insult in Africa. People would assume you were celebrating someone’s birthday. In this part of the world, humans express strong feelings either by dancing or throwing spears. Since you lack javelin expertise, I suggest you shake your bottoms disdainfully at the Pope during his sermon.”

“What shall we do with the condoms?” they asked.

It was a fair question. Leaving them in the box would have been a waste of good rubber.

“Why not insert peeled bananas inside them before your protest?” I suggested. “You could hold one in either hand and crush them in your fists at a climactic point in the dance. The symbolism would be obvious to everyone. Benny would have to double his dosage of Viagra after seeing that.”

They seemed satisfied with my advice and gave me a book to read called Postmodernism and Gender Relations in Feminist Theory. I promised to study it carefully.

Far more troubling to me was the Pope’s insidious attempt to convert witches to Roman Catholicism. The witch doctor is a friendly neighbourhood apothecary in Africa. Some are nefarious frauds and impostors, but to condemn an entire profession because of a few bad apples isn’t playing fair. How would Benny like it if I said all Catholic priests were pederasts?

I had very good relations with the English witch community back in my circus days. Nowadays they are all good witches, the bad ones having been burned a long time ago. I would describe those I knew as boisterous ladies with an aptitude for handicrafts, herbal medicine and naked outdoor dancing. It would be no exaggeration to say that we got on like a house on fire. Convinced that I was some sort of hairy wizard, they invited me to one of their outdoor dances. I went there purely as an observer, of course. Gorillas do not boogie with naked women.

On returning to the circus, my friend Smacker Ramrod, the circus vet, asked me where I had been. I immediately told him of the wondrous spectacle I had witnessed.

“I bet most of them were hairy old lesbians,” he sniffed.

He was obviously jealous.

“They were not, Smacker,” I replied haughtily. “And since you have attempted to demean them, I would point out that: (a) there is nothing wrong with being hairy; (b) the elderly do not participate in such events, which might be injurious to their heath; and (c) you are the last person who should use the word “lesbian” in a derogatory sense given your own taste in erotic entertainment.”

He graciously withdrew his remark and I promised to introduce him to the foxier witches in my acquaintance.

Romanian Book of the Undead

2009-03-27T00:00:00.000Z

A 73-year-old Romanian man has held a dress rehearsal for his funeral, with grieving mourners and a sermon from the village priest. He even tried out his grave for size and found it comfortable. Had he worked in a circus he'd know that a flawless rehearsal is no guarantee of anything. When the fateful day arrives, his bored kinsfolk will probably be picking their noses during his eulogy. As for the priest, he’ll surely want revenge on the silly old git for wasting his time. Fluffing his lines would be too obvious, so maybe he'll sneak a fart into the coffin just before the lid goes on. I bet the slaves who were buried alive with the Pharaohs guffed into the sarcophagus until their gas supply ran out.

Such morbid events do little for the image of Romania, which has been tarnished enough by the vampire legends. It’s about time our friend Gadjo Dilo got off his Balkan backside and did something for his country’s reputation. Having had the good fortune to grow up among the Thames Valley elite, he has a pastoral obligation to the simple folk of his native land. Although he’s too modest to admit it, he’s obviously become something of a local Bwana since his return. I’m sure the Romanian Tourist Board would make him their Czar if he offered to help.

The first thing for Gadjo to sort out would be the behaviour of the peasantry. Garlic and crucifixes would be out, gay dances and motley costumes would be in. The men would be ordered to trim their bushy eyebrows and the women would be asked to remove their facial hair. As a reward for compliance, they’d be given permission to carve wooden hobgoblins and sell them to the tourists at inflated prices.

Work should then begin on a Dracula theme park in Bucharest, emphasising the positive aspects of the Bram Stoker legend. Visiting matrons could re-live their maidenhood by donning virgin costumes and being chased by saturnine gigolos intent on giving them a hickey. The men could take part in an archery tournament involving the firing of wooden stakes into an effigy of Van Helsing (thereby giving the sadistic twerp a belated taste of his own medicine). A special blood-red cherry cola would be served to the kiddies after a ride in the Flying Vampire Bat. The whole experience would put Disneyworld to shame.

The last thing Gadjo should do is make a promotional TV commercial for the tourist market. The tried-and-tested formula is to show a local celebrity enjoying himself in the company of big-breasted models. The obvious star to hire would be Ilie Năstase, the former tennis champion, who bedded the entire ladies’ quarter-final draw of the 1972 French Open. The sight of “Nasty” munching Moldavian meatballs while ogling Transylvanian titties would have the European masses rushing to their travel agents.

The big growth market for the future is archaeology-tourism. In Africa, guests interested in the origins of homo sapiens will pay a substantial fee to dig up bones and artefacts under the supervision of the Big White Professor (honkus americanus). I’m hoping to persuade some of these earnest humans to dig up insects and roots instead, under the supervision of the Big Hairy Gorilla (gorilla gorilla). An imaginative fellow like Gadjo might offer similar activities to people visiting his own country. Provided, of course, there is anything worth digging up in Romania.

Pregnant women

2009-03-23T00:00:00.002Z

I got a boastful e-mail from Danny Craig the other day. International stardom has not cured him of the need to toot his own horn. It seems that a pregnant woman got so excited watching him jump about in Quantum of Solace that she went into premature labour. I was careful not to puncture Danny’s fragile ego. “Your ability to induce labour is just the tip of the iceberg,” I wrote in reply. “Many women have actually conceived after watching you pull out your revolver.” That should get him in the right frame of mind for the next Bond flick.

Impregnating a woman is quite tricky in reality. When a female ape is in season she’s a dead cert to conceive, even if she gets mounted by a goat. But many human females have problems with blocked tubes, fickle ovaries, or men who fire blanks. It can be incredibly frustrating for them. A 40-year-old woman from northern England recently bit her boyfriend’s tongue off in a drunken rage when she found out she wasn’t with child. Such desperate acts are all too common when a woman’s biological clock is ticking. One has to feel sorry for the man, even though he was as reckless as a baboon to let it happen. French-kissing an intoxicated woman is something you do at your own peril.

The tongue-munching madam will go to gaol for her offence, which is harsh in a way, although judging from her appearance she’ll probably enjoy herself in a women’s prison. My jungle instincts tell me that she suffered from “premature ovulation”, a reproductive dysfunction peculiar to butch ladies. In her eagerness to conceive, her eggs must have been popping out long before her hapless boyfriend brought his laborious huffing and puffing to a sticky consummation. Timing is everything in successful fertilisation. If the egg has gone off when the sperm arrive, they swim in the opposite direction holding their noses.

The biggest pregnancy-related news story seems to be about the woman in America who had octuplets. A lot of people are very annoyed with her for reasons I can’t quite fathom. My only complaint is her obviously false claim that she did it because she loves children. I love a good fruit pie, but I don’t eat them in quantities that make me shit out gooseberries. It’s pretty obvious that the woman has a “bitch-and-puppies” fetish – an uncontrollable urge to feel a litter squirming inside her and later sucking on her udders. She’s three pairs of tits short for final part of the fantasy, but the power of imagination often trumps such anatomical details.

My favourite pregnant women of the moment are the two luscious blondes who posed naked outside the bistro of Little Jimmy Oliver, the cockney chef. The were protesting against Jimmy’s wanton slaughter of pigs to fatten up his greedy punters with heaps of non-kosher food. His spokesman claimed that the pork served at the restaurant comes from “the happiest pigs you can get”. I bet they were a lot happier before Jimmy’s knife-wielding assassins cut their throats.

Meat-eaters have condemned the protest as “tasteless”. I don’t agree. It is a feast for the eyes to watch naked pregnant women, their boobies brimming with fresh milk, imitate dairy cows before their daily pumping. They certainly look much tastier than Jimmy’s pork chops. I only wish I’d been there to offer them encouragement and strike up a friendly conversation about the role of insects in the ethical diet of tomorrow.

The boy, his girls and Dicky Dawkins

2009-03-18T00:00:00.001Z

A British teenager is desperately seeking an ugly girlfriend. Apparently he developed this peculiar yearning while watching a TV show called Ugly Betty. This gave him the idea that bespectacled girls with big teeth are good-hearted, faithful, intelligent and not that bad in the sack with the lights turned out. Unable to find a sufficiently plain Jane in the UK, he is now searching America for a facially-challenged female who will capture his heart and scare off the gophers. Amazingly enough, thousands of girls are applying for the position. I bet they all have wonderful personalities.

The boy seems amiable enough (in a goofy sort of way) and I wish him well in his quest. His behaviour is only newsworthy, of course, because it is so atypical - teenage boys generally prefer pretty girlfriends if they are in a position to choose. The importance of looks in human mate selection is quite puzzling to a gorilla, and prompts me to ask a question about the theory of evolution. If certain facial features make women more appealing, why haven’t they spread throughout the population? In search of an answer, I fired off the following e-mail to my friend Professor Dawkins:

Dear Dicky,

How’s tricks, you old pontificator! I’ve got another conundrum for you. Everyone knows that women with attractive faces get to mate with the alpha males. Look at your own wife, Lalla – being an absolute cracker enabled her to snare the most famous egghead in England. (I bet you weren’t thinking about her foraging skills when you asked her out, you sly dog!) So the question is: If being a babe is such an advantage in obtaining a good mate, why hasn’t natural selection made all girls pretty?

Your hairy jungle buddy

Gorilla Bananas

P. S. God sucks!!

The reply from Dicky was almost instantaneous:

Dear G.B.

Before I answer your question, I have one for you. Must you always be so outrageously cheeky when corresponding with me? I will always be grateful to you for saving my life in the Congo, but to presume on my gratitude by making disrespectful comments about my private life is not the behaviour of a friend. I assure you that Lalla and I have many common interests. Had I treated her as the trophy wife you imply she is, we would not still be together.

Turning to your query, which is an interesting one, I would make the following observation. Being fought over by powerful men may appeal to a woman’s vanity, but it does not necessarily translate into a successful breeding strategy. Perhaps we might discuss this further the next time you visit England?

With very best wishes

Richard Dawkins

I was about to send Dicky a reply telling him to get off his high horse and stop behaving like a sourpuss, when something in his message caught my eye. The phrase “being fought over by powerful men” was entirely of his own making – I never mentioned any such thing in my own missive. Reading between the lines, I deduced that Dicky must have jousted with a rival for Lalla’s fair hand. This “powerful man” was surely none other than Tom “Crazy Eyes” Baker, who co-starred with Lalla in a British science-fiction drama. I bet that lumbering beanpole got in a few low blows, which would explain why Lalla and Dicky haven’t had any children. His remark about “not translating into a successful breeding strategy” is another obvious clue.

I think the right thing to do, in the circumstances, is not to press Dicky for further elucidation. Better to draw a veil over these painful memories and send him a gift instead. I’ll ask the local witch doctor to prepare an invigorating balm for his reproductive organs. An injury to a man’s gonads often has a lingering psychological effect after the physical scars have healed. Let us pray that Dicky will be restored to full potency once his nuts and bolts have been properly oiled.

Wild parrot chase

2009-03-13T00:00:00.000Z

A British charity has given an amateur birdwatcher five thousand pounds sterling to hunt for an Australian parrot that is probably extinct. It’s money well spent in my view. The problem with parrots is knowing for sure whether they're really extinct or just lying low. A month ago one of my females said:

“Yo, Bananas, do you think the purple-crested peckerhead has died out? We haven't been woken up by that motherfucker for ages.”

“By golly, you could be right!” I exclaimed. “No wonder I've been sleeping like a lark. God willing, the curse of the midnight squawker has been lifted!”

And then, of course, on that very night, it was caw-bloody-caw as I slumbered in my hammock, interrupting a dream about my favourite episode of Little House on the Prairie. Thankfully, a resourceful monkey silenced the featherbrained fowl with a well-aimed plum stone, causing it to parachute to the ground in a daze. I marched to its landing spot and warned the parrot that the next time it disturbed our sleep its beak would be embedded in toffee.

Now I don’t know anything about this Australian bird, but it’s obviously high time someone got on its case. Its haunts should be monitored and its intentions should be exposed. If you let a parrot play dead in the Great Australian Bush, it’s only a matter of time before it emerges from its hiding place to carry out a sneak attack on some innocent wombat. I just hope they’ve given the birdwatcher enough money to do a thorough job. These expeditions have many expenses – a room at the inn, the cost of equipment, hiring Aboriginal porters, buying drinks for the local Sheilas, etc, etc. They should wire him some more if he runs out of cash before getting a good sighting.

It is possible, of course, that the parrot really is extinct, making everyone connected with the mission feel like a great big ninny. I hope they’ll quickly get over the disappointment. Extinctions are Mother Nature’s way of cleaning house, replacing uppity guests who’ve overstayed their welcome with promising newcomers. Dinosaurs, dodos and unicorns once thrived in pastures green, only to yield their respective positions to the warm-blooded, the airborne and the hornless. If the parrot is truly gone, it surely made the most of its precious time on Earth by screeching its head off at dozing marsupials.

Many humans don’t realise that their species was once close to extinction. Aeons ago, on the African plains, it was your relative Homo Erectus that stood proud, while the newly-evolved Sapiens breed teetered on the brink. We gorillas thought you were done for and collected your artefacts as remnants of a doomed culture. Then came the great Wanga-weed infestation. Your hominid relatives smoked the herb addictively and got so high that they lost interest in procreating. The men of Erectus lost their erections and the species quickly died out, allowing humans to move into their tastefully decorated caves.

And so, my hairless primate cousins, the path of Life on Earth is crooked, contorted and capricious. A lucky break can rescue a species from the gaping abyss of doom, and propel it onto the pouting pinnacle of prosperity, before it is finally sucked into the swirling vortex of oblivion. Enjoy the ride.