the japing ape

A wayward drive

2009-12-04T00:00:00.000Z

I’m glad to hear that Tiger Woods has taken full responsibility for crashing his car into a fire hydrant. Good thing he didn’t use the old “gopher on the windscreen” excuse that made Gary Player look like such a prat. Quite rightly, he has refused to be questioned by the police about it. I bet those nosey parkers were just dying to ask him whether his wife really chased him out of the house. One thing we gorillas never do is taunt an alpha male about the evasive manoeuvres he uses against his enraged females. If you haven’t lived through it, you're in no position to judge.

Now Tiger’s wife, Elin, is a petite blonde from Sweden. It was supposedly an incriminating text message that prompted her to grab a sand wedge and attempt a bunker shot on her husband’s groin. Who knew that Swedish women could be so shrewish? I don’t remember Agnetha and Frida of ABBA making a big hullabaloo when their hobbit-faced husbands ran off to cavort with groupies. If you ask me, she entered this marriage with unrealistic expectations. If ever there was a wife who was destined to get cheated on, it was Mrs Tiger Woods.

“Miss Elin,” I would have cautioned her before her wedding. “You may be the cutest blonde in history, but Tiger Woods is the Emperor of Golf. And the emperor always has concubines."

Fingers crossed, this squall will soon blow over. I just hope Tiger hasn’t been swinging his 3-wood at the wife of one of his rivals. The one thing a golfer can never do is cuckold a fellow player, which might result in unthinkable argy-bargy on the fairway. Tiger is probably tough enough to defend himself, but the sight of him engaged in fisticuffs would sicken and demoralise all lovers of the game. Let’s hope he was smart enough to populate his harem with actresses and lap dancers rather than golfers’ wives.

The major tournaments are always on at the safari guesthouse when Tiger is playing. I was glued to my seat watching the PGA in August, even though the cheeky little Korean chappie overtook him to win in the end. I told the manager that Tiger needed a good logo to convey his spirit to the public.

“Yes, yes!” he agreed excitedly. “He should use the tiger in The Jungle Book cartoon as his logo! He was so funny, like an upper class Englishman!”

“Don’t be absurd!” I snapped. “Shere Khan was a seriously weird cat with an unhealthy obsession about the man-cub. That scrawny little tyke would have barely been a mouthful for him. If he had to eat anyone, it should have been the bear, who could have provided him with a banquet. I would have enjoyed watching him sink his fangs into that big hairy arse.”

The manager sucked his teeth thoughtfully, perhaps surprised by my strong views on the subject. I later decided that Woody Woodpecker would be best cartoon logo for Tiger Woods. There’s something about his rapid-fire beak that seems right for a champion golfer. Let’s suppose Tiger walks on to the green with Woody on his shoulder. He putts his ball and it’s right on line, but veers off at the last second. So Woody flies off and drills another hole for the ball to fall into. Perfect!

Yes, Woody Woodpecker has an annoying laugh, but what of it? There is no shortage of people in the world who deserve to be laughed at annoyingly.

Belle de Jour

2009-11-30T00:00:00.001Z

So the lovely Dr Brooke Magnanti has confessed to being the famous anonymous call girl that everyone admired and adored. She did it to finance her academic career, and who can blame her? She wouldn’t be the first intelligent woman to discover that her brain was worth much less on the open market than her vulva. It’s just as well that she could exercise both organs with a comparable degree of satisfaction. I wonder if the book she wrote about her life as a high-class hooker will now be on her students’ reading list. The best teachers always spice up their formal study material with personal anecdotes and recollections. Could she have performed any bedroom services relevant to her chosen field of neurotoxicology? I reckon she might well have if any of her clients were ageing rock stars.

A few sceptics are asking why she stopped doing it if she found it so enjoyable. She evidently still has the looks for the job, and could double her charge-rate now that she’s famous. My suspicion is that the mouth-watering Dr Magnanti, having attained the luscious age of 34, is readying herself to settle down. The biological clock is ticking and the time has come to look for that special man who will make an honest woman of her and fertilise her eggs, not necessarily in that order.

I’m going to let you into a secret: I’ve always fancied myself as a matchmaker for ex-prostitutes. Who better than a hairy cousin from the mellowest branch of the primate family to find a suitable mate for a call girl? Humans have too many ambiguous emotions about the oldest profession to offer its members dispassionate advice. We gorillas are utterly non-judgmental about it. What’s more, I actually have a couple of candidates in mind for the delectable Dr Brooke. Read on.

Candidate 1: The Guru
A bald, olive-skinned, strikingly handsome yogi, capable of reducing his pulse rate to 19 beats per minute while meditating in the lotus position. He won’t have sex more frequently than once a month, but can make it last for hours using tantric techniques. He claims his ejaculatory power resembles what happens when you open a bottle of 7UP after shaking it for five minutes. A deeply spiritual dude who could teach Brooke that less is more.

Candidate 2: The Gynaecologist
Obviously a very suitable occupation – a retired call girl needs a man who knows where everything is. His many hobbies include collecting and driving sports cars. He told me that high mileage was nothing to worry about when buying a classic model. A high-performance engine actually runs a lot better when driven hard and serviced frequently. I think he’s the kind of man who would appreciate a woman like Brooke…and keep her well-oiled.

Both of these worthy suitors have been to the Congo for safari holidays, and their details are on my computer. If Dr Magnanti says the word, I will make the necessary arrangements and organise first dates. I won’t charge an introduction fee either. All I ask in return is that she has her wedding at the safari guesthouse if she marries either of these extremely eligible gentlemen. The bridal suite will be hers unless she would rather consummate her nuptials outdoors, in the sultry African night. Sentries will be provided gratis.

The meaning of dreams

2009-11-25T00:00:00.000Z

You know what the great thing about being a gorilla is? Humans who’ve known me for less than a day will tell me personal stuff they’d normally reserve for their shrink. Last week it was the turn of a posh English girl to unburden her soul to the hairy bartender of the safari guesthouse.

“I’ve been having this dream about an ex-boyfriend,” she said. “It starts when I’m in the kitchen in my underwear making an omelette.”

“No apron?” I interjected, wishing to picture the scene accurately.

“No apron,” she confirmed. “So my ex walks up behind me, pulls down my knickers and start shagging me from behind.”

“The lecherous swine! How did you know it was him incidentally?”

“He’s talking to me the whole time.”

“Monstrous! Being violated is bad enough, but being forced to listen to the brigand’s running commentary, no doubt delivered in coarse and boastful language, would have crushed the spirit of Joan of Arc!”

“Oh the sex is actually great. Much better than it was in real life. The weird part is that he tells me to carry on making the omelette and gives me instructions while looking over my shoulder. But I can’t concentrate on the cooking and the eggs begin to scramble.”

“Who could blame you? I’m sure even Fanny Cradock would have scrambled the eggs if Johnny had snuck up on her from behind.”

“Well exactly! But after we’ve finished he tells me that I’m a dreadful cook who should never be allowed in a kitchen! Then I wake up feeling terribly humiliated. What do you think it means?”

I scratched my chin pensively.

“The dream seems to be saying that your former paramour took sadistic pleasure in disparaging your cooking. Consider yourself fortunate to be freed from the clutches of that backseat chef!”

“So that’s what it means!” she exclaimed. “Well I hope the dream stops bothering me now that I’ve got the point. Many thanks, GB.”

I was glad to have been of service, but in all honesty I have no idea whether my interpretation was correct. For all I know, the dream might have been telling her to brush up on her cooking skills before letting a man get in her pants.

Be that as it may, I was inspired to do a little research on the subject of dreams. It seems that in the classical world they dealt with far weightier topics than maintaining one’s culinary composure while being bonked from behind. In ancient Rome, the purpose of a dream was to alert the sleeper to some imminent disaster involving pestilence, war, famine or an outbreak of toga rash. Occasionally a goddess might make an appearance, but she always had a fairly important matter to discuss before letting you nuzzle her boobies. It wasn’t until Dr Sigmund Freud said that dreams were expressions of sexual desire that everyone started fornicating in their sleep. The power of pompous bearded men over the collective human psyche should never be underestimated.

I sense that you are dying to hear about my own dreams. What hairy hanky-panky is Old Bananas up to when his eyelids start a-twitching in the dead of night? Well I do have a recurring dream about eating a tub of ice-cream. After scooping most of the contents into my mouth with a silver spoon, the remaining dollops of delight are caressed from the carton with leisurely licks from my primate tongue. I’m sorry to disappoint you if you were hoping for something more titillating. Sex is something you do with your eyes wide open in the jungle.

Wear your astronappy with pride

2009-11-20T00:00:00.000Z

Wonderful news from America! Lisa Nowak, the former NASA astronaut, has been given a suspended prison sentence for persecuting her love rival. May the judge have his toes sucked for his wisdom and compassion! National heroes should be dealt with leniently unless they are irretrievably lost to the dark side. I personally wouldn’t have sent Lisa to the chokey unless she’d been sharing a hot tub with Satan. The butch lesbian inmates would have made life unbearable for her with their sarcastic remarks and indecent suggestions. The presence of an exalted one always brings out the worst in convicts.

As for Lisa’s crime, everyone knows that astronauts outrank all other professions in the mating hierarchy. She must have burned with righteous indignation when she was jilted by her lover for some scrawny-assed air-force captain. A woman who’s never been higher than the stratosphere should know better than to steal the stud of an authentic space cowgirl. It was only this heinous insult that provoked Lisa to chase her rival all over America, with pepper spray and tweezers at the ready.

Journalists covering the case have made much of the fact that Lisa wore a nappy when driving from place to place in search of her intended victim. Those familiar with the space program know this is standard operating practice for astronauts, who can’t afford to get caught short when performing important manoeuvres. The mission always comes first, whether you’re flying a spacecraft or hunting down your enemies like vermin. When Neil and Buzz were hopping about on the moon, they most certainly wore nappies and were not ashamed to admit it. Taking a leak on the lunar surface would have been an abominable act of desecration.

Speaking of water on the moon, the boys at NASA are very excited about their latest expedition. After crashing a craft into our celestial neighbour, they found underground lakes beneath the cheesy crust. They’re obviously planning to bottle the stuff and sell it on Earth, but I’d advise them to do a chemical analysis on it first. How did the water get there? is the question I want answered. My suspicion is that the moon was once a service station for alien travellers, who pissed in the nearest crater rather than building proper urinals or taking their waste products with them. The same thing happens at tourist venues on Earth, so we’re hardly in a position to castigate them.

Humans tend to have a black-and-white view of aliens, thinking they’ll either be cool cosmic dudes like the Vulcans, or ugly little fiends who’ll stick a probe up their rectum. I suspect most of them will actually be like tourists at cheap holiday resorts – loud, inconsiderate and addicted to cheap booze. When laser weapons are invented, we’ll have to install one on the roof of the safari guesthouse to keep out the riff-raff. If any space punks hover over the Congo in their flying saucers they’re going to get zapped by me, Northrop and Grumman.

Art imitates porn

2009-11-16T00:00:00.001Z

A correspondent draws my attention to a 10-minute film showing a pair of students copulating in Newcastle. Frankly, I would rather watch baboons do it. Only humans are vain enough to believe their sexual antics are visually appealing. I can assure you that no wild gorillas have ever asked for royalties after being filmed having it off in the jungle. That’s because people who enjoy watching such things are boobies, and extorting cash from boobies would be undignified.

My only interest in the film would be to discover whether the couple did it with their socks on, which is allegedly common practice in Newcastle. I wouldn’t blame them to be honest. The town is swept with chill winds from the North Sea, which infiltrate every nook and penetrate every cranny. I wouldn’t want to be distracted by cold feet when making jiggy-pokey in such an environment. Not that I would ever go there, of course. The place has very little vegetation and is populated with unnaturally nocturnal humans. It’s bad enough having your sleep disturbed by parrots.

Now the maker of the film is a 23-year-old student called Joseph Steele, who imagines himself to be an artist. A friend of the co-stars, he obtained their consent by promising to show the work in a trendy gallery. Hence, the discerning audience would engage with its profound social message rather than hooting with glee or playing with their private parts.

“It is absolutely art because I put it there and said it was,” declared the Jean-Luc Godard of Tyneside.

I suppose that settles it then. He claims that everyone who saw the film found it “erotic and inspirational”, but impartial observers report seeing a lot of shocked faces. These art-loving types are very easily shocked if you ask me. Anyone who is perturbed by the sight of human sexual activity needs to get out more, by which I mean out to Africa. When you’ve seen a raging bull elephant in musth, its swollen todger writhing like a snake, there’s not much that humans could do to startle you.

Perhaps I’ll commission Master Steele to direct a film that my females have been nagging me to produce, called Tarzan Was Our Toy-Boy. The script has already been written and it’s very avant-garde, with overlapping dialogue and naturalistic grunts and groans. The hairy ladies have already cast themselves as the declaimers of the title, but we’re still looking for the right Tarzan. Initially, I thought one of the whey-faced dandies in Beverly Hills 90210 would be ideal for the part, but they’re probably too old for it now. Whoever lands the role, we expect to produce a work of high feminist art which is a contender for the Palm d’Orifice at Cannes.

I shouldn’t leave you with the impression that we gorillas only make art in the hope of winning critical acclaim, or selling it for piles of dosh, like Damien “Daffy” Hirst. “Art for art’s sake” is our motto. Appreciate our creations with spontaneous delight rather than appraising them with the cold eye of the collector. Tomorrow, I’m going to rustle up some natural dyes and do some body art on a woman at the safari guesthouse who’s been longing to enjoy my brushwork. The one good thing about bare human skin is that it makes an excellent canvas.

Cats will be cats

2009-11-11T00:00:00.000Z

I’ve been watching a video clip of the keyboard cat, who has impressed a lot of people with his musical ability. I don’t deny the boy has talent, but pawing out tunes wearing sky-blue pyjamas does nothing for the dignity of his species.

In my circus days I was friendly with a feline camp follower called Catkins. I never mollycoddled him in human fashion and he respected me for it. “Catkins,” I said to him, “you scratch my back and I’ll stroke yours.” He was quick to agree to my offer, the claws of a cat being the perfect length and sharpness for grooming a gorilla’s fur. I returned the favour by stroking him with my toes while reading a magazine.

The ringmaster, being a visceral cat-hater, had no appreciation of Catkins and his grooming skills. He bought a goldfish and put it in a bowl next to the window of his trailer, supposedly so the fish could enjoy the view. I immediately suspected that his real motive was to taunt and frustrate any cats in the vicinity. He named the goldfish ‘Lockhart’ after a maestro of the circus ring he revered. I gave Catkins a few cautionary words after seeing him staring at it from a nearby gatepost.

“Catkins,” I said, “I know you want to eat the ringmaster’s goldfish. It is in your nature and cannot be helped. But please be aware that if you leave your paw-prints at the crime scene my efforts to protect you will be futile. As sure as night follows day, the ringmaster will hunt you down and kick your arse repeatedly. You have been warned.”

Catkins licked his paws and cleaned his whiskers as I spoke, which I interpreted as a display of insouciance. The opportunity for a snatch-and-grab raid occurred when the ringmaster stupidly left the skylight ajar during a day out with his wife. I happened to be passing nearby when Catkins jumped off the roof with the fish in his mouth. Peering through the window, I saw the goldfish bowl tipped over on its side and water dripping from the table it was situated on.

I decided to help Catkins cover his tracks. He may have been guilty in deed, but any lawyer will tell you that a cat is incapable of mens rea in matters of predation. After discreetly picking the lock of the trailer door, I mopped up the spillage and refilled the bowl. I then placed it in its original position, dropping in a plastic goldfish which I had bought from a pet shop. It sank to the bottom.

The ringmaster returned in the evening to find that his pet had been plasticated. “Some dirty thief has stolen Lockhart and replaced him with a plastic fish!” he bellowed. “This is an act of war! I bet that bastard Catkins is responsible!”

“Come off it, ringmaster!” I exclaimed. “Why would Catkins have put a plastic fish in the bowl? This was obviously a calculated insult delivered by someone who despises you, rather than the work of a feline felon. I suggest you interrogate the clowns forthwith.”

The ringmaster made walrus noises in his throat. “You’re right!” he growled. “My enemies are everywhere and snipe at me when my back is turned. If I kick the cat’s arse they’ll think they’re in the clear. I must behave with stealth and cunning.”

I left him to pursue his schemes, satisfied in the knowledge that I had saved a cat from a senseless act of retribution.

The Nutty Professor

2009-11-06T00:00:00.003Z

A professor who gave the British public valuable advice about narcotics has been dismissed from his post by a contemptible lackey of the state. Outraged at his persecution, the venerable yet nubile Mrs Pouncer is lobbying energetically on his behalf. Quite what she expects of me is not yet clear, although I’m not the sort of ape to disappoint a woman begging for succour. She reminds me of a female acrobat from my circus days, who was a member of the WWF.

“Oh Gorilla Bananas!” she cried, “please help us save the black rhino.”

“The next time I’m in Africa I will do what I can for them,” I said. “They are welcome to my advice on safety precautions and I know a man who will saw off their horns for a nominal fee. I cannot promise they will listen to me though, they are headstrong beasts with a reputation for truculent behaviour.”

“Oh Gorilla Bananas!” she cried, “that would be wonderful! Could you also make a donation?”

I wrote her a cheque without further comment.

The professor is a man called David Nutt, who was asked by the British government for his views on recreational drugs. Like a proper scientist, he carried out careful experiments and amassed a mountain of data. He then announced that many illegal substances, such as LSD and cannabis, were really pretty harmless (although he wouldn’t touch them himself, being high on life and mucho ojo). The real danger, he said, was from lawful activities like drinking alcohol and riding horses. For daring to speak these unspeakable truths, a cowardly government minister sacked him on the spot.

Mrs Pouncer’s advocacy of him is all the more commendable given that alcohol and riding are essential components of her own therapeutic regimen. I gather she uses alcohol as an aphrodisiac and hallucinogen, and riding as a stimulant and laxative. So it seems that her love of justice has trumped her selfish interests. If Professor Nutt is a man of honour, he’ll exonerate Mrs Pouncer from his normal prohibitions and allow her to ride horses and knock back the booze with wanton indulgence. Everyone has a unique constitution, and one man’s poison is another woman’s antidote.

So what should be done to further this worthy campaign against state-sanctioned scapegoating? I would advise the good professor to proceed as follows. First, get out of those dowdy lounge suits and assume the dhoti kurta of the holy man – I believe the latest fashions are available from the on-line Maharishi store. Next, set up an ashram in the Kent countryside providing free hashish and morning-after-pills to disciples from all denominations. That should ensure a sizable following.

The pièce de résistance would be an act of gallantry to win the hearts of the public. My suggestion would be disrupting the hideous ritual enacted every autumn in university towns throughout the United Kingdom. At the start of their degrees, homesick virgins relieve their despair by getting drunk at “fresher parties” and surrendering their virtue to charmless oiks rendered tolerable by the alcoholic haze. If Professor Nutt were to rescue a handful of these innocents and give them sanctuary in his ashram, the righteous among the nations would surely acclaim him as a modern-day Schindler. I would lend him a hand myself if I didn’t have pressing matters to attend to in the rainy season.

Hummus hostilities

2009-11-02T00:00:00.003Z

Lebanese chefs have made a giant plate of hummus to shame the Israelis, who have been manufacturing their own version of the paste and exporting it around the world. The folks in Lebanon want everyone to know that hummus is Lebanese and that the Israelis are vulgar copycats. A noble objective, you might think, but what then? There is no evidence that consumers are dissatisfied with the counterfeit product or care who makes it. If the Lebanese really want to get even they should start exporting strudel and see how the Israelis like it. It could lead to a new form of low-intensity warfare where you mimic the culinary habits of your enemy to sow confusion in their ranks. But I hope it doesn’t come to that – food fights are terribly futile and no one wins in the end.

It’s good to see the Lebanese take pride in their native dishes. For many years, their image was sullied by Corporal Max Klinger of the 4077th M*A*S*H. For those not familiar with the show, Klinger was a Lebanese-American buffoon who thought he could get out of the army by wearing ladies’ clothes. Hoping to get a medical discharge by convincing everyone he was nuts, he succeeded only in convincing them he was a gay transvestite. The ironic thing is that Klinger wasn’t homosexual at all, which was just as well, because a gay man with a nose his size would never have got laid. It is a curious aspect of human sexuality that only heterosexual women find big noses attractive. And not all of them, by any means, it’s very much a niche market.
But let’s get back to the hummus. The Israelis are clearly in the wrong and should stop pretending they know how to make Arab food. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s condiments,” sayeth the Lord their God. Once again, the Children of Israel have broken the commandments of Johnny Jehovah and are asking for a family-sized can of whoopass. Maybe He’ll force them to eat manna-from-heaven again, a fitting penance for culinary malfeasance given that it tastes like bird crap. Or maybe He’ll send a plague of snails to devour their herbs and season their meats with green slime. The Land of Israel shall resound with weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, particularly when the dinner gong soundeth.

Let’s not single out the Israelis for blame though. All humans are guilty of stealing recipes, particularly from the animal kingdom. Take eggs, for example. Although no one knows whether the chicken came before the egg, it is beyond dispute that they both came before Delia Smith, the television housewife and cook. Yet the English Rose of Woking cracks them open without a word of gratitude to the humble hens that squatted and strained to produce them. Anyone would think that she’d laid them herself. If I were God, I would punish her for her vanity and presumption by making her incubate a fertile ostrich egg between her warm and wobbly thighs. For every yolk she has cruelly whisked, let her hatch a little ostrich chick and raise it as one of her own. It takes more than custard pies to get you into heaven.

Rock bottom

2009-10-28T00:00:00.003Z

I’ve sent a ‘Get Well Soon’ card to Alejandra Guzman, the Mexican singer recovering in hospital from a bottom infection. The circumstances of her case are disturbing. It all started when she went to a clinic for a routine injection to improve the texture of her tush. Quite understandable for a woman in a profession where the shapely behind is de rigueur, although I could have helped her achieve the same end with a natural technique. It’s a pity she didn’t consult me first, but there’s no point crying over spoiled pumpkins.

She certainly wasn’t to blame for what happened at the clinic. It was pure bad luck that its director was a devious impostor with no medical qualifications. He had staffed the establishment with an assortment of ne’er-do-wells willing to accept nugatory wages for the sordid gratification of ogling and pawing the female posterior. With no understanding of proper sterilisation procedures, one of these Pedros pierced Ms Guzman’s hindquarters with a contaminated needle, causing severe inflammation and much tribulation.

Now we gorillas are especially sympathetic to those of our human cousins who have been injured in the backside. Justly proud of our own bottoms, which are taut and muscular to the umpteenth degree, it saddens our tender souls to hear of a rump defiled or cruelly abused. The psychological scars of a disfigured derrière run deep. You only have to look at the boorish and offensive behaviour of baboons to realise how having an ugly arse can effect one’s attitude to life. I hope Ms Guzman’s doctors bear this in mind when they’re treating her. They must avoid making insensitive remarks about the afflicted region and do all they can to preserve its natural symmetry. There are few more pitiable sights than a lopsided pair of buttocks.

She shouldn’t expect miracles though. Being nominated for the Rear of the Year award will be out of the question for the foreseeable future. I’ve often toyed with the idea of getting involved in this competition myself. Not as a contestant, of course. You can’t compare grapefruits with apples – the former are bigger, juicier and contain more vitamin C. No, my intended role would be sponsor and advisor. The reason I’ve not yet stepped forward is my unease about the method of judgement, which like so many things in human society is based purely on appearance. How can you really appreciate the quality of a butt without a manual examination? The discerning housewife always picks up and squeezes the fruit before putting it in her shopping basket.

I could always offer to judge the bottoms as well. You won’t find anyone more skilled at manipulating flesh than a gorilla. Our grasp is surprisingly gentle too – the contestants wouldn’t have to worry about bruises or bottom hickeys. Yet in the long-run I’d be worried about finger-cramp. Why should I provide the manual labour if I’m also sponsoring the prizes? Perhaps I should be responsible for hiring the judges instead. Does a fee of one dollar per posterior sound fair? To avoid tax problems they should pay us in cash.

The Italian handjob

2009-10-23T00:00:00.007+01:00

Silvio Berlusconi has made a big point of denying that he’s ever paid for sex, arguing that it would ruin the thrill of his conquests. I can well believe the call girls he invites to his parties don’t charge him. Pleasuring a sitting prime minister must be a great honour for them, as well as being the safest position at his age. I wonder if he asks them to put on an eye-mask and shout “Heigh-ho Silvio!” as they bounce up and down on his lap. As true professionals, they should do whatever it takes to flush out the toxic goo from his prostate gland.

They are also shrewd businesswomen, of course. Siphoning the prime minister of Italy must look pretty good on your résumé when you’re negotiating a fee with oil sheiks or TV evangelists. It’s a bit like John Travolta getting a free supply of Brylcreem after playing the young dandy in Grease. All the same, I hope that Mr Berlusconi gives them expensive presents as a mark of his appreciation. A gold-plated statuette of Cupid which urinates red wine is the sort of lavish gift one would expect from a man of his pedigree.

Working girls have unfortunately not been immune from the consequences of the economic downturn. Brothels around the world are cutting down on sundry expenses – some have even been reduced to serving their clients in the dark. The Pussy Club in Berlin has cut its fee to 70 euros for a hamburger and straight sex, which is a dubious tactic in my view. Cheap whores are like cheap jewellery – nobody wants to be seen buying them. They should have offered two-for-one deals and loyalty cards instead, with an eat-as-much-as-you-like buffet for the sex maniacs.

How to get the world economy booming again is a frequent topic of debate at the safari guesthouse. Not everyone supports President Obama’s plan of building new roads and bridges. An increase in the number of navvies flaunting their bare chests is a high price to pay for stimulating economic activity. A bald man who claimed to have a PhD in economics said that the correct policy was to distribute “helicopter money”. Essentially, this means emptying boxes of bank notes from a helicopter so that people on the streets below can pick them up and spend them. Monetarist theory says that this will boost business, making everyone rich again.

We all thought it was a brilliant idea at the time, but on deeper reflection the ploy seems to have a fatal flaw. What is to stop the pilot flying off to Venezuela with all the cash, where President Hugo Chavez, the demagogue and failed gorilla-impersonator, would surely offer him asylum? The trouble with economists is that they never think of these practical problems. I wish the bald-headed upstart were still here so I could massage some coconut oil into his scalp.

So what’s my solution to the slump? I’m glad you asked. What the world needs now is another gold rush like the one that prompted thousands of rednecks and desperadoes to migrate to California in 1848. Most of America’s gold is currently gathering dust in places like Fort Knox. Pulverising all this idle bullion and burying it in strategic locations around the country would cause booming mining towns to spring up like pimples on a teenager. The USA would once again be a land flowing with milk and cookies. And if they buried the gold near brothels, the sex workers would be the first to benefit from the increase in commerce. As John Maynard Keynes said, the prosperity of a nation is measured in the affluence of its whores.

A shot in the dark

2009-10-19T00:00:00.001+01:00

An academic in London has stolen my idea for how humans should pair-bond. It’s lucky for him that we gorillas are big generous apes who only sue people for high crimes and misdemeanours. I don’t mind eggheads using my brainwaves to freshen up their staid research output. Full marks to the little fellow for keeping his ears pricked up.

The idea in question is my theory that human mate selection would be greatly improved if the protagonists met in a dark room. The aim would be to eliminate visual cues so the couple could focus on more important qualities, like smell, touch and personality. This would be an advance, in my opinion, on the outdated practice of wearing a paper bag over one’s head.

So a senior lecturer in psychology called Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic latched onto my idea and successfully pitched it to a satellite TV channel. They have made him the consultant of a new show in which random couples meet in the dark for their first date. I’m not going to shame the fellow for using my concept without accreditation. He obviously needs the fee they’re paying him and I should imagine he has enough things to worry about, the name “Chamorro-Premuzic” being one of them. Let him bask in the acclaim of being the éminence grise of a TV program that might induce a hundred thousand bored housewives to take a break from their ironing.

I should add that my original concept has been watered down to make it suitable for daytime TV. I envisioned that the dating humans would be completely naked with no deodorants or perfumes masking their natural body odours. The sense of smell is critical in mate selection. We gorillas say that without scent compatibility you should forget the whole enchilada. I was also in favour of mutual stroking to get a measure of the textures and dimensions. Only with flat hands, of course – pinching, squeezing or poking would be strictly forbidden. These checks and balances are essential to avoid disappointed faces when the lights are eventually switched on. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect someone with tight buns to hook up with an enormous wobblebottom.

Yet the show has my blessing in spite of these reservations. The couples should enjoy getting to know each other without being distracted by scars, tattoos or misshapen noses. A big hooter can be very off-putting when you’re trying to communicate with a human, even if you’re a gorilla. Back in my circus days, I remember being approached by a man with a shockingly colossal conker.

“My daughter is a huge fan of yours, Mr Bananas,” he said. “Could you write an autograph for her?”

“Why of course!” I said, taking his notebook and pen. “And what is the name of your lovely nose?”

I laughed sheepishly and corrected myself, but the poor chap was obviously hugely embarrassed by my faux pas. I was too tactful to ask him whether his daughter had inherited his humongous honker. I would have been willing to chip in for a nose job if she had.

Backyard antics

2009-10-14T00:00:00.000+01:00

Dallas police are trying to catch a masked fat man who sneaks into back gardens and dances in the nude. The nature of the dance wasn’t specified, but I’d guess it was closer to samba than waltz.

“We need to catch him before it develops into something more serious,” said Senior Corporal Janice Crowther.

Is it my imagination, or is there a hint of wishful thinking in that statement? I’ve never met Ms Crowther, but I assume she would rather arrest a notorious sex fiend than a pathetic exhibitionist. The former is an achievement that would put her in contention for the ‘Silver Handcuffs of Texas’ award, while the latter might make her the subject of an editorial in FEMDOM magazine. I sense she wants the garden prowler to up his game, so she can win acclaim as the plucky little lady who lassoed the long-horn bull.

Be that as it may, I don’t think this fellow is close to committing an assault. The next stage in the development of his act would be self-abuse. Have a look at the chimpanzees at your local zoo. When they get bored of dancing, the first thing they do is play with their genitals. The idea of breaking out of their enclosure and goosing a fat woman never occurs to them unless they have a burning grievance. I suspect that the Dallas Dangler has a long and crooked road to travel before he starts jumping on people.

Is exposing oneself in somebody’s back garden that big a deal? Opinions are divided at the safari guesthouse. A lady wrestler from California says the masked intruder would be welcome to do his thing in her place as long as he first booked an appointment.

“What would you do when he arrived?” I ask.

“I’d invite the neighbours to watch, video the performance, and tip him five bucks if he shook it up good.”

“What if he wasn’t satisfied with your tip?”

“People are always satisfied with my tips, baby,” she replies tartly.

It’s easy for her to talk, of course. He wouldn’t dare take liberties with a lady wrestler for fear of having his nipples tweaked. But if the average Dallas housewife saw him flaunting his flabby bits on her property, she’d be well within her rights to reach for her rifle and fire a warning shot between his legs.

If he ever turned up in my jungle retreat, I would shoo him away as discretely as possible – naked humans are a needless distraction for us gorillas and tend to attract mosquitoes. It would also be for his own safety. If my females got hold of him, he’d find out what it felt like to be a lump of dough in a bakery.

Given the zeal with which Officer Crowther is pursuing this case, it seems inevitable that the man will be caught sooner rather than later. I hope they don’t send him to prison. He obviously has an irrepressible desire to perform in public and I doubt he’d find the right audience in a Texas penitentiary. A more constructive sentence would be community service as a cowboy’s assistant in a rodeo. I, for one, would love to see a cigarette whipped out from between his butt cheeks.

Indian in-law ruling

2009-10-09T00:00:00.000+01:00

I’m in two minds over the Indian supreme court’s decision to give a man’s mother the right to kick her daughter-in-law. As a former circus ape, I know that kicking humans in a fleshy area of the body can be a playful and even affectionate gesture. The countless clowns whose bottoms were thumped by my foot never bore me any malice. If it were possible for in-laws to kick each other in the right spirit, it would be a good way of cementing family bonds and toning up the buttocks.

The nagging doubt in my mind is whether the typical Indian mother-in-law is suitably disposed to place an affectionate foot on her daughter-in-law’s posterior. I fear that she who delivers the foot wallop may be motivated by the Mother-of-Oedipus complex rather than a spirit of friendly horseplay. This psychological disorder causes post-menopausal women to be insanely jealous of the maiden who has married their son.

“How dare this Jezebel steal the affection of my boy, who used to rest his head against my motherly bosom, and now prefers to put it between her pert sugar-plums!” she subconsciously thinks. “She'll regret her sluttish ways when she feels my foot on her backside!”

Of course, we shouldn’t be too judgemental about the older female, whose short-temper is often a product of biology. When an ageing female gorilla starts getting grumpy, the first thing we do is find her a gigolo. There’s usually a young male who’ll do it out of respect for his elders and a general eagerness for hairy poontang. It’s normally just the thing to soothe her festering grudges and squash the bee in her bonnet.

I’m sure there is no shortage of likely lads in India who would bend their backs in a worthy cause (and for a generous stipend). The fellow who played the leading role in Slumdog Millionaire looks to have the right manner about him. On second thoughts, I’d make the quiz master do it as a penance for his duplicity and arrogance.

When you think about it, Indian brides are the last humans on Earth who deserve a good kicking. It speaks volumes about their sweet and subservient nature that they agree to live with their in-laws and put up with the persecution that seems to be their lot in life. You couldn’t imagine women in the West doing that. Few of them agree to marry without a separate home and strictly-controlled visiting rights for their in-laws. The mother-in-law is dealt with mercilessly if she dares step out of line.

If Indian matriarchs want to kick someone, I suggest they make the derrière of Guy Laliberté the target of their animosity. I met the circus impresario in my performing days, but sadly never had the opportunity to victimise him in the ring. His latest exploit was to blast into orbit on a Soyuz rocket while wearing a clown’s red nose. I believe he has ambitions to land on the moon.

Is it technically feasible to kick a man’s arse on the lunar surface? The Apollo astronauts never tried it and I’m not sure you’d get the required leverage in a low gravity environment. If it is possible, I shall certainly bribe one of Laliberté’s travelling companions to boot him in the seat of the pants during his moon walk. With any luck it will put him back into orbit.

High seas heroes

2009-10-05T00:00:00.001+01:00

A Royal Navy vessel has confiscated £240 million worth of cocaine from a boat off the coast of Columbia.

“We’re absolutely delighted about the operation,” said the skipper of the Iron Duke.

Apparently they caught the drug smugglers off-guard and pounced on them before they could brush the dust from their moustaches. I hope they showed no mercy to those wretched villains. Walking the plank would have been too good for them.

My advice to Captain Stacey is to handle the captured booty with care. Don’t let the crew snort it all at once, but ration it like grog in the days of Lord Nelson. Double the quota on special occasions like the Queen’s Official Birthday, or the date that Lady Hamilton was requisitioned for Royal Navy service.

We gorillas never take drugs, of course. If I want to get high I climb a tree. But we make no judgements about those who do, and will act as facilitators for humans who dope themselves up in a responsible manner.

My ancestor Bo’sun Bananas volunteered to serve on a Royal Navy ship before the Battle of Trafalgar. HMS Tightbore had been ordered to patrol the West African coast to intercept any French men ‘o war fleeing to the Cape. Many mariners have taken fright at the sight of big British guns shooting off in the heat of battle. After weeks of pleasant sailing in balmy tropical waters, the supply of alcoholic beverages was running low.

“The blasted crew will mutiny if we don’t find a port to re-stock!” exclaimed Captain Ignatius Porthole.

“The problem is easily solved, Iggy,” said Bo’sun Bananas. “All I need is a day’s shore leave to collect some ingredients from the Congo Coast. When these sea dogs have swigged my jungle punch they’ll forget they ever tasted rum or beer!”

Captain Porthole did as my noble forebear suggested, and five barrels of the finest jungle hooch were duly prepared. The crew lapped it up like cream on a harlot’s nipples, and performed their duties with greater diligence and efficiency than ever before. The impending mutiny having thus been averted, everything seemed to be shipshape. However shortly after putting out to sea, the captain accosted the bo’sun while he was reading Moll Flanders in the gun deck.

“Bananas, you hairy varmint, the crew have gone mad!” he thundered. “They’ve replaced the White Ensign with the first lieutenant’s britches and are watching it swing in the breeze, grinning like village idiots. I’ll be hanged if it’s not your damnable concoction that’s scrambled their wits!”

“Watch your language, little lady,” replied my venerable progenitor coolly. “The liquor I rustled up contains an extract from the Wanga plant, which sharpens perception and imagination as well as improving dexterity. If the crew want to fly the first lieutenant’s britches on the mast, it’s probably the best place for them.”

Captain Porthole stomped away grumbling and cursing, knowing better than to tangle with a gorilla. He was eventually persuaded to take some of the brew himself, which immediately calmed his turbulent disposition. He later relinquished command to the first officer so he could wander around barefoot on deck, singing sentimental ballads with his toenails painted red.

Squeezing the rich

2009-09-30T00:00:00.001+01:00

Clare Irby, heiress to the Guinness fortune, has been cleared of allowing a strange man to fondle her breasts. I never realised it was illegal, but then I’m no expert on human law. Maybe she was charged under a new statute designed to prevent the spread of nipple rash. I’m glad she didn’t claim she was groped against her will, which would have got her off the hook at the expense of sending an innocent man to the chokey. Is it now possible for a man to touch a woman’s breasts without someone getting arrested? I think this legal point needs to be resolved before a lot of bemused couples outside nightclubs are hauled away by the police.

An English tourist at the safari guesthouse has an interesting take on the story. He says the authorities prosecuted Ms Irby because they are taking a hard line against the rich in the current economic downturn.

“People don’t like seeing a posh society bird getting her tits rubbed when they are struggling to make ends meet,” he explains.

Should a woman who’s never done a stroke of honest work in her life be permitted to allow a stranger to caress her cupcakes at a time when ordinary folk are losing their jobs? Put like that, the case against her seems very strong. Yet on reflection, I feel that the rich should enjoy themselves whatever the economic climate. If they stop having fun, what hope is there for the rest of society? As long as they temper their hedonism with charity for those less fortunate, they should be allowed to stimulate their bosoms in peace.

We should examine the circumstances of the Irby case in more detail. She was on an aeroplane when the incident occurred, presumably sitting in first class. Hence the man who stroked her boobs must have also been a first class traveller. This would have made the economy passengers feel particularly resentful. It’s bad enough knowing that people in first class get better food and more leg-room – giving them a fresh pair of titties to fondle is really rubbing the budget traveller’s nose in it.

I would advise Ms Irby to spread her favours more widely out of noblesse oblige. She could invite an unemployed man to paw her chest on a regular basis – maybe even let a tramp do it once in a while (after washing his hands). Rich people are not disliked for their wealth, per se, but for their arrogance and snobbery, manifested in the presumption that their tits are too good for the common man. If Clare projects herself in the right way, making her bosom a plaything for deserving men of all classes, the masses will surely idolise her in the manner of the late Princess Diana.

It seems that one of the aggravations of being a young woman of note is that your titties become a topic of public debate. A victim of such ignoble chatter is Jennifer Aniston, who was forced to deny having implants. I certainly believe her, even though her dumplings do look more succulent than in her Friends days. Perhaps the best way for Jennifer to scotch the rumour would be to come clean about the natural methods she has presumably been using. Humans should never be ashamed of applying creams, gels or suction cups to their bodies. As a former circus ape, I can assure you it was common practice among the grandi artisti.

Natural gas

2009-09-25T00:00:00.003+01:00

A geologist at the safari guesthouse tells me that the Earth’s atmosphere once consisted of noxious gases such as methane and ammonia. In effect, our planet was engulfed in a gigantic fart cloud.

“It’s a good thing no one lit a match,” I remark.

“There was no one around to light a match,” he says. “The only living creatures were micro-organisms in the ocean.”

“Just how long ago was this?” I ask through narrowed eyes.

“A billion years or so,” he answers. “And the gases wouldn’t have been combustible, you’ve got your chemistry wrong.”

I wonder silently how the hell he knows what happened a billion years ago. Even someone who had lived that long would have forgotten about it by now. There are very few humans who can remember the Chimpanzees’ Tea Party at London Zoo, which was discontinued in 1972. And his assertion that farty gases are not ignitable is certainly wrong – I have evidence which proves that they are.

A correspondent recently alerted me to a home video made by some college students. The opening scenes, in which a number of malicious hoodlums fart on the faces of their sleeping roommates, are not germane. I apologise for drawing attention to the behaviour of these humanoid skunks, whose lowly character is manifested in the hideous squeaky noises of their emissions. Farts like that are suggestive of a cowardly, sneaky nature. An honest, gorilla-like fart makes a low, rumbling noise.

Towards the end of the video, a couple of young ladies make an appearance and fart rather sweetly. After that, we get to the evidence. In a spirit of scientific inquiry, several fellows apply the naked flame to their flatulence. In each case, the fart burns with hues familiar to anyone who owns a gas cooker. It is the characteristic flame of the combustion of methane, which progresses according to the following chemical reaction:

CH4 + 2O2 = CO2 + 2H2O

Yes, Gorilla Bananas knows his chemistry. Apologies for showing off like this, but after mentioning the geologist’s ill-informed remark I needed to set the record straight. If he is reading this, I hope he is feeling sheepish.

Now the fascinating thing about methane is that it has no smell – the poo-ish odour of the fart is caused by hydrogen sulphide, which is useless as a fuel (although very effective in stink bombs). If someone could find a simple method of separating the flatus into its component gases, college boys and other enthusiasts could develop a thriving cottage industry. As the saying goes, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

The last thing I want to say about farts concerns a pathetic incident involving the Austrian police. It began when a 19-year-old lad called Hansi Sporer broke wind audibly at a music festival. Unfortunately for him, a pair of passing police officers heard the fart and took umbrage, apparently believing it had been discharged specifically to greet their arrival. They then slapped a fine of 50 euros on the boy, complaining that they had been “humiliated”. Did you ever hear of such a pair of sissies? Heaven help the Austrian police if all it takes to break their spirit is a fart. If Hitler were in a grave (rather than scattered in various pieces around Russia), he would surely be turning over in it.

Peeping Yeti

2009-09-21T00:00:00.001+01:00

A 19-year-old woman is claiming that she was stalked by a yeti who watched her as she bathed in a river. She should be so lucky. I don't know whether yetis exist, but I’m certain they wouldn't waste time spying on women if they did. Life in the wild is tough. You've got to forage for food, keep predators at bay and find a mate to breed with. Watching women splash about in rivers is a frivolous diversion from these essential activities. Nor would the yeti have got any pleasure from the spectacle. There’s no point getting excited about females you can’t impregnate.

It’s the old story. An arrogant human intrudes into a wild habitat and behaves as if the resident creatures were trespassers. Perhaps the woman got some sort of satisfaction from imagining that a big hairy monster was ogling her with lustful eyes. The whole thing sounds like pure fantasy on her part. Instead of making spurious allegations about yetis, she should join a dating site and find some unshaven roughneck who’ll sweep her off her feet.

Even if a yeti did happen to be in the vicinity, his only interest in the woman would have been to make sure she didn’t foul his drinking water. Had I been there, I would have offered him some friendly advice:

“Mr Yeti,” I would have said, “humans are big-headed creatures. If you observe them intently they inevitably think you want to have sex with them. Nubile women who paddle in rivers are particularly susceptible to this delusion. Give them a casual glance and they automatically assume you want to put your head between their jahoobies and make gurgling noises.”

Let no one forget that the Peeping Tom is an exclusively human archetype. Back in my circus days, the female acrobats always made me check their changing room for strategically placed holes drilled by villainous schoolboys. I soon became adept at sniffing out such apertures and filling them with cement. I once offered to stay in the room with the girls in the hope of catching one of the rascals in the act and giving him a poke in the eye. They thanked me for my concern but decided, on reflection, that prevention was more important than punishment. I shrugged my shoulders philosophically. It made no difference to me, of course.

This suggests another possible explanation for the alleged yeti incident: that the creature stalking the woman was a man in disguise. A cowardly human voyeur would think nothing of framing an innocent yeti for his own depraved acts. I’ve a good mind to organise an expedition to trap the impostor. We would need porters, a medic, a guide and a woman in a bathing suit to act as bait. I’m sure there would be no shortage of volunteers for this noble venture.

A plague on all the stalkers, peepers and flashers who make life uncomfortable for their victims. Small wonder that women are skittish about yetis when they have to put up with such vexations in their everyday lives. Why are men so hung-up on visual stimulation? It’s a mystery to us silverbacks. We’ll pamper any female who smells good, feels good and makes good noises.

Kiss me quick

2009-09-16T00:00:00.000+01:00

Rafael Nadal has forgiven the man who kissed him in front of 10,000 spectators at the US Open.

“He was really nice and said ‘I love you’,” explained Nadal.

I wouldn’t have fallen for that kind of sweet talk. One thing I learned in the circus is that fans are never satisfied. If you let them kiss you, they expect you to go to their tea parties and eat their fairy cakes. They are also incredibly jealous of each other. If one of them steals a kiss, they all expect to have smooching rights. That’s why I treated my fans firmly but fairly – like a strict schoolmaster. The only kissing allowed was when I kissed the hand of a female admirer, purely to demonstrate the chivalrous nature of the male gorilla.

It seems to me that tennis is not really a kissy sport. Let’s suppose you feel like kissing someone after winning a point. The umpire is out of reach and your opponent probably isn’t in the mood for it. Kissing a line judge after getting a decision in your favour would make sense, but it's the sort of behaviour that might incite the crowd. Kissing a ball boy would be an arrestable offence under any jurisdiction.

The manager of the safari camp said he’d like to see more kissing in the ladies’ game. He suggested that Serena Williams should plant a big wet one on the mouth of her vanquished opponent (unless this opponent were Venus, when the kiss would be incestuous).

“I’d love to see her treat one of those cute European blondes like her punk bitch,” he declared.

I’m not sure what he meant by that, but it sounds like unseemly behaviour for a grand slam champion. I hope that Serena continues to offer a ladylike handshake, perhaps followed by a friendly pat on the bottom if she knows her opponent well. An illustrious sportswoman should set a good example for the budding stars of tomorrow. Martina Navratilova and Billy-Jean King were not just admired for their penetrative forehands.

I’ve been kissed against my will on a couple of occasions. The first assailant was a circus clown. I didn’t punish him for his effrontery because he was highly emotional and only kissed my feet. I was relaxing in a deck chair, reading back issues of Cosmopolitan, when he crawled up to my toes.

“Thank you so much for curing my constipation, GB!” he bleated pathetically between kisses. “I’ve been shitting like a camel since you swung me by my ankles.”

I resisted the temptation to kick his head like a football. “Don’t mention it,” I replied. “When you have finished kissing my feet, wash them thoroughly with a pail of soapy water and a sponge.

After satisfying his peculiar urge, he did as instructed.

The other time I got kissed was when a female gorilla reacted to one of my witty ripostes by putting her mouth over my ear hole. It wasn’t technically a kiss because she blew rather than sucked, but it certainly made me feel giddy. I let her off with a stern rebuke after my head had cleared.

I’m glad to say that I’ve never been forcibly kissed on the lips, which is an indignity that no warm-blooded creature should have to endure. The practice was only ever acceptable in those old Technicolor Hollywood movies, when the bad guy would force his mouth on the lips of the sassy heroine and laugh wickedly afterwards. I have to admit I always loved those scenes. Does that make me bad?

Forbidden love

2009-09-11T00:00:00.000+01:00

I’m feeling a bit sorry for the man from South Carolina who was arrested for making love to a horse. He was convicted of molesting the same animal last year, so it must have been true love rather than a wicked horse-shagging fetish. The woman who owns the mare caught them in the act and predictably put all the blame on the man, holding him up at gunpoint until the police arrived. She insists that her animal was raped, but I’ve not yet seen the man who can overpower a horse without getting his teeth kicked down his throat.

“Sugar was acting strange and getting infections,” said Barbara Kenly, the mare’s gun-toting owner.

Maybe she was, but that’s hardly evidence of sexual abuse. Mary Ann Faithful was behaving strangely and getting infections when she was touring with The Vibrators, but that didn’t mean she was being unlawfully interfered with.

I hope the judge gives him a suspended sentence on condition that he makes an honest mare of Miss Sugar. The weather in South Carolina must be pretty good at this time of year, so they ought to have an outdoor wedding. Let him escort the bridled bride through the grassy glades, to be joined in holy wedlock in the paddock. All the filly bridesmaids would be whinnying with tears in their eyes when the 22-carot wedding shoe was hammered into Sugar’s foot. “Memories are made of this,” as the late Dean Martin said.

Now I shouldn’t give you the impression that I approve of interspecies coupling. Of all the primates, we gorillas are the least interested in that sort of thing. The movie King Kong was a gigantic and offensive hoax. Chimpanzees are keener about it than us, but the biggest dabblers of all are our human cousins (as if you needed me to tell you that). Horses are the just the tip of the iceberg for homo sapiens. And don’t think that women aren’t as capable of it as men. There is an infamous scene in a movie by Jean-Luc Godard in which the farmer’s mistress removes her bare bottom from an enclosure full of suckling calves. One assumes it had been there long enough to get a good polish.

Such depravities would not appeal to the female gorillas in London Zoo, who have been pining for some hairy action since their resident silverback died last December. Rather than attempting to molest their keeper, they have persuaded the zoo management to fly in a new male from France called Yeboah. He’s a good-looking boy, although I must say I’m worried he might not be up to the job. Female gorillas are rowdy at the best of times, but the ones that live in England are absolutely wild. They pick up their bad habits from watching the local women.

I’ve sent a message to Yeboah advising him to stay well clear of the females during hen nights and other occasions involving all-girl revelry. I hope he can handle what he’s got coming.

Change in Japan

2009-09-07T00:00:00.007+01:00

Someone has told me that Japan has a new prime minister. I never knew it had an old one to be honest, but the holder of the office has my full support, whoever he is. It can’t be much fun managing the affairs of a nation on the edge of the world, with the Pacific Ocean on one side and people who dislike you on the other. I have a theory that the further humans migrated from the Mother Continent, the stranger they became in their customs and behaviour. I asked the manager of the safari camp what he thought about it, and he said that Japan is the only country whose porn stars still have pubic hair. Fascinating titbit, but I don’t think it conclusively disproves my theory.

The new PM looks like a schoolboy who suffers from a premature ageing disease. His wife’s appearance is far more impressive. I would guess she was a cheeky minx in her youth and became an even cheekier minx as she got older. She claims to have been abducted by aliens. Apparently they behaved like perfect gentlemen, taking her on a sightseeing trip to Venus and letting her go on all their best rides. As the new first lady of Japan, she ought to invite them back for a state visit. They could land their flying saucer on the summit of Mount Fuji and toboggan down the slope to Tokyo.

People often assume that the first alien delegation to visit Earth will appear on the White House lawn, but I think that might end in disaster. The president would be hospitable enough, but his secret service men would go nuts, pulling out their weapons and jumping on any aliens who made a sudden move. I sense that Japan would be a much better place for their first visit. The humans there are too steeped in manners and etiquette to do anything that might upset their guests. The cultural attractions are also of the highest standard. There are few more intriguing spectacles than a pair of obese men in nappies bouncing off each other in a sumo ring.

A Japanese tourist once asked me for my autograph after seeing me perform in the circus. “GB-san,” he said, “you should come to Japan and join a sumo school – you would become a great yokozuna.”

I studied his face carefully to ascertain whether he was pulling my leg, but his demeanour gave me no clue. These Orientals can be very inscrutable, even to a gorilla.

“Your confidence in my wrestling ability is well-founded,” I replied, “but I could not wear the girdle your wrestlers wrap around their loins. We gorillas need air to circulate around our nether regions. Adopting that form of dress would be like putting vegetables in a pressure cooker.”

He bowed and left without further comment. “A master of the art of polite conversation,” I thought. I wish more humans knew when to shut up and leave.

The aliens would surely enjoy a sumo tournament, even without my participation, but they should be kept well clear of public transport. The Japanese may be well-mannered on formal occasions, but pack them into crowded commuter trains and they turn into demonic gropers. It’s normally nubile women who are targeted for such attention, but I doubt the fiends responsible would be able to resist a pert pair of alien buttocks. I’ve never seen an alien react to having its arse pinched, but there’s a fair chance it wouldn’t like it. The peace of the galaxy is more important than experiments in social etiquette.

A generous offer

2009-09-02T00:00:00.000+01:00

A pat on the back for the Kenyan man who offered Hillary Clinton twenty cows and forty goats for her daughter’s hand in marriage. Hilldog thanked him graciously and promised to convey his proposal to Chelsea, but shouldn’t a mother do more than act as a mere go-between? I hope she sits down with Chelsea and reviews her current list of suitors, putting a line through all the fortune-hunters and gigolos without a cow or goat to their name. That’s the kind of hands-on parenting I like to see in my human cousins.

The Clintons are denying that their 29-year-old daughter is planning to marry this year. If I were Chelsea’s godmother, I’d advise her to get hitched while the bloom is still fresh on the rose. The latest pictures of her suggest that her resemblance to pappy is growing stronger by the day. He’s not a bad looking fellow by any means, but his features won’t travel well across the gender divide. Can anyone imagine a less attractive woman than Bill Clinton in drag? I tried to do so and it gave me stomach cramps.

Whenever the wedding occurs, I doubt it will be a highlight of the social calendar. Knowing Bill, he’ll want to hold in it Arkansas so that every Cletus and Thetus who knew him when he was governor can pay his respects. I pity the guests from out of state who’ll have to spend a couple of days in a place devoid of tourist attractions. The Holidays in Hicksville guide says the state’s main leisure activities are possum-hunting, square-dancing and speculating on which children are the product of an incestuous union.

The Arkansans should learn from their cowboy cousins in Oklahoma, who have put up a bronze statue of Angelina Jolie suckling her twins. The breasts are entirely visible and you couldn’t wish to see rounder pair of milk dumplings. I should imagine it will quickly become a place of pilgrimage for those who venerate the mother in all her boobaceous munificence. The only problem with the sculpture is the presence of the feeding twins, who will prevent visitors from allowing their own infants to suck on Angelina’s bronze nipples. Maybe she should go there in person every month to wet-nurse the lucky winner of a raffle.

Chelsea, of course, is much too sophisticated and intelligent to have people thinking about her breasts. Even the manager of the safari camp, who is a fanatical boob-man, admitted that he hadn’t considered them until I brought up the subject. A lot of credit must go to Chelsea herself, who has never been tempted to take part in a wet t-shirt competition or allowed herself to be photographed in a bikini. This is the behaviour of a young woman who expects to have a career in high politics. You can’t have good working relationships with foreign statesmen if they’re thinking about your tits the whole time.

Yet according to my friend Kola Boof, women won’t truly be liberated until they can walk around topless without caring what men think about it. The goddess, she points out, is traditionally bare-breasted to excite the fervour of her devotees. Thus a woman who exposes her bosom is actually projecting her divine spark. I have my reservations about this argument, but I’m not going to debate titties with Kola. Those who want to cross swords with her may ask me for her email address.

The highest of the high

2009-08-28T00:00:00.004+01:00

I spent a couple of days in Rome visiting Mario the bum-pincher (as he was known in his circus days). I don’t think he has a similar title in Italy. It would be a redundant one for the men of his nation in any case. Mario had told me to expect a surprise visitor, which made me a little apprehensive. You never know what kind of rascal an Italian will invite to his abode to impress his guests. I shouldn’t have worried. The visitor turned out to be Philippe Petit, the French tightrope walker, with whom I was already acquainted.

For those not familiar with Philippe, he was the man who walked across a tightrope suspended between the Twin Towers shortly after they were completed in the 1970s. He later visited our circus to give a lecture about the role of high-wire artist in contemporary culture. Everyone was polite, but secretly despised him as a pretentious French twat. Everyone except me, that is, who was rude to his face, but secretly admired him for being the biggest show-off in France.

I greeted Philippe with my customary warmth:

“Hello, you great ginger-haired ponce!” I cried. “Still mincing between tall buildings rather than earning an honest living in a circus?”

“My mincing days are over, you big hairy freak!” he replied. “Today I am the author who writes his memoir. Shall I give you a signed copy of my book?”

“Please do, Philippe. I’ll lend it to a baboon so he can wank off to all the pictures of you in it. There must be loads of them.”

“Of course. Maybe there are fifty pictures of me. I don’t blame the baboon for wanting to fuck me. I would want to fuck myself if I were a baboon.”

After this exchange of pleasantries, we went to a café outside the Coliseum. He bought me an ice cream and I bought him a chocolate miniature of the Emperor Nero. He then showed me a picture of a young woman with large breasts, who he claimed had seduced him after a recent book-signing.

“When we lay together afterwards she told me she wants to walk the tightrope,” he added. “What could I say? I told her a woman cannot perform this art because her breasts will make her lose her balance.

(This wasn’t strictly true. Although her breasts were certainly too big for the occupation, a woman with a nice compact pair of dumplings is quite capable of being a mistress of the high wire.)

“You should have examined her toes before giving such a discouraging opinion,” I remarked.

“Her toes? What is their significance? The toes cannot remove the problem of the titties.”

“Oh but they can, Philippe. Heinz Zak came to the Congo last year and invited a lot of media people to watch him prance across a river gorge. Before he could do a thing, a band of chimpanzees crossed the gorge in less than a minute, gripping the tightrope with their toes and hanging upside down while doing it. Zak was so upstaged that he had to bribe the journalists not to write about it. It’s a good thing there were no chimps on top of the World Trade Centre, eh?”

“This is why I never joined a circus!” said Philippe emphatically, wagging his finger at me. “Such monkey business can destroy the work of an artist.”

We spent the rest of the day visiting the ruins of ancient Rome. Philippe said it would have been impossible to walk a tightrope while wearing a toga, and I agreed with him.

Phone sex

2009-08-24T00:00:00.006+01:00

I’m back in the Congo, my hairless primate cousins. I feel like Sinbad the sailor after one of his seven voyages – the one where he locks horns with strange natives and marvels at wonders of immense kinkyness.

I spent a few days with my old friend Smacker Ramrod, the former circus vet, happily settled in Kent, the so-called Garden of England. He seems to be making a good living from all the resident horses and cows in need of his salubrious groping.

Scarcely had I walked through his door when he proudly showed me his latest toy, a mobile phone with a pair of red lips on it. He claims that if you kiss the lips, an identical smooch will be transmitted to the person you’re talking to, provided that this lucky individual is equipped with a similar phone.

“I’ve got a pair of them so I can kiss my wife when we’re apart,” he drooled.

“You great big soppy lettuce!” I exclaimed.

“I’ll kiss you as well if you get one,” he said facetiously.

“I assure you that the phone will be pressed firmly against my arse if you do,” I replied.

He guffawed and changed the subject. I actually have nothing against a man kissing his wife in public. It is more civilised than kissing a stranger and more hygienic than kissing the family pet. But delivering it via a telecommunication device is absurd. Only religious zealots and ninnies smooch inanimate objects.

Later, when visiting Canterbury Cathedral, I was recognised by a middle-aged man who had seen me perform in the circus many years ago. I allowed him to buy me a glass of lemonade. When he told me he worked for Vodafone, I mentioned the kissphone to him. Being from the north of England, he thought it was the most natural thing in the world.

“You can’t stop the march of progress, GB,” he said. “In a few years’ time there’ll be sex dolls which can be operated remotely using a joystick and fire button. I’ll get them to make one in my image so I can do the wife when I’m away from home.”

“Are you sure she’ll want a replica of yourself?” I asked. “She might prefer a doll that looks like Sean Bean or Jimmy Tarbuck.”

“Are you joking?” he inquired incredulously. “Why would I help her cheat on me with some overrated celebrity?”

I smacked my lips in puzzlement. Would she really be committing adultery if he were controlling the doll’s movements? And what if another man operated a doll that looked like him? These are philosophical questions worthy of a Socrates, a Freud or a Dolly Parton.

Yet conundrums of this kind will be academic until such technological marvels actually exist. In anticipation of that glorious day, some market research with potential customers would be in order. Vibrators may be popular with ladies of a certain disposition, but a sex toy operated by another human staring at a computer screen may take some getting used to. I would ask a random sample of 100,000 sexually active women the following question:

If you had a remote-controlled replica of your perfect fantasy lover, which of the following people would you prefer to operate the controls:

(1) Hugh Hefner

(2) Another woman

(3) Your gynaecologist

(4) A nasty perverted dwarf who loves to make women moan and writhe?

Obviously it would have to be answered anonymously so the women would make an honest choice rather than picking the one they were least ashamed of.

The Last King of Ireland

2009-08-10T00:00:00.008+01:00

I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks in Europe, visiting my old circus buddies. As usually happens when I’m about to venture abroad, I’ve also received invitations from total strangers. News of my planned travels somehow always leaks out, and I get emails from people who want a celebrity gorilla to attend their functions. Keeping secrets is well neigh impossible in the jungle. I blame the parrots, eavesdropping on everything I say and squawking their tiny heads off.

One of these emails is from the Mayor of Killorglin, who wants me to attend the town’s annual festival so they can crown me King of Ireland. It sounds pretty impressive, but I’m not the sort of ape who accepts such titles without thinking through the consequences. What would I do with Ireland? As far as I can tell the place is full of farmers and cows, whom I have no wish to supervise or offer moral support. If they just want to me to accept their tribute that’s fine, but lording it over them will eat up valuable hammock time. Kingship isn’t the wheeze it used to be when you could sit on your royal arse and make all the courtiers do the work. The monarch of today is bogged down in paperwork and bureaucracy.

“Why do they want a gorilla to be their king?” asks one of my females.

She has a point. A king is supposed to stand out from his subjects, but he’s usually of the same species. So I do some homework and discover that they’re only asking me because their first choice can’t get the required visa, possibly because he’s a goat. I think you’ll agree this puts a new and ugly complexion on the whole matter. Rather than seeking to honour me, they are attempting a leprechaun-like piece of trickery to persuade a gorilla to stand-in for a goat and look like a complete ass. They probably thought I’d be so flattered by their offer that I wouldn’t check it out. I shall reply to the Mayor as follows:

Dear Mayor O’Onan

I must respectfully decline your invitation, as we gorillas do not accept human honours. If you wish, I shall forward your offer to a baboon of alpha rank. If this is not acceptable, I suggest you invite Pope Benedict to be your king. I am sure he will look quite splendid at the coronation if you can persuade him to grow a goatee.

Yours etc.

G. Bananas

Mentioning the Pope’s hypothetical goatee is my sly way of letting them know I’m onto their game. The townsfolk of Killorglin will shortly discover that it takes a very early bird to catch the worm in my banana.

An invitation I think I will accept is from the Amora Sex Academy. They run an educational museum in Berlin in which visitors are encouraged to play with interactive mannequins. If you touch the dummies in the right way they will moan with pleasure in praise of your good petting technique. Apparently a lot of men are too shy to do it, so they want me to show them how. They think male visitors would rather follow my lead than be instructed by a smug sex instructor. I don’t mind giving it a go for the good of humanity. My fingers have been in far worse places than a mannequin’s nooks and crannies.

The Japing Ape will return on Monday 24th August

Uncurbed enthusiasm

2009-08-05T00:00:00.007+01:00

A heated argument breaks out at the safari guesthouse about the TV comedy show Curb Your Enthusiasm. It concerns an episode in which the petite black comedienne, Wanda Sykes, breaks off her engagement with a rap singer on discovering that he is “running around town eating pussy”. The ladies present are of the opinion that Wanda had acted appropriately, denouncing her fiancé as a slimy-tongued philanderer who ought to have his lips sown together. The male guests take a contrary position, arguing that Miss Sykes had overreacted. She should have realised, they say, that a rap singer is a breed of man for whom eating pussy is like eating popcorn – a snack of negligible significance. One of them goes so far as to suggest that Krayzee-Eyez Killa had proved his fidelity to Wanda by reserving his own private parts for her exclusive satisfaction.

You are doubtless now expecting to hear of my own contribution to this debate. “Gorilla Bananas surely intervened to smooth ruffled feathers and cool heated tempers,” I hear you say. “He devised a compromise formula that coaxed the bickering humans into renewing their cross-gender camaraderie.” Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you. My lips, on this occasion, remained firmly sealed (if not actually sown together). Life is not an episode of The Waltons and there are times when the antagonists must settle their differences without my arbitration. I cannot always play the part of a hairy King Solomon.

What I was motivated to do was watch the episode in question on the HBO video-on-demand channel. One must always examine the evidence before making judgements about alleged sexual misconduct. In the opening scene of the show, Mr Killa recites the lyrics of a new composition:

If you say anything
You’ll beg me to die
Coz I’ll make you suck my dick
Then I’ll nut in your eye
I’ll stomp on your world
As if my name is Godzilla
I’m coming for you motherfucker
I’m your Krazee-Eyez Killa

In virtually his next breath, he informs Larry David that performing oral sex on women of diverse ethnicities is one of the great passions of his life:

“You’ve got all different flavours of pussy,” he explains. “The best pussy to eat is Asian pussy.”

The man clearly believes that oral sex is a panacea for life’s problems – a heinous punishment to inflict on an enemy in one context becomes a gourmet delicacy in another. Such are the nuances of ghetto culture. Yet natural justice demands that we consider the matter from the viewpoint of his fiancé. For a wife to have the taste of her private parts compared unfavourably with countless Asian women is undeniably a gross humiliation. Had I been betrothed to Mr Killa, I simply wouldn’t have stood for it:

“If the taste of my pussy isn’t good enough for you I’ll serve it to someone else!” I would have declared frostily.

On the other hand, it does seem rather harsh to dump a fellow for habits he presumably acquired during his bachelorhood. Shouldn’t a man contemplating matrimony be given a chance to mend his ways?

So on due reflection, I would have advised Wanda to take Krazee-Eyez back on condition that he gave up his promiscuous pussy-eating compulsion. A mere declaration on his part would not suffice. To prove his sincerity, he would be required to eat raw chillies for a month in order to cleanse his palate and permanently numb his taste buds. Purged of his ability to appreciate the subtle flavours of a woman’s cha-cha, he would surely be cured of his indecent obsession. Even the most hardened addict can learn to kick the habit.