The cuddly princess

A tourist asks me about my plans for the tenth anniversary of Princess Diana’s sad demise. I reply that we gorillas rarely commemorate deaths – that sort of thing leads to fruitless moping, and the ape who mopes without fruit is lacklustre and lethargic. If you’re going to mark someone’s end, pick an enemy so you’ll have something to celebrate. I always pour myself a glass of pineapple juice on the day that “Sawtooth” Mangola exploded after swallowing a diving cylinder in the Congo. He was the biggest, nastiest, ugliest crocodile I ever saw, and his reptilian remains turned part of the river into a handbag-flavoured soup.

Diana’s tragic accident occurred in my final season with the circus. I confess I cried like a baby, although probably not for the princess. Still, tears are tears, and I distinctly remember calling Diana “our chicken”. If you knew how valuable chickens were in Africa you’d realise what a compliment that was. But I have no desire to dwell on the sorrowful events of that fateful day. Leave the post-mortems to the ghouls: we who love life should savour sweet memories of the princess in her prime.

I always admired Diana as one of the foremost cuddlers in public life – and whatever you think of her, she wasn’t the worst person to get a hug from. As she matured as a woman she got quite fleshy about the upper body, and no man or beast could complain about her bosom. Perhaps some were repelled by the mawkish expression on her face, but it wouldn’t have been difficult to change her mood. Picture a young man lamenting some misfortune being comforted by the princess. As she puts her arms around him, he turns his face to her ear and whispers these tender words:

“I’d really love to fuck you.”

Imagine the change in Diana’s demeanour! I am quite confident that unless the fellow resembled a beagle she would have smiled coyly and given him a wink. For the princess was surely la femme qui aimait les hommes. I personally have no doubt that she was excellent in bed. Little things about her suggest as much: the fact that she “adored” the gallants she slept with rather than merely “loved” them; the fact that she teased and flirted with the old buffers who befriended her; the fact that she was fawned upon by Dodus Al Fayed, the playboy who perished by her side. Contrast Diana with the professional lady who refers to her husband as her “partner” and treats pleasantries from male co-workers with sour-faced suspicion. There’s not much doubt which type of woman most men would prefer in the sack.

Now the late princess wasn’t everyone’s blue-eyed girl and people are quite entitled to be cool about her. But don’t condemn her purely because you disapprove of royalty. We gorillas would never make character judgements from a person’s occupation. Did we throw coconuts at Naomi Watts because she starred in that appalling movie King Kong? Indeed not! We knew she was just an actress doing her job and let her groom us like any other visiting starlet. By all means criticise Diana for being a silly floozie who courted the newspapers she pretended to despise. But attacking a princess just for being a princess is wrong. In the wise words of Sheriff Buford T Justice, that’s pure and simple old-fashioned Bolshevism.

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The Portland Peeper

Every so often, I receive a piece of news that brings me closer in spirit to my human cousins. This one comes from Oregon, home state of Sassy Miss Kara, the dirty-blond scooter-maid. In a forest campsite near Portland, a man of 63 years lurks next to the ladies’ lavatory, pressing his face against a crack in the woodwork. An alert male camper spots him in mid-ogle and raises the alarm. The peeper flees into the undergrowth, but is chased down by a hunting party. He is frog-marched back to camp and tied to a tree, pending arrival of the gun-toting sheriff.

It is not the activities of the peeping tom that bear any resemblance to the behaviour of gorillas. Everything happens outdoors in the wild, so a female ape powdering her nose is of no great concern to anyone but the insects scuttling below. Even the sight of apes mating is only enthralling to human naturalists who are into that sort of thing. If I happen to pass a male gorilla mounting a female, I give him a polite grunt and hasten on my way (unless he is mounting one of my females, when I punch his lights out).

No, it is the humans who apprehended the miscreant who acted in a manner worthy of their hairy cousins. First, in the robust action they took against an intruder who had violated their sacred taboo. There are times when a bit of mob violence is necessary to disrupt the designs of the lone nut who would bring dishonour to the neighbourhood. But what really made my heart soar like a hawk was their instinctive awareness that the prisoner should be tied to a tree. This is an age-old gorilla custom that is standard operating practice for keeping scoundrels under lock-and-key before deciding upon their ignoble fate.

I myself have spreadeagled countless simians on trees before bringing them to justice. Not for being peeping toms, of course, you have to do something far worse than that to taste bark in the jungle. The most serious offender I ever dealt with was a murderous chimpanzee whose reign of terror had decimated the local chimp population. I mercifully spared his life. His punishment was to be butt-fucked by a kinky gorilla (not me) in front of his former subjects, who jeered and taunted him as his dignity dissolved in rapine. This utterly broke the spell he had over them, allowing me to release him back into the community. We gorillas favour a progressive policy in the rehabilitation of felons.

Although Portland seems like a cold and windy place, inhabited by unhealthily pale humans, I am now tempted to spend a few days there. I won’t live in a campsite, of course – a rented villa in town should be satisfactory. After paying my respects to Miss Kara, I think I’ll visit the peeping tom in his jail cell. Why would a man spy on a woman in a toilet when he could pay a prostitute a few dollars to piss right in front of his face? The answer, I believe, is that he cannot gawp at any woman who is aware of his presence, for fear of provoking her contempt. As a gorilla who has grown quite used to the scorn of his own females – and indeed has learned to enjoy it – perhaps I could give him a few pointers on curing his mental block.

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The secret policeman's earpiece

A pat on the back for the London police officer who wore his radio earpiece while having sex. So devoted to duty was Inspector Masood Khan that he insisted on maintaining contact with the men under him while maintaining contact with the woman under him. As a wild gorilla who has to keep an eye out for snakes when mating with his females, I know just how challenging that sort of multi-tasking can be. I doubt the average human male could satisfy a lady while other men were shouting “alpha, tango, bravo” in his ear.

The sad part of the story is that Mr Khan was later put on trial for “wilful misconduct”, a catch-all charge if ever there was one. The righteous twelve acquitted him, but he still has to face a disciplinary committee for “unprofessional conduct”. He should remind his accusers that the woman he pleasured was two years his senior and had contacted him the day before on an internet dating site. If that isn’t prompt service in response to a call for assistance I don’t know what is. I can’t understand why she wasn’t called as a character witness in his trial.

If he’s dismissed from the police force, I’m going to ask the manager of the safari camp to offer him a job in security. Quite a few of our guests are single women of a certain age, and I’m sure they’ll feel a lot safer with a man of Mr Khan’s calibre keeping his watchful eye over them. He’s clearly the sort of fellow who could cuff a baboon with one hand while massaging a woman’s neck with the other.

The affair reminds me of a joke I once played on my friend Smacker Ramrod, the circus vet. He was a carefree bachelor when I first knew him, regularly returning to his trailer with a buxom wench after a night on the town. I once asked him what he did if the alcohol in his system rendered him incapable of rousing the mamba. Smacker was too honest a chap to deny that this had ever happened.

“It doesn’t matter that much because I’m always up for it after a decent sleep,” he explained. “I never get a hangover and I’m a real broom-handle in the morning.”

I grinned at this revelation. The next time he entertained a woman, I got up at daybreak and sat patiently outside his trailer with my ears wide open. Presently, I heard a stirring and a shuffling, shortly followed by a sighing and a mewing. Without further ado, I rapped firmly on the door.

“Are you awake, Smacker?” I cried.

He grunted and cursed before responding to my inquiry. “What the hell do you want GB?” he barked gruffly.

“I heard some strange noises, Smacker. What ever are you doing in there?”

“Right now, I’m losing my erection!” he snapped, an admission which caused his female companion to titter.

“Well don’t ask me to help you find it!” I quipped.

I strolled away sniggering with his profane reproaches ringing in my ears. Some humans are so tetchy first thing in the morning.

You can’t beat a coitus interruptus gag if it’s done tastefully, without unnecessary voyeurism or actual physical interference. Smacker is now a happily married man and we are separated by thousands of miles, yet thanks to the miracle of modern communications we can talk at the touch of a button. I live in hope of making his mobile phone ring when he’s humping his good lady. I believe the ringtone is Colonel Bogey.

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Pony tales

Whoever coined the phrase “fact is stranger than fiction” couldn’t have had a very good imagination. Inspired by the “Bigfoot” legend sweeping through North America, the humans in our part of the world are concocting ever more far-fetched stories to attract the tourist dollar. I suggest they kidnap the UN ambassador’s wife and release her naked in the jungle to start a “Bigarse” legend, but they scoff at my lack of ambition.

It’s my own fault. Ever since I showed them the centauress on EmmaK’s blog (pictured above), they’ve been set on luring men to the Congo with fables of four-legged females who whinny like mares when they are covered. They say it’s a common fantasy of the human male to have wild uncomplicated sex with a woman who won’t judge his performance and gallops off into the distance when it’s over. This may be so, but are there no limits to what people will believe nowadays? Doctored photos of a pony-girl would not have induced Buffalo Bill to rush to the Congo with lasso in hand.

Even if the ploy is successful, I don’t believe they’ve thought through the consequences. Whatever you say about the safari business, it has always been a relatively genteel affair. We have mixed touring parties, including quite a few courting couples, so even the roughnecks among them know to mind their manners and chew with their mouths closed. If we start advertising the presence of these frolicking fillies, the ambience will swiftly degenerate into that of a mining town during a gold rush. Our sublime natural haven will be overrun with unshaven desperadoes, well-versed in the language of the tavern, firing their six-shooters into the air. It won’t be long before gambling dens and whorehouses spring up, corrupting the younger fellows and sustaining the older ones in their lechery. We don’t need that of sort of thing in this unspoiled part of the world.

In any case, inventing cock-and-bull stories to attract gullible tourists is a self-defeating tactic. The Scots milked the Loch Ness monster for all it was worth, but what good did it do them in the long run? Nothing but a lot of off-colour jokes about their parsimonious behaviour. We Africans, who live amid the wonders of Nature’s munificence, have no need to resort to such underhand methods. I will tell my human friends to forget about spreading rumours of neighing nymphs and consider instead the possibilities of cabaret. Let us appeal to the cultural discernment of the connoisseur rather than the unnatural lust of the debauchee.

We could start our shows by getting girls from the local tribe to do their bottom-shaking dance to the beat of the bongo drums. This would be followed a series of top-class variety acts: the tap-dancing chimpanzee, the snake-handling baboon, the squirting bull-frog, etc. For the finale, I would be willing to come out of retirement to perform one of my popular circus acts. Gorilla Bananas has never shirked from pulling his weight to satisfy the nobler appetites of his human cousins. Donning my scarlet pantaloons, I would mime to the greatest hits of Sinatra, Aznavour and other exalted crooners of human folklore. I’d like to see anyone talking about shagging pony-girls after that!

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Russian girl seeks millionaire

Dr Whipsnade draws my attention to a Russian man who teaches young ladies how to bag a rich husband. According to Vladimir Rakovsky, all men belong to one of three types: the mature man, the eternal bachelor and the little boy. To snare Mr Moolah in the matrimonial net, a woman must adjust her behaviour to his character. For the mature man, she must be the little girl in search of a protector; for the eternal bachelor, she must be the fun-loving teenager who giggles at his jokes; for the little boy, she must be the doting mother who tucks in his shirt. Throw in a few party tricks – like nibbling a banana seductively and doing a few hip-wiggles – and the smitten millionaire will get down on his knee with diamond ring in hand.

Any ape can see that this is the theory of a seminal thinker – a scholar of the works of Count Leo Tolstoy and Corporal Tatiana Romanova. Its simplicity is its genius. Dividing a population of billions into three groups cuts through all the phoney posturing and reveals man as he really is. The nagging worry, however, is the possibility of anomalous men who don’t fit into these categories. It only takes a few such deviants to explode a seemingly watertight thesis, leaving much pickled cabbage on Russian faces.

Let us suppose, for example, that we find men who are strangely attracted to pregnant women. There is nothing girlish about a pregnant woman to attract the mature man. The eternal bachelor would surely run a mile at the very sight of one. As for the little boy, the lasts thing he wants is any competition for his mother’s love. Men who fancy pregnant women simply would not fit into the Rakovskyian system. Do such men exist? I fear that they do.

So it looks like we’re back to the drawing board. But before all you single ladies pierce your navels in despair, let me tickle your ear lobes with another method of sorting the menfolk. Based on insights gained from years of patient observation, Gorilla Bananas has created his own system of classification. I postulate that the men of the world are divided into three variants: the mimic…the cynic…and the toothpick.

Let’s start with the mimic. He is a man who unconsciously (or possibly consciously) models himself on a hero figure. This could be his father, a great man of history or Pee Wee Herman. To lure him to the altar, a woman must reinvent herself as the consort of his exemplar. If the role-model is Lord Nelson, she must be Lady Hamilton. If the role-model is Pee Wee Herman, she must be a hand-puppet version of Miss Yvonne.

The cynic is the opposite of the mimic. He has no heroes, because he thinks all successful humans are hucksters and villains. The way to win what passes for his heart is to be an even bigger cynic than he is. But why would any woman bother? The cynic is a lazy poltroon who shuns hard work and rarely has any cash. No level-headed gold-digger would waste time on him unless he had inherited a fortune.

Lastly, we come to the toothpick, the most enigmatic of the three varieties. Here is a man who prefers to spend his leisure time with other men, often in situations where they are packed closely together. His friends are also toothpicks. On encountering them in a group, a woman will find these men dull and rather wooden. But if she can prise one away from his buddies, she will be surprised by his sharp insights and pointed remarks. What kind of woman does such a man want? Very simple: a woman with healthy gums who doesn’t mind being poked after she has eaten.

When I presented my theory to Dr Whipsnade, I’m sorry to say that he roared with laughter.

“Really, Bananas!” he exclaimed, “the search for naïve, tripartite classifications in complex beings is a cognitive dead-end. Whatever next? The tipple, the cripple and the nipple?”

Dr Whipsnade is a brilliant man, but sometimes he talks like a pompous old fart.

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The men on top

Garry Kasparov, the former chess world champion, was at the safari camp last week. What a bore he was! Couldn’t stop talking about how President Pootikins was destroying democracy in Russia. Eventually, a guest from the north of England said:

“If he’s that sodding bad, how come you’re not in Siberia with a chessboard wedged between your arse cheeks?”

That shut Kasparov up, the big-nosed upstart.

One thing I’ve noticed about human politicians is that the worst ones are adored by the masses. German maidens fainted in the presence of Hunky Hitler, who drove the goose-stepping hordes into a frenzy of hero-worship. Comrade Stalin’s death was mourned by toiling peasants, browbeaten workers and quite a few he sent to the gulag. Chairman Mao was a living god who inspired nubile young women to fight for the privilege of squirming beneath his sweaty blubber. Humans love a ruthless strongman who doesn’t take crap and makes the trains run on time.

I instinctively sympathise with leaders who have to endure the endless moaning of their people. I’m used to getting nagged by my females so I know how they feel. It’s lonely at the top. You rack your brains for new ways of keeping the mob entertained. You hire chimpanzees to teach the infants how to crack nuts. You organise raiding parties to chase marauding baboons up the trees. And what thanks do you get? The ungrateful swine complain about wasting resources and needlessly antagonising baboons – the same baboons who would shit all over them if they ever got the chance.

At least we gorillas don’t have to worry about sex scandals though. The last one I remember involved that blind British minister who managed to find his way into the knickers of an American journalist, possibly without the aid of his guide dog. His comeuppance arrived when the woman fell pregnant and he arrogantly claimed to be the father. It turned out that he wasn’t. Far from paddling up a private channel in the Americas Cup, his sperm had been swimming in a crowded field in the US Open. What an extraordinary ass the poor fellow made of himself!

A leader who fools around in office should behave like Matti Vanhanen, the prime minister of Finland, who dated a single mother after his divorce. Not content with having her kebabs skewered by the head chef, this shameless hussy wrote a kiss-and-tell memoir after the affair had ended. She spared no detail, describing the prime minister’s preferred mating positions along with the yodels he emitted at the finale. Yet Mr Vanhanen didn’t deny a single word or attempt to discredit the woman. A dignified silence was his only reaction when the snivelling dogs of the media tried to embarrass him. As a result of his manly discretion, 9596 Finnish women have volunteered to bear his child with no strings attached. In my view he should oblige at least 1542 of them.

Politics is unfortunately a dirty game. The sad fact is that we primates behave badly in a crowd, snarling and grimacing and yelling offensive chants. Anyone with the job of pleasing the multitude is bound to dirty his hands. The good leader is one who realises that he is engaged in a form of crowd control. Provide them with decent facilities and let them have their fun – but if they start getting rowdy, don’t hesitate to send in the riot squad to hit them where it hurts.

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