Belle de Jour

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.

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The meaning of dreams

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.

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Wear your astronappy with pride

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.

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Art imitates porn

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.

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Cats will be cats

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.

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Hummus hostilities

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.

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