Travelling light

I’m back in the Congo after a somewhat disturbing flight home. I don’t mean, by this, that there were any apprehensions of an aeronautic complexion. No aircraft I’ve ever flown in has dared to misbehave when I was on board. Before the plane took off, I had my customary chat with the captain:

“Rest assured that we gorillas have very sensitive ears,” I said. “I can hear what’s going on in the cockpit from first class, and will be ready to assist if anything untoward happens. I won’t hesitate to pin down your co-pilot if he has a fit or explodes in a mutinous rage. Never forget what happened to Captain Bligh!”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” replied the captain with a nervous grin. “Why not just put on the headphones and enjoy the in-flight entertainment. You get a great choice of films in first class.”

“Maybe I’ll watch the screen without wearing headphones,” I mused. “I’m a fairly good lip-reader as it happens.”

Now, some of you might have guessed that I couldn’t really hear inside the cockpit. I told the captain this white lie to discourage him from playing hookey while the plane was on autopilot. Most aviation accidents are caused by “human error”, which is a polite way of saying that the captain and first officer were looking at girlie magazines or playing tiddlywinks when the warning lights began to flash. That sort of arsing about is not acceptable when I am a passenger.

Anyway, the captain was right about the great choice of movies in first class. As I rarely read film reviews, I asked the stewardess for her recommendation.

“How about The Reader?” she said. “Kate Winslet got an Oscar in that one.”

“Kate Winslet is my favourite actress!” I exclaimed. “A hundred thanks for your excellent suggestion!”

Long-standing readers of this blog will remember the eulogies I have penned for Miss Winslet. As well as being an accomplished thespian, her body is of a shape that we gorillas can appreciate (in a wholly non-sexual way). Curvaceous hips; luscious thighs; breasts that look as if they’re ready for milking. The human female doesn’t get better than that.

So I settled down to watch the film and was pleased to see Kate rolling around naked in the early scenes, albeit partially obscured by the annoying whelp who was trying to mate with her. When I eventually got a good view of Kate’s body in its entirely, I bit my lip in disappointment. The succulence of her flesh was much diminished, obviously because of some accursed diet she’d been following.

On the way home from the airport, the manager of the safari camp attempted to explain this anomaly:

“She was playing a war criminal, so her normal full figure wouldn’t have worked,” he said. “Evil women are supposed to look bony-arsed.”

“Fiddlesticks!” I exclaimed. “Fans of Kate have certain expectations of a movie in which she stars. If they wanted a bony-arsed woman, they should have given the part to Gwyneth Paltrow!”

The manager sucked his teeth and nodded.

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When humans cry

My friend Smacker Ramrod, the circus vet, once walked into my trailer with a sheepish look on his face.

“What would you say if I told you I’ve just seen a movie that made me cry?” he asked.

I would say that you were a snivelling ass,” I replied, “unless, perchance, the title of the movie was Lassie Come Home.”

It wasn’t. The film that had moved him to tears was called Ghost. I expect most of you have seen it. Patrick Swayze plays a dead man who tries to warn his widow that she is about to be seduced and swindled by his murderer. The evil one is thwarted, with the help of Whoopi Golderg, and carted off to the underworld by demons. The film ends with Mr Swayze bidding an emotional farewell to his wife before going to a better place. I freely admit it’s the sort of experience that would make a gorilla cry like a baby if it ever happened to him – or possibly even to his best friend. But watching actors simulate the whole thing produced no more than a rueful sigh in my own hairy bosom. I suspect that what prompted so many humans to weep was a “happy ending” in which a young widow remains well and truly widowed. Such is life.

I do of course sympathise with people crying to unburden their aching hearts. I must have seen at least a dozen adult humans weep in my circus days – on nearly every occasion it was a woman. I was quite happy to comfort these ladies with a hairy embrace if they stumbled in my direction, but in doing so I always observed the following rules:

(a) never ask the woman why she is crying;

(b) if she volunteers the information, reply only with monosyllabic murmurs of sympathy;

(c) never refer to the incident if you later cross the woman’s path.

I remember one young lady who after blubbering into my chest for five minutes looked up at me in apparent curiosity.

“Don’t you want to know why I’m crying?” she sniffed.

“I already know why,” I replied. “You are crying because you are overcome with emotion at a misfortune you have suffered. It happens to the best of us.”

For some reason she found this amusing, which encouraged me to send her on her way with a gentle pat, delivered a good four inches above her bottom.

Yet I must admit to confused feelings when movie stars cry in public. As they are said to express their emotions on film by reliving events in their lives, it makes me wonder whether they’re recalling past movie roles when they do it for real. Do you remember how Gwyneth Paltrow wept uncontrollably on accepting her Oscar? Rather than feeling any sympathy, I found myself judging her performance – almost good enough for a second gold statuette, I thought. I should add that I have nothing against Gwynnie as an actress or a woman. In naming her daughter “Apple”, she showed remarkably good taste for a human. Had she chosen the name “Apollonia”, I would have lampooned her as a pretentious bimbo.

I expect you want to know when I last cried. It happened quite recently, as a matter of fact, when my females jumped on me without warning and pinned me against a prickly bush. I’m not certain I was technically crying, come to think of it – but my eyes certainly watered a fair bit.

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