Here’s to the Loerie Awards

I’d like to buy the world a gram and garnish it with thrills, Grow dagga trees and jail keys, and snow white Mandrax pills.

Word on the street is that the advertising industry subsists on a diet of pure cocaine. I don’t believe it for a minute. Their coke, like everybody’s, is cut with headache powder and phenacetin, a yummy substance virtually guaranteed to give your children an early inheritance.

Personally I don’t give a hamster’s rectum if creative directors stuff crushed seal testicles up their nostrils. I do, however, have a problem when the substances they ingest results in the rest of us having to bear the consequences.

If the pony-tailed product pimps with pinprick pupils are dipping into the pharmaceutical goodie bag to help them come up with ever more ludicrous ideas, then the least they can do is provide us with drugs to help us cope. Every time we renew our TV licences (which should be never), we must be offered a year’s supply of the neuroleptic of our choice. I’ll take the Thorazine, thank you. It helps with mania and depression, illnesses common among those who are too lazy or stupid to hit the mute button when the commercials come on.

Advertising is not a science. It is witchcraft. Creative directors and copywriters are sorcerers by trade. They are spellbinders and dreamweavers. They are voodoo merchants trained to control minds. Bloodletting rituals have been replaced by coke-chopping rituals and instead of using bile of bat and eye of newt, they use aerial shots and digital effects.

These necromancers gifted in the dark art of enticing and entrancing do not go short in life. For their power to turn people into sheep, the warlocks and witches are richly rewarded by the kings and queens of commerce. They drive, use, wear, drink and eat everything that made it into this year’s Top Brands list. First they create then become their creations. They are like glittering mortal gods.

Television advertising has encroached so deep into programming that you’re unsure whether the blonde repeatedly washing her hair is a new character in the movie. It has also become more obscure, more deranged, more … of the same. Bigger, better, faster, more. But nothing new.

I tried watching a movie the other night. I have no idea what is was about because for every six minutes of movie, there were four minutes of people shouting at me to buy a new car, change my deodorant, drink something else or switch to “the bank that moves you”. Yes, indeed. You will find yourself moving about a week after you miss a bond repayment.

Hang on. What this? By purchasing a Natura laxative I could win a free trip to the Maldives? Whoo-hoo! Even if I miss my flight because of a prolonged bowel evacuation in the airport toilet, the experience will have been worth it.

A woman with glycerine eyes showed me how easy it is to get chocolate, grass, egg yolk, engine oil and blood stains out of my sheets. What the hell is going on in that house? Where I live, semen and wine stains are about as wild as it gets.

My palpitations had barely subsided when a silver car came rocketing out of a riverbed, up a mountain, down a cliff, through the sea and along a beach. I was told that dozens of motoring journalists had voted it Car of the Year. I wasn’t told that motoring journalists would sell their sisters on eBay for a prawn cocktail and two shots of whisky.

Just when I thought the movie was about to come back on, the screen was filled with half-naked women carrying on as if the world were suddenly free of men. Were they celebrating the end of genital mutilation in Somalia? The end of death by stoning for committing infidelity in Saudi Arabia? The end of gender-based salary discrepancies everywhere? No. They were celebrating the end of dry skin.

I was suffering from the onset of dry throat so I went to the kitchen to fetch a fresh six-pack. In the time that it took me to pick the lock on the fridge, I missed the next few minutes of movie and returned just in time to see a woman coughing as if her swine flu had developed tuberculosis. Should this happen to me, I was advised to speak to my pharmacist without delay. Then she keeled over onto the bed. Dead? I hoped so.

A man appeared, stroking his unshaven chin. Not unshaven like a homeless man, but unshaven like a man who has been too busy negotiating a good price for Necker Island to bother about shaving. Our hero reached for the hydrogel nanoparticles that would leave him soft and smooth and ready to single-handedly overthrow Egypt’s military junta.

By now I had forgotten what movie I was watching. Oh, look! A Formula 1 racing car has just pulled into a petrol station, filled up and roared away. This is clearly the car to drive if you want to avoid having to wait for a surly attendant to finish his mutton curry pie and get off his fat arse to ensure that you miss your appointment by washing your windows and dropping your change.

Then the movie came back on. A giant anaconda was eating an entire village. Once it had finished it waddled back to the murky waters of the Amazon and a man in a white coat looked me in the eye and recommended that I change my toothpaste. He was deeply concerned about my dental health and urged me to visit my dentist regularly. He said it would put the smile back on my face. But it won’t. My face will be numb for days. It is my dentist’s face that will be smiling. Open your mouth in a dentist’s chair and the first charge incurred will be for infection control. When your dentist goes to Bangkok on holiday, he will convert this money into baht and buy a bag of condoms. So you end up paying for his infection control as well as your own.

Back to the movie. Damn. Missed it while looking for an opener. But what’s this? A family is camping out in the bush. They are sitting around a fire. Maybe this is the movie. That won’t keep the anaconda away. Maybe they had guns. But they didn’t. They had Snuggets. Blankets with arms sewn into them. Of course. Why didn’t I think of it?

For all these years, whenever I felt chilly I put on my jacket. Sure, my jacket had arms. But it wasn’t fleecy and purple, nor did it reach all the way down to my feet. In the pre-Snugget era, I would sometimes wrap a blanket around myself when the weather turned really cold. But then I found I was unable to use my arms. The only way I could eat was to shove my face into my plate and grab whatever I could with my teeth. Eating soup was hell. I could never hug anyone or point at anything. I couldn’t even read because my hands were trapped inside that damn blanket – the blanket with no arms.

I no longer cared what happened to the anaconda. I am addicted to infomercials. The longer I watch, the more it feels like I am hallucinating. After the first minute my head starts spinning. The colours become sharper and my heart begins pounding. It’s like being on acid without the blind terror or uncontrollable laughter.

It’s not just television, either. Much like men, newspapers are getting thicker by the day and my heart leaps when I see a fat, new one sprawled in the shop. I mean a newspaper, not a man. Next to women and beer, I love newspapers the most. If I see a woman drinking beer and reading a newspaper, I am finished.

But when I take it home and open it up, it is – like so many of the women I have brought home – filled with nothing but lies and empty promises. Sandwiched between the feature on lesbian Panda bears and the latest corruption scandal is page after page of stuff that I have to possess if I do not wish to become a lonely outcast whom children pelt with stones on the rare occasion that I stray from my wretched hovel in search of a half-jack of gin and a couple of loose Lexington’s.

Oh, look darling, we simply have to acquire a case of 25-year-old Chivas Regal. It’s going for only R5 499 a bottle! This is a family newspaper, for god’s sake, and I don’t mean the Oppenheimer family. Does Patrice Motsepe circle the specials in the Ultra Liquors insert while checking his gold shares? Perhaps, but I doubt it. Ordinary people like you and me, well, you mainly, need to know where to find semi-sweet white wine in plastic bottles.

Normal people want supplements advertising guns with their serial numbers filed off. They want to know where they can get hijacked cars, stolen cellphones and speed that isn’t cut with strychnine. They are looking for pirated appliances and clothes that are cheaper to throw away than take to the laundromat.

Most of the supplements I come across are filled with glittering baubles and glamorous gizmos that I will never be able to afford. A Toys R Us supplement is enough to plunge me into a black depression. Growing up in a cardboard box on the N2, the only toys I had were the marrowbones I scavenged from packs of stray dogs once they were done sucking on them. And now I am too old for toys.

What the producers of merchandise and their marketing hit men are doing is akin to bombing Sudanese refugee camps with Woolworth’s food supplements. The longer I gaze upon these glossy pages offering a lifestyle I will never have, the more I realise what a waste it has all been. If only I had worked harder at school. If only I hadn’t overslept that day of the interview. If only I had enough rope to hang myself with.

Hold on. What’s this? Rope World has a special on nooses! What extraordinary luck.

 

I am not Patrice Motsepe

I feel sorry for Patrice Motsepe. For a start, he’s the fourth richest man in the country. Fourth is a terrible position. I always came fourth in athletics at school, regardless of the event, and it was hell competing for a place on a podium built for three.

I feel Patrice’s pain. To have three white men above him on Forbes’ list of billionaires can’t be an easy thing to wake up to every morning. Especially not when one of them sells cigarettes, the other dabbles in diamonds and the third sells chicken pieces and whatnot.

But the real reason I feel sorry for him (I won’t even mention that he’s only the 642nd richest person in the world) is that he must be snowed under by the sheer volume of emails and letters he gets from people wanting something from him.

Look, I want some of his money just as much as the next man, but writing to him and asking him to share his R30-billion rand fortune with you is futile. What you need to do is wait outside his house and when he comes out, grab him and … no, wait. That’s a terrible idea. A man like that doesn’t travel without bodyguards. If you want to get your hands on some of his money, your best bet would be to work for him. I get a feeling that, in one way or another, we all work for Patrice.

I did, however, write a preposterous begging letter to the great man two years ago. It’s on my blog if you want to read it. Around 70 people have responded so far. Not, as you might think, to gush over my rapier wit or even to issue death threats, but to make their own requests to Patrice. On my blog. Because, as everyone knows, the second thing Patrice does when he wakes up on his goldbed (it’s like a waterbed but filled with liquid gold) is read my blog. The first thing he does is buy his wife a small Baltic republic she can call her own.

Those who responded to my drivel seemed to think I either was Patrice Motsepe or was so close to him that he’d stop whatever he was doing so that I could read their messages to him. Here are a few verbatim excerpts:

* “Mr Motsepe you brought positive life in and made see things in a different eye,is such an honour to write you a letter.Sir iwas reguesting you to help us build our Day care.”

* “Plz help me i am wiling to plæ soccer plz help me persue my dream.”

* “I ama profetional distance athlete in kimberly i m asking for sponsorship. In terms of running equipment transport financialy.”

* “hy mr motsepe i realy want your help,i want to be a model so can u please help me.”

*”I want donation educational toys,matersses,painted,chair,table,and gate any found accept . thank very much I wish me one of the win.”

* “i want to be a millionaire and ive have a greet plan .investing in the money market for only a year ,i need you to lend me 10 million then i return 12 million in a year and il keep 3 million ,but this money wont be handed to me but the bank and i wont be able to touch it because it will all be in your name ,gimme a email and il tell you.”

Some of the responses were more eloquent than others. Some were genuine, others were clearly taking a chance. And still they write. Quite frankly, I find it all rather sad. Patrice, I know you’re reading this. Give me your email address so that I can forward the correspondence. I promise never to write about you again.

 

 

 

So very launched

I don’t know why my publisher, Pan Macmillan, decided that I needed two launches for my book – Incognito – The Memoirs of Ben Trovato – in the space of a week in Cape Town. Perhaps they wanted a backup in case one of the launches had to be aborted like a cheap North Korean nuclear missile test.

Both events were wildly successful. Then again, I also think World War Two was wildly successful.

The man given the onerous task of interrogating me at Kalk Bay Books on 28^th May and again at the Book Lounge on 5^th June was the legendary troubadour and troublemaker, Roger Lucey.

The denizens of the Deep South emerged from their lairs to guzzle wine and beer at Kalk Bay Books, while the urbanistas did the same a week later at the Book Lounge, conveniently located across the road from the depraved Kimberley Hotel.

Thierry Cassuto – Maestro Geppetto of Puppet Nation ZA – had his contacts in the underworld deliver six bottles of Jameson’s to the Book Lounge, where shooters were shot and laughs were had.

Bella, who features in Incognito, stepped in to lend a hand. She said the only reason she let me live was because I had made myself look far worse than her in the book and she felt sorry for me.

Making my first public appearances after writing as Ben Trovato for over a decade was both terrifying and exhilarating. Apparently I have to do it all over again – twice – at the South African Book Fair next weekend. It’s enough to make one give up writing altogether.

Here are some photos from both launches.

 

 

Buster Blood Vessel

Almost a year ago, I hired a bicycle and rode from Blue Lagoon to uShaka Marine World to investigate the state of the beachfront. I wrote a column about it. My body must have sensed that it was time for its annual work-out and insisted that I take it to the bike hire place next to Circus Circus.

“Don’t be silly,” I said to my body. “You’ve got a hangover. Why not do it another time?”

My body crossed its arms and stamped its foot. “Because when another time comes around, you’ll have an excuse then, too. I’m atrophying, here. Take me for some exercise.”

“Or else what?”

“Or else I’ll stop your heart. Or tell your legs to run in front of a bus.”

My body has always had a bad attitude. Still, it’s not going to change now and I’d be an idiot to risk offending it.

“How long will you need it for?” asked the comrade behind the counter.

“Just a minute or two,” I said. My heart skipped a couple of beats.

“Just relax,” I muttered. “I’ll take it for six hours.” My heart began racing. “Ha ha,” I laughed. “That had you worried, didn’t it”?

The comrade looked at me as if I were mentally disturbed. Come to think of it, he was wearing a pair of wraparound reflecting sunglasses. What I saw was a reflection of me looking at myself as if I were mentally disturbed. I handed him my expired driving licence as security and the comrade’s sidekick showed me to the bicycles. Which one did I want? They all looked identical.

Something called a Cruiser was extracted and wheeled over to me. The handlebars looked like as if they were designed by someone on acid. “Does it have gears?” The sidekick searched my face for signs that I was joking. All he could find were signs that I was from an era when bicycles were still made with only one gear.

With a gentle breeze at my back, I set off in first gear for Blue Lagoon. It wasn’t long before I was going too fast for first, so I clicked down to sixth. I detected a subtle change in pressure or drag or whatever the hell it’s called. But there was no sound of cogs meshing, as one might expect. Either this was the latest in gear design or the bloody thing was broken.

With my legs windmilling wildly, the kilometres flew by at a brisk walking pace. I was surprised to see that the Laguna Beach pools had been tarted up. A year earlier, they looked like the kind of recreational facility you might expect to find at Auschwitz. A bit of grass might have been nice, though. And a few more benches. I saw a family sitting on the brick paving. You may think nothing of this, but I should point out that this was a white family. I haven’t seen white people sitting on the ground since the AWB tried to invade Bophuthatswana. Well, they weren’t so much sitting on the ground as they were slumped next to their bakkies getting shot by a member of the local constabulary. Okay, bad example.

Reaching the mouth of the Umgeni, it was hard not to notice that the area was as desolate as it had been a year earlier. Is it a Hollywood set for Mad Max Beyond Blue Lagoon? Is it meant to be art? Is the council making some kind of anti-aesthetic statement by turning a once-bustling fishing, dopping and skyfing spot into a barren wasteland? I pedalled through a gate marked Do Not Enter. They needn’t bother with the sign. Sylvia Plath would have found it too depressing. Another sign said, “Vumani Civils”. Vumani is presumably Zulu for “We have given up and gone home.”

As I turned to make the long trek south, the buster came through. I thought that was a bit unnecessary. Riding into the teeth of a vicious headwind, first gear never felt so good. I had to keep my head down, which meant hitting a few things along the way. Some screamed, some didn’t.

I was grateful to come across Bike & Bean, a new addition since my last journey into these parts. I collapsed onto a stool. Here was clearly a man in urgent need of some kind of attention. Quite possibly medical. The two dudes behind the bar made a point of not looking at me. The white one, Bike, juggled a soccer ball while Bean, the black one, stared at his phone. I was the only customer. I staggered over to a fridge and helped myself to a Coke.

A sign said it was 5kms to Ushaka. A sob escaped my cracked lips.

Back in the saddle, I wobbled past Anant Singh’s magnificent new film studio where Natal Command once stood. Of course I couldn’t actually see the R40-million rand complex. It’s amazing what they can do with special effects these days.

The building next to the Rachel Finlayson pool still doesn’t have a restaurant in it, although I did see some kind of activity on the top floor. It’s probably a bunch of enterprising surfers setting up a grow house ahead of parliament’s adoption of the Ambrosini Bill, which will make it mandatory for people over the age of 18 to smoke marijuana at least once a month.

Several kilometres on, I spotted a yellow shipping container on the promenade not far from Addington Hospital. It seemed the perfect location to sell expired medication to the poor and I was looking forward to negotiating a good deal on a batch of hallucinogenics. I couldn’t see how I was going to finish this expedition without drugs.

But it was Afro’s Chicken. I couldn’t even sit down because the only three tables were taken by people stuffing birds into their faces. I had a look at a menu stuck on the window. If you’re going to sell “tjips”, then why not also sell “shikkin”, “koalslor” and “hambergiz”? There’s a fortune to be made from the semi-literate market.

The Children’s Hospital, I was delighted to see, no longer looks like a crack house bombed by Somali rebels and Addington Hospital has a shiny new entrance that will go a long way towards reassuring people that they might not necessarily die if they had to be treated there.

With my last ounce of strength, I rode up to Wazoos, dropped my bike and slumped at a table. Now and again, I caught a fleeting glimpse of a waitress. She seemed to be stalking me, then, just before I could make eye contact, she’d disappear. This went on for a while. My hangover now relentless in its demand for sustenance, I returned to the bicycle and pointed its snout northwards. I only had a couple of hundred metres to go before Piatti appeared like some kind of divine oasis. I crawled onto the veranda and dragged myself onto a chair. The only other couple there pretended not to notice me. As did the waiters. Eventually the other couple called for their bill and a waiter was forced to walk past my chair. I grabbed his shirt before he could escape.

“A Windhoek lager and a menu. Please. Sorry. If it’s not too much trouble. Thank you.”

The wind changed. Then the seasons changed. It was the winter of 2016 when I went inside to look for my waiter. He had gone. It was as if he had never existed. Perhaps Anant Singh hired him.

The two greatest mysteries of this century – the whereabouts of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and my waiter.

 

 

 

Guide to Everything – The Absolutely Final Bit Of Useless Advice

 

How to get the most out of your drugs

It is important to remember that drugs are like electrical appliances. A grey product, whether it is heroin or a waffle iron, can kill you.

A popular misconception is that all drugs make you high. They do not. Some make you so low that you cannot even look your dog in the eye. This is why so many teenagers become disillusioned and cynical. The dealer on the corner says, “Hey pssst wanna get high?” and then sells them something that dumps them on level four of Dante’s Inferno.

Lysergic acid diethylamide is a bit like a child with Down Syndrome in that it is difficult to handle and can go off quite quickly. It is important to remember that not all types of LSD react in the same way. Superman, for example, becomes more powerful if left in direct sunlight for eight hours, while Goofy is at its best after two days in the fridge. It all comes down to acid management, really.

Cocaine, sprinkled lightly on a well-browned lasagna, is absolutely divine. But remember to use imported Italian tagliatelle and not that dreadful fake penne stuff churned out in the southern industrial area.

Marijuana, South Africa’s primary export crop, is one of the most versatile ingredients that you could hope to find at the back of your underwear drawer. It can be snorted like snuff, used to garnish a roast chicken or even brought out as a substitute for catnip to keep your new kittens amused for hours on end.

Ketamine is much like truffles in that it is very hard to find out of season. You may want to try your local vet, or even the stables if you have any nearby. Horse tranquilizers are among the most effective in their group and have been known to quieten down even the most neurotic of Joburg kugels. Racehorses rarely misbehave and there is no reason why you should, either.

Psilocybin is absolutely delicious when fried up with a few rashers of back bacon, a handful of wild tomatoes and three or four free-range eggs. Wake up early on a Sunday morning and surprise your loved one with a tray of these earthy delights. He or she will thank you in many new and interesting ways. Put the fun back in fungus!

Heroin should be avoided because it is just plain immoral to buy anything from Afghanistan now that America has taken over the drug trade.

Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, street slang for Ecstasy, is hard to beat when it comes to chasing away those Monday morning blues. Washed down with a glass of fresh orange juice, you’ll find the day simply flying by in a warm, fuzzy blur of contentment.

Beer, like a dead body, should be kept on ice at all times. At breakfast time, it makes a refreshing change from mango juice and always goes well with a fish lunch. Some say that beer itself makes the ideal lunch, but I believe that you should always snack on something while drinking beer. That way, when you develop an enormous gut, you can always blame the peanuts.

 

What to do if your girlfriend is a barmaid

Unless you are a rabid teetotaler with right-wing fundamentalist tendencies, the chances are that you have fantasized about having a relationship with the woman who works behind the bar in your local pub. Or any pub, for that matter. This is quite normal and you have nothing to worry about. Unless, of course, she is one of those chain-smoking bartenders with stringy hair, elephantine thighs and a furtive addiction to cheap brandy. Then you should be worried.

The advantages of having a bartender girlfriend far outweigh the disadvantages. To make full use of this rare opportunity, it is advisable that you spend as much time in the bar as possible. You will never again have such a watertight case for going to the bar night after night.

Order as many drinks from her as possible. It is her job to bring them to you and, unlike when she is at home with you, she is not allowed to refuse. Stockpile if you have to, but whenever she gets a breather between serving other people, shout at the top of your voice, “Bartender! Another pint of your finest!” Then, when she brings it to you, lean quickly over the bar counter and kiss her full on the lips. This will drive the other patrons into a frenzy of envy. The danger, here, is that they will all start trying it and the next thing you know you are up on the bar with your stool in one hand and a broken bottle in the other, threatening to disembowel the next man who touches your girl.

It might be wiser not to kiss her at all. Anyway, there is a very good chance that kissing her will affect her tips in a big way.

Something happens to men’s brains when they walk into a bar. I have seen it happen countless times. Their tips grow progressively larger as the evening drags on, as if somehow a magical number will be reached whereby the bartender will drop her tray and say, “Oh, baby, you’re such a great tipper. Please come home with me!” I have only seen this happen once in my life and I can tell you that the circumstances on that occasion were far from normal.

So if a customer catches you with your tongue in the bartender’s mouth, he is going to correctly assume that something is not quite kosher. And if he suspects that he has a less than zero chance of getting jiggy with her, he will see little point in tipping her after every drink. She needs her tips. So do you. In fact, you may want to set a precedent by giving her ridiculously large tips after every drink in the hope that everyone else will feel guilty enough to do the same. You can always get your money back later while she is asleep.

 

How to win the Argus/Pick n Pay Cycle Tour

The first thing you should know about this race is that the route is a very difficult one. However, there are certain parts that will make it a lot easier for you to finish, and even win, this race.

My favourite is a cul-de-sac at the bottom of Queens Road in Sea Point. From here to the finish line is a mere 3.5kms. There is a large bush growing on a traffic island at the entrance to the cul-de-sac. If you are careful and get there early enough, none of the organisers will spot you. Then it’s just a matter of waiting for the race leaders to swing out of Victoria Road, into Queens and then it’s a sharp right at the traffic circle and into Beach Road, the home stretch. Because of the hairpin bend, riders are preoccupied with making the turn and spectators are busy silently willing someone to crash. Nobody will notice as you slip out from behind the bush and join the frontrunners. A word of advice. Come in at the back. This is very important. If you suddenly appear in front of someone who has risked his heart and genitals to keep the lead for the last 100kms, he will not be as accommodating as you might think.

It is just as important to decide well beforehand what drugs you are going to take. Narco-loading is vital for racers such as us. Essentially, we are sprinters. And jumping into the race two hours after the official start is not as easy as it sounds. For a start, the drugs will make you thirsty. I have always found that two plastic bottles, one holding white wine and the other red, can clip neatly onto the frame of any of the more expensive models.

If wine is too pretentious for you, I suggest you make use of one of those cunning backpacks that are designed to hold a litre of pre-mixed Jose Cuervo and orange juice. It is easy enough to run a plastic tube from the bottle to the mouth.

Ideal race drugs include Dexedrine to get the heart rate up, Ketamine to verbally abuse your fellow competitors and LSD to brighten up the colours. Just remember that while narco-loading is great for short sprints, one of the side effects is that you see and hear things that might not altogether exist.

If you finish the race and claim victory, there may be a lot of angry people in yellow vests who will try to convince you otherwise. Whether or not you listen to them is up to you.

If you are a man, you might also want to think about rolling up a pair of socks and putting them down your Lycra shorts. Sportsmen are always held in higher esteem when people see that they are hauling serious freight. If you are arrested at any time during or after the race, be sure to remove the socks before entering the police cell.

 

How to behave when impersonating a doctor

I am not sure why, but it is apparently illegal to masquerade as a doctor. On the other hand, it is quite legal to impersonate a journalist. It makes no sense to me. If you visit a doctor or speak to a journalist, you are quite literally putting your life in their hands. But while a journalist might destroy your reputation, a doctor can do little more than cause you physical harm.

Besides, untrained and unqualified doctors would be a whole lot cheaper than some of those heartless greedheads out there who think the world owes them a living just because they are legally entitled to render you unconscious and then slice you up like you were some kind of prime beef.

Bastards.

When deciding to impersonate someone in the medical profession, it will be quite tempting to pretend to be a surgeon. There is something about all that scrubbing up and snapping on of rubber gloves that appeals to a surprising number of men (17.2%) and women (0.1%). However, I strongly suggest that you choose to impersonate someone else.

Surgeons are regularly called upon to perform surgery. This is why they are called surgeons. And unless you know your spleen from your pancreas, it is best to stay away from the operating theatre. Besides, most men (87.5%) know so little about the workings of the female body that they could not be trusted with a naked, drugged woman lying on a table in front of them. Especially not with a razor-sharp scalpel in their hands. Women impersonators, too, should avoid a similar situation involving male patients, especially if they suffer from penis envy.

It is, however, easy enough to impersonate a general practitioner and move through the wards in a white coat and stethoscope feeling patients’ foreheads and making them laugh with your comically exaggerated invoices. But keep it professional. You do not want to be mistaken for Patch Adams.

If you are a man, you might want to be among the 0.3% of men who impersonate gynaecologists. This is the dream job of most adolescent boys. It is only when they grow up that they realise this is not at all what they want from life. There is no rational explanation for this, particularly when you consider that a mechanic will work on a Porsche Spyder all day long and when it comes time to knock off he will drive home quite happily in his Nissan Sentra. Perhaps there are fundamental differences between cars and women that should be taken into account here.

Research undertaken by nobody who wants to come forward and take credit for it has shown that it is far more fulfilling to impersonate a doctor of the mind. The good thing about pretending to be a head doctor is that you can operate from your home and you do not need much in the way of specialised equipment. A couch, a box of tissues and a notebook and pen should cover it. If you have one, a video camera can liven things up a bit.

If you do this properly, it won’t be long before you develop a healthy list of unhealthy patients. There is really only one thing to remember when treating mentally ill people. Do not laugh at them. Ever. Do not even try to laugh with them. If they start laughing, excuse yourself and leave the room until they have stopped. The sounds you are looking for are mewling and sobbing. Only then can you do your job properly.

Diagnosing people with psychiatric problems is a lot easier than you think. For a start, they hardly ever argue with you because they genuinely believe they are sick and you aren’t. This gives you an edge right away.

If you are ever at a loss for words, all you have to do is rub your chin, look out of the window, nod slowly and mumble. It doesn’t really matter what you mumble because most of the time the patient will be too afraid to ask you to repeat it. If they do ask, however, you could say something like, “It’s the Aubert-Fleischl paradox. Hmm. Very interesting. Very interesting indeed …” The patient will not press you for details because they already fear for their sanity and would rather not know about the Aubert-Fleischl paradox.

Developing your own Rorschach Test can also be a lot of fun. If you have small children, you might get them to play around with a bottle of ink and a few pages of blotting paper. See what they come up with and then pass them on to your patients. At the very least, the family will have a good laugh around the dinner table that night.

If you are trying to get rid of a problem patient (i.e. one who never pays on time), you might suggest that, at your next session, you will explain the Whorfian hypothesis as it relates to his condition. He won’t be back.

If a patient’s symptoms make no sense whatsoever (e.g. biting the edge of your desk while urinating into your wastepaper bin), do not be alarmed. Have a little sport. The best way of passing the time in extreme situations is to tell the patient that he is suffering from a range of phobias. Ask him to subtract 1 from 14. If he runs into the wall screaming, tell him he has triskaidekaphobia. When he has calmed down, tell him you have detected signs of dysmorphophobia. Don’t tell him what it means. He will find out on his own and will never again be able to look into a mirror. There are many more. Keep going until he signs up for another 20 sessions. If you have done your job properly, he will have developed phobophobia, the fear of acquiring a phobia, by the time he leaves.

If a patient confronts you with suspicions that you are an impersonator, laugh and tell him that this is understandable because you subscribe to the Gestalt psychology movement and patients often say that. Once he discovers that there is no English equivalent for the word Gestalt, he will have no option but to give you the benefit of the doubt. He already suspects he is going mad and will not want to appear stupid on top of it.

 

How to be a sex tourist while training for the Kololi pool challenge in the Gambia

Some people think that sex tourism is all there is to the Gambia. This is not true. There is also the Kololi Pool Challenge that takes place once a year. Or once a week, depending on the number of entries. And the rainy season. And the groundnut harvest.

The best way to prepare for the tournament is to become a sex tourist. I have always found that if you choose a short, heavy cue and a tall, light-skinned woman, you stand a damn good chance of winning. Most of your opponents will be Rastafarians. They play with heads full of powerful Gambian weed. But do not be lulled into a false sense of security just because they have to be reminded whether they are stripes or solids after every shot. Your opponents will also be attached to some of the biggest, scariest women you will ever come across in your life. Try not to be intimidated. They are sex tourists just like you, except they are from Dusseldorf and Wapping.

It is important that you learn some basic Wolof so that you can order beers and women throughout the challenge. You do not want to run dry of either. This will give your opponents the edge. Here is a helpful phrase I picked up while defending my title a few years ago. “Danka Danka mojapa golo sinjai.” It means, “Slowly, slowly catchee monkey”. Either that or, “Slowly, slowly catchee syphilis”.

 

How to deal with a woman who wears fur coats

Try to get her into bed as quickly as possible. Women who wear fur are animalistic and violent, but better than that, they are usually very rich.

If she refuses to sleep with you, there are several ways in which to respond. You may want to buy a gram or so of PCP (Angel Dust) and follow her home. Sneak into the garden when she is in her bedroom biting the legs off baby mice or whatever it is that women who wear fur and won’t sleep with us do when they are alone. Wrap the PCP in a pork sausage and feed it to her dog when it comes out to bark at you. Two hours later, when she bends down to kiss her beloved pooch good night, its little brain will be about ready to snap its moorings. Try not to laugh as she runs from the house with a Maltese poodle latched to her throat like some kind of avante garde accessory from the House of Pain.

 

What to do if your partner has an aversion to bathing

This is essentially a male trait, but I have encountered women who suffer from what I consider a deviant version of hydrophobia.

There was one woman in particular who resolutely refused to shower or bath, regardless of how much money I offered her. I tried to find out the reason once or twice but never really made an issue out of it because some women are sensitive to interrogation.

In the end I gave up trying to convince her that soap and water are not the twin pillars of evil and instead began licking her clean. It was fun while it lasted, but it is not something I would recommend on any long-term basis.

However, should you find yourself married to such a person, there are a number of tongue exercises that you can do. Tie a piece of string to the top of a full beer bottle and wrap the other end tightly around the base of your tongue. Now hang your head down as if you are about to throw up. Retract your tongue slowly and then let it out again. Do this 50 times while taking short, shallow breaths like a dog panting on a hot day. This will develop your diaphragm and give you the necessary stamina to lick your woman from head to toe at least three times a week.

 

Guide to Everything – Still More Useless Advice

 

Pissoir etiquette

If you are alone and a man walks up and takes the urinal next to you, it is important to make a point of looking at his willy. This shows that you were there first and are in charge of the pissoir. He will get stage fright and will have to stand there pointlessly holding his willy in his hand until you zip up and leave. Again, it is important for you to hold your ground. Do not leave until he does.

Even if you have finished your business, put your willy back in its pouch and stand there. The intruder knows that he cannot leave because that would mean never being able to show his face in those parts again. He also knows that he badly needs to go, but cannot because you are now standing there with your hands in your pockets, making popping noises with your mouth and staring at the ice in the urinal.

Why all the pretty girls shop at Woolworths

This is true. In fact, I don’t think ugs are even allowed in. If you are into ugs, try Shoprite. The place is full of them. Lovely warm women with great characters and faces like dog’s bums. They are often very friendly and smile at me in a non-threatening manner because they are accustomed to men not wanting to have sex with them. But go to Woolworths and you will see the difference.

There, the nip ‘n tuck brigade stalk the aisles with intent. When a woman makes lingering eye contact with you in Shoprite, you can be sure that she is in one of those thousand-yard stares that women get when they are wondering if it’s worth walking all the way to the meat section to see if anything is on special.

A woman who does this in Woolworths is asking to be roundly rogered in the fruit and veg section as soon as management turns his back. This doesn’t happen to everyone, of course.

Don’t think you can buy your groceries at Shoprite and then stop off at Woolworths for a meat pie and a quick shag behind the kosher section. It doesn’t work that way. You have to belong. And believe me, these women know at a glance if you belong.

The simple act of picking up a basket marks you as an outsider. This tells the regular that you either don’t have enough money for a full trolley of luxuries or, even worse, you live alone. And while the married Woolworth’s woman is not morally opposed to the idea of an affair, she would far rather have one with a man who is also living with somebody.

Woolworth’s women prefer to have their food neatly packaged and compartmentalised, just like their men. This is why when the aisles are suddenly invaded by an unruly brute with an unshaven face and shirt hanging out, they become momentarily disorientated. Take advantage of their confusion. Wear reflective sunglasses and follow them about. This won’t do much for you, but it gives them a thrill.

How to appear smarter than you really are

The main thing here is not to talk. Unless you are cross-eyed and dribbling with a traffic cone on your head, it is very difficult for anyone to gauge how intelligent you are merely by looking at you.

Women have the edge, here. Nobody likes a woman who talks too much. Not even other women, but only because it cuts into their voice time. To get a man’s attention, all a woman has to do is smile and drop her eyes. Not physically, of course. No man, with the exception of the odd German, would be aroused by the sight of a woman’s eyeballs rolling about the floor.

Sooner or later, men have to talk. They can carry the strong, silent type thing for only so long. And, unlike women, they can’t get away with flashing a bit of cleavage in lieu of an entire evening’s conversation.

So, if you are a man and you are particularly stupid, make sure you have a few prepared quotes. If you are unable to memorise them, enter them into your cellphone and then, while pretending to check your messages, recite them. Here are a few you may wish to use.

• Did you now that mental illness is the second leading cause of disability and early death in the US and other developed countries?
• You have the most beautiful (insert feature) I have ever seen.
• What do you think Descartes really meant when he said: “Cogito, ergo sum”?
• Fancy a quick shag?

How to deal with road rage

First, you have to choose a weapon. It’s no good snorting and saying, “Well, obviously.” Many drivers assume that they are prepared simply because they have grabbed whatever comes to hand and tossed it into the back of the car with absolutely no thought to the matter.

I know someone who keeps a pool noodle under his seat. When I asked him the reason, he said it was the first thing he saw in the garage. He claimed that he could disable me within 30 seconds using his noodle. When I laughed he became very defensive and asked if he should go and fetch his noodle. I said that wouldn’t be necessary. I wasn’t about to take any chances. Perhaps he really has mastered a new art of Chinese noodle fighting.

Most people prefer the more conventional tools of the trade. Baseball bats, hockey sticks and pick handles are all popular among the Jetta and Polo set. BMW drivers tend to opt for more exotic implements such as the short-handled Ovambo war club, while Mercedes-owners go for the more technologically advanced but less sporting snub-nosed Beretta.

I know this will offend some people, but I find the baseball bat very clichéd. Every moron with a licence seems to think he is the first to come up with the idea. Personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead assaulting anyone with a baseball bat, even if it is one of those fancy Tungsten ones. Now if you want to talk about a hand carved kliphout knobkierrie from the Lusikisiki area, that’s another matter.

Knowing how to use your tool is almost as important as knowing which one to choose. Even young children think they know how to disable a careless driver with something as crude as a baseball bat. Pick it up and swing, right? Wrong! Like throwing a boomerang, it is all in the wrist action.

You also need to know what kind of injury you are going to inflict. Bludgeoning is passé. It not only leaves a terrible mess behind, but you also run the risk of pulling a muscle. The modern road rager prefers to go for something a little tidier, like a snapped tibia.

There is also something very modern about leaving behind nothing more than a pair of crushed metacarpals. It is almost feng shui in its simplicity.

How to deal with rogue cops

It is important to remember that all cops are rogue cops. The only difference is that some are able to repress their dark side better than others.

The urge to carry guns and handcuffs and interfere in everyone’s lives is not a natural one. This is why it is always a good idea to treat the police with a great deal of circumspection. The hardwiring in their brains is already out of whack and it does not take a great deal of provocation to get them frothing at the mouth and scrabbling for weapons.

Talk to them as you would any other decent human being. The only difference is, do it as if you have a speech impediment. A great deal of fun can be had by talking to a policeman as if you were born with a harelip. Or you may wish to try a falsetto lisp. I have a friend who prefers to reverse his l’s and r’s.  Police are not trained to deal with people who are clearly afflicted with some kind of terrible disorder that makes them sound like a cross between a Chinese transvestite and a steam train.

If you have a car full of people, it is important that they do not burst out laughing as you spew your mangled words in the officer’s general direction. It is best not to play this game if anybody in the car is stoned. I have found that people high on drugs are rarely able to contain their emotions in such situations. And there are few things more dangerous that a constable who realises he is being mocked. So, rule number one is: keep a straight face at all times.

Rogue cops can be dangerously unpredictable. That is why they are called rogue cops. One of the first things you may want to do upon being confronted by a rogue cop is disarm him. This sounds harder than it actually is.

The trick to getting his gun away from him is to get him to swallow six or seven Rohypnols. If you don’t have any Rohypnols on you, I suppose you could use any other industrial strength muscle relaxant. Nine times out of ten, the officer will immediately return to his car and take a long nap. Sometimes he will take a nap right there next to your car in the middle of the street. The decent thing to do is to drag his lifeless body out of the road and make him comfortable on the pavement, or preferably down an embankment where nobody can see him. When he wakes he will feel refreshed and in a better mood, and you will be at home drinking cold beer and watching television. Everyone wins. Unfortunately, the lawyers have informed me that I am unable to give precise instructions on how to get the Rohypnol into the officer.

How to deal with new age faith healers in public conveniences

New Age faith healers go around telling people stories like this: “Nicanor, a lame man, was sitting by the temple when a young boy ran up to him and snatched away his crutches. Nicanor chased after the boy and was cured.” Then they stand back and look at you with a triumphant smile as if to say, “What more proof could you possibly want?”

Many people have had this kind of encounter. Bodger was one of them. Bodger was married to his stepsister’s friend’s cousin and spent some time in London but then came back to South Africa. Bodger said he was standing at the trough in a public urinal in Margate when a man came up next to him and started telling him about the time when the infertile Agameda of Ceoa went to sleep in the temple, whereupon she dreamt of a serpent lying on her belly and five children were later born to her. Bodger is one of those men who find it impossible to pee with another man standing right there, even if he is not saying anything. He said he ignored the man and tried to pretend that he was an engineer at a hydroelectric power station opening up a jammed valve, and was almost there when this stranger started recounting another story of a patient at the ancient Greek health spa, Epidauras. He turned to Bodger and said, “When perchance my penis was hurt, I feared the surgeon’s hands. I was reluctant to entrust my membrum virile to the care and the very great gods such as Phoebus and the son of Phoebus.”

Bodger says he has never been back to a public urinal. He says he goes in the bushes or, if there are no bushes around, he might go between two parked cars. Unless, of course, there is a street light right above him in which case he says he tries to hold it until he gets home.

The point of the story is that New Age healers can be found anywhere. And they do not take kindly to arguments. If, for instance, Bodger had said to this man that Agameda had no business being in a temple alone at night and that it’s not surprising she encountered a lonely “serpent”, it is very likely that the man would have sprayed Bodger’s leg with urine and run off down the street.

Ignoring faith healers rarely works because in their fevered minds, silence is a sign of kinship and it only encourages them to try to reach you on a deeper level.

If you are stuck next to someone who suddenly begins explaining the Tridosha theory to you, it is best that you interrupt and point out that Grigori Rasputin is your spiritual leader and that you are a high-ranking member of the Khlist sect. Tell him you are a practised flagellant and invite him back to your place for a good, healthy whipping. That should distract him long enough for you to reach the safety of a crowd.

How to cure your partner of jealousy

Jealousy is the strangest of all the crippling neuroses we have at our disposal. It is a destructive emotion that rears its viperous head in many different forms.

Take penis envy, for instance. For a lot of men, this form of jealousy manifests itself when they find themselves standing at the pissoir alongside a man who is hung like a wildebeest. What these men don’t realise, however, is that when Sigmund Freud spoke of penis envy he had something else in mind. Freud had a theory that the anatomical differences between the sexes lead every girl to envy every boy his possession of the penis. And as she grows up, her wish to possess a penis turns into a wish to possess a man as the carrier of a penis. This, in turn, transforms itself into something even more complex involving the holding of grudges against other women for their possession of men (and their penises, I presume). Freud was clearly out of his mind.

Modern psychology proposes a number of different ways of curing your partner of jealousy, but I have always found the most effective method to be the .357 Magnum, although these days most women prefer the less cumbersome but equally effective 9mm Glock. It looks like a toy but the women I have spoken to swear it works like a charm. One well-placed shot and, voila, no more jealousy.

 

Guide to Everything – Even More Useless Advice

 

How to deal with self-pity

Wallow in it. Wallow like a big fat warthog in a mud pool. Put on Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads and take the elevator all the way to the basement. Do not stop at the ground floor. All the losers are on the ground floor. You are not a loser. Well, you are, but you are a different kind of loser.

The ones huddled together on the ground floor lack the courage to indulge in pure 100% hi-octane self-pity. For a start, they are missing self-hatred, a vital component of remorse that only the true masters of self-pity are able to excavate from the tortured belly of this restless beast. Go all the way down. Take a deep breath and plummet. Put on Songs of the Damned, light a candle, pop a Seconal and take out all the old photos. After that, the only way out is up.

Surviving erectile dysfunction

This is a condition created by many different factors, chief among them the features editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. She created the condition so she could reassure her readers that it is not their fault. Cosmo readers are damn near perfect and if they are unable to get their men aroused, well, they should simply cancel their subscriptions and start reading Farmer’s Weekly.

It is a little known fact that erectile dysfunction has nothing to do with men. It is not caused by the stress of closing yet another multi-million dollar deal. It is not caused by clogged arteries. It is caused by women.

Bobby, the ex-boyfriend of a former friend’s girlfriend told me that he has never experienced erectile dysfunction while he is on his own. The only times he has ever had trouble with his willy were when women were in the area. Bobby is not bent. I have seen pictures and I can attest to that. Bobby is among countless men who frequently find themselves naked with women whose only appeal turns out to lie in the fact that they will have to leave sooner or later.

Some say beer is to blame. Far be it for me to defend beer, but let me just say that while beer might be a contributing factor in taking the gravel donkey home in the first place, it also serves as a self-defence mechanism in that it prevents you from acting on your misguided impulse. Beer is good in that way.

I have never met a man who has gone home with a Charlize Theron lookalike after a few pints and said the next day that he couldn’t get it up. The fact that I have never met a man who has gone home with a Charlize Theron lookalike is not the point. You know I am right.

So, men, do not feel shattered when you are stricken with erectile dysfunction. Do not be afraid to tell the truth. And you, women, shame on you. Shame on you for blaming the beer, the cigarettes, the stress, the volatile heart condition and the ex-girlfriend.

Erectile dysfunction is caused by women who talk their way into your bed and then, when it is too late, you find they cannot spell. It is caused by women who lie through their teeth and kiss like Gila monsters.

How to get a job

First of all, make sure that you are not white. White is last year’s black and is hopelessly out of vogue among the new elite. If you cannot afford a full-body skin graft, then be very humble when applying for a job. Keep your eyes on the floor and your hands where they can be seen.

How to keep a job

Everyone is always saying how, even though they are desperately unhappy at work, they still count themselves very lucky to have a job in these harsh times of financial belt-tightening and racial quotas. This is just plain stupid. There have been no fundamental changes in the workplace since the industrial revolution. All that has happened is that a bunch of backstreet businessmen and assorted capitalist lackeys have spawned a slew of books with titles like The One Minute Manager and Six Secrets to Success.

In turn, the hard-nosed but generally even-handed bosses of the past began devolving into the two-faced expatriate Eurotrash scumbags who run most companies today. Where they once ruled by respect, they now rule by fear.

Through the underhand corporate philosophies propagated by people like, well, let me rather not mention names, today’s employers have learnt how to make their workers believe that they are lucky to have their jobs. If the propaganda has been installed correctly on the employee’s internal drive, it doesn’t matter how appalling the working conditions may be. The poor bastard could be using blunt nail scissors to cut matchsticks into equal lengths for 18 hours a day, and if the boss has applied the proper techniques, the shattered employee will drag his numb brain and body into bed at night and thank god he has a job in these hard times.

The strategy to get a worker into this state of mind is not particularly sophisticated. In fact, much like poker and marriage, it is based on the art of bluffing. This is how it works:

Employee: “Sir, I’ve worked here for 25 years without a raise. But I’m not complaining. However, I’d like to have this Friday afternoon off.”

Employer: “Well, you can’t. And if you don’t like it, you can leave. There are a thousand people lined up around the block waiting for your job.”

Employee (sobbing): “I’m sorry, sir! I don’t know what came over me!”

If the employee had not allowed himself to have been so effectively brainwashed, he might have answered thus:

Employee (letter-opener against employer’s carotid artery): “You sick, twisted motherfucker. You don’t scare me. Go ahead, do your worst.”

Try it. You will be surprised at the results.

How to lose a job

See above.

How to analyse someone with the sole intention of getting laid

Rule number one. Never take a guess at their star sign. This is strictly for amateurs. When I was young and foolish I did this on several occasions, but only because the women were always wearing something that suggested they were astrologically inclined (dreamcatcher earrings, tie-dye pants, pierced tongue and so on). Without fail, the conversation went like this:

Me: Hi (nod and smile). You’re a Gemini, aren’t you?

Her: Um, no.

Me: Of course. Now I can see it. You’re a cusp. Taurus, right?

Her: No (turns to friend and mouths ‘help’).

If you are going to try such tomfoolery, make damn sure you know your signs and what they mean. I have no idea and yet there are still times when I feel inclined to use the line.

I know for a fact that there are women out there who will sleep with any man capable of guessing their star sign, but while she may be fun for a while, it won’t be long before you start considering how to short-circuit her electric yoga mat.

You will wake up on Sunday mornings to the stench of cheap incense and the sound of the Tarot deck being shuffled. Believe me, there is nothing that ruins a lazy Sunday morning more than getting the Death card three times in a row. She will laugh gaily and tell you, “No! No! It’s a good card!” It is not a good card. It has a picture of a skeleton on it. How good is that?

Where was I? Oh, yes. Psychoanalysis as a tool for achieving despicable ends.

Psychoanalysis is easier to do than it is to spell. Of course, the experts won’t tell you this. If their dirty little secret had to get out, nobody would bother wasting enormous amounts of time and money in stuffy little lecture rooms so that they could get a fancy-looking piece of paper saying Psychoanalyst so that they could spend the rest of their lives in stuffy little offices talking to mad people.

The only real difference between the Trained Psychoanalyst and the Street Psychoanalyst is that the Trained Psychoanalyst nods a lot and gives the mad people useless bits of advice in return for huge sums of money, while the Street Psychoanalyst laughs a lot and gives mad people drugs so that he can have sex with them. Both can be found staking their turf on the moral low ground.

A lot of fun can be had with emotional disorders. Some people seem to think that the disturbed mind is a thing to be treated with respect and caution. Nonsense! Embrace it! Just make sure that it is not carrying a flick knife when it embraces you back.

What makes street psychoanalysis such fun is that you can invite all your friends around to your place and hypnotise them and then delve into their collective subconsciousness.

If your friends are anything like mine, they are unlikely to be harbouring anything particularly interesting. Maybe a bath time fondle from Aunt Julie or a glad-hand from Uncle Pervy, but nothing to write home about. So what you have to do is make up some really wild stuff once they come out of hypnosis. Tell them that they were recounting the most horrendous stories of abuse, committed both by and against them.

They will be so disturbed by this revelation that they will come back to you over and over for advice and suggestions. This is when you start charging them or sleeping with them.

How to behave on the wine route

Most importantly, do not be intimidated. You will encounter people from the horsy set. In fact, some of them may even be horses. They let anything in on some of these estates.

The wine route goes back hundreds of years to a time when labourers would go from farm to farm begging to be allowed to work in return for a bottle of wine. This fine tradition continues today. The only difference is that the labourers are no longer allowed anywhere near the manor house. The wine is delivered to them in the fields.

While on your wine-tasting excursion, make liberal use of words like “woody”, “petulant” and “cheeky”. These terms can be applied equally to the wine and the staff.

I was unaware of it when I embarked upon my first tour of the Western Cape wine farms, but it is not acceptable to continue sampling the most expensive wines without showing some sort of indication that you are prepared to actually buy a bottle.

Staff are trained to compile psychological profiles of everyone who walks in. But they can’t watch us all. Make sure that you follow a tour group inside. While the French are hawking and spitting and generally behaving badly, you can get down twelve, maybe fifteen, glasses of the cheap stuff.

Since the tots are a little on the teeny side, I have found that pouring five or six different wines into one glass often works best. Then you can sip at your leisure while the attendant refills the glasses that she thinks the greedy French have finished. Repeat until you are led out staggering and shouting about the time you were caught deep in Shiraz country with your trousers around your ankles and a donkey on your ass.

How to respond if a person of a different race hits on you

Rule number one. Don’t panic. First, ascertain the colour. With skin lighteners and tanning beds, it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell a person’s race with any degree of certainty. The waters have been muddied and the lines blurred.

You do not want to come across as politically incorrect, so do not, under any circumstances, refuse to go to bed with them should they ask.

However, if it turns out that they only want a few bob to buy a loaf of bread and a small house in Llandudno, then it is important to know which tribe they belong to. Should you fail to obtain this information, you run the risk of responding in a fashion that will brand you as a cultural anachronism, and even though you don’t know what it means you know it can’t be good.

Remember that white is also a colour. Not a very impressive one, admittedly, but it is most definitely a colour and should be treated as such. However, if you are black and a white person hits on you, this does not mean you should stab them in the eye with your swizzle stick and run like hell. They probably mean you no harm. You may, however, find that they are German or Swedish, but this shouldn’t be a problem because black and white South Africans are still struggling to speak the same language so you should feel quite at home.

How to avoid getting old

• Autoerotic asphyxiation.
• Swim naked at Gansbaai while a friend on a boat pours fish guts into the water around you.
• Cut a broomstick into six or seven equal lengths and run towards an Israeli military checkpoint shouting in Arabic.
• Use embalming fluid instead of milk with your morning cereal.

How to drink and dive with panache

Drinking and diving is the new paralympic sport for athletes disabled in drink-driving accidents. They still get to drink but all they need is a Speedo and a towel instead of a high-powered car. The water is softer than the concrete underpass that they rammed and they still get to do somersaults, except this time off a diving board and not through the windscreen.

Guide to Everything – Part 2 Section D

 

How to make a man fall in love with you

 

Meeting his friends

 

Somebody once said you can judge a man by his friends. Plato, probably. Then again, Plato never had any friends, so what did he know? None of those Greek deviants had proper friends. They all slept with young boys and took mind-altering drugs.

Most men are heavily influenced by their friends. They are also heavily influenced by alcohol, but mainly by their friends. Their drinking buddies, actually. Their attitude towards you will be an indirect reflection of the attitude of his friends towards your relationship. I know it sounds twisted, but it’s true. And it gets worse. Men who get together for a few beers, and don’t talk about women, are either into computers or other men. You do not want to be involved with either category.

Remember that your man is still a snigelton in his mind. No, he is not. He is a singleton. I have no idea what a snigelton is. The first time he gets together with his mates after meeting you, he will not immediately tell them that he has met the most wonderful woman in the world. It is the way of the bachelor to bemoan the lack of suitable women i.e. women who drop their knickers at the sound of a high-pitched whistle. He knows that admitting to having met you will break the sacred circle. So he buys everyone a few rounds and waits until everyone is plastered and then says, “I met someone the other night.”

The others round on him as the senators rounded on Brutus. Some look in awe, others in horror. When you tell your friends that you’ve met someone, they are quite likely to say, “What’s he like?” and “What does he do?” When he tells his friends he has met a girl, they ask the same questions but add “in bed” to the end of each.

Many single men spend a lot of their time getting laid vicariously. So if you overhear your man telling his mates that when you are naked together it’s like sharing a bed with a giant oil-coated squid, you should realise that he not only means this as a compliment, but that he is also feeding his bachelor buddies’ fantasies to help get them through another week.

The quickest way to lose your man is by turning on his friends. Not turning them on. Turning on them. It is important that you make the distinction. Remember that he has known them a lot longer than he has known you. Having met you, his loyalties are now divided and he is easily confused. Weaning him off years of Friday night debauchery with his mates will take some time. Don’t force him to go the cold turkey route. Right from the start of the relationship, you need to give him the impression that you don’t mind if he goes out for a few beers with the old crew. But don’t overplay your hand. Try to avoid encouraging him to go out for as long as he wants any night of the week. This will only make him suspicious. He will begin wondering about your ambivalence and before long he will have convinced himself that the reason you want him out of the way is because you are having an affair with his best friend who, strangely enough, hasn’t made the last two Friday night sessions. Then you will never get him out of the house.

At the same time, you don’t want to let him completely off the leash. I have found that men respond best when they are on one of those expandable leashes that gives them the impression that they can run free but, just as they reach the point of no return, the leash runs out and they are pulled up short. This allows you to reel your man in without too much of a struggle. It’s a bit like having a disoriented barbel on the end of your line.

If you reach a point where your man is still spending the same amount of time with his friends as when he was a bachelor, you may want to consider using the most powerful weapon in your arsenal to bring him to his senses. Don’t be coy. You know exactly what I am talking about. However, it is important that you do not use your hamster as a weapon. Rather use it as bait. More fish have been caught with tasty morsels than with baseball bats. So make it clear to him that if he goes out with his friends on a Saturday night, he should try to be home by midnight otherwise you and your tasty morsel will be fast asleep and quite unavailable until late Wednesday afternoon. Once he realises this, he will quickly rearrange his schedule to fit in with your hours of business.

Women and alcohol feed every man’s will to live. And he will soon enough adapt to circumstances once he realises that bottle stores are shut and legs are closed as a consequence of his actions.

 

Meeting his family

 

When he met your family, your mother batted her eyes while your father went straight to his study and began oiling the Walther PPK. On meeting his family, you will find things turned around.

His father will suck in his giant beer belly and try to make you laugh by indulging in a little horse-play with his son. His mother, on the other hand, will have you down as a cheap slut the moment you walk through the door. She may even be right. But it is more likely that she decided long ago that no woman would ever be good enough for her boy. Mothers like this worry me. What terrible things do they know about their gender that they aren’t sharing with the rest of us? Do they have some unique and terrifying insight into the female psyche that, if made public, would destroy life as we know it? Or are they just barking mad?

 

Your first fight

 

Statistics show that your first fight with him will be directly or indirectly linked to what you perceive as his inability to commit.

When you are with your friends, you make light of the issue. You paint him as a devilish rogue clinging to bachelorhood and make out that all he needs are a few gentle nudges or perhaps violent shoves to get him to commit himself to a proper relationship with you. This is all rubbish. Men don’t balk at commitment because they want to eat instant meals, talk to the cat and wear dirty underwear for the rest of their lives. They have trouble with commitment for one reason only, and that is because they are not in love. It really is that simple.

So now that the secret is out, you might want to think twice before light-heartedly joking about his inability to commit. It follows, then, that picking a fight with him on the grounds of his inability to commit is futile. You may as well fight with him for not being in love with you. At least there will be some entertainment value in watching him trying to answer one of the world’s great unanswerable questions.

Whatever your first fight is about, it is vital that you have sex immediately afterwards. If you are pressed for time, you can even make a start while you are still arguing. This is particularly effective if it looks like he is winning the argument.

My personal team of Puerto Rican researchers found that seven out of ten couples stay together beyond the first year if they engage in sex during or after a fight. They also found that two out of five couples never survived their first month because they made the mistake of having sex before fighting. The post-coital male is dull-witted and slow moving, while the female is generally dissatisfied and irritable. This is not a good combination for an effective fight.

Studies done by a separate team of researchers found that in seven out of eight cases, the man will lose an argument if he has it right after sex. Particularly if the argument is along the lines of:

She: “That was undoubtedly the worst sex I have ever had in my life.”

He: “…”

 

His first affair

 

Men have a well-developed ability to suffer in silence. Born with an innate sense of guilt, they can tolerate enormous amounts of emotional blackmail and sexual deprivation on the vague assumption that they probably deserve it.

Then, one day, a strange woman will toss a kind word his way and he will begin trembling all over like a freshly whipped puppy. And if she happens to stroke him, he will go down on all fours and keep licking her feet until he hears commands like, “roll over” and “give me your credit card”.

Unfortunately for men, women have a 95.3% strike rate when it comes to detecting signs of an affair. This means that cheating men are left with just a 4.7% chance of weaseling their way out of the situation. When men lie, they lose all control of their eyes. They swivel randomly in their sockets to avoid focusing on the object of their deception. This does not go unnoticed and the only reason the divorce rate is sky-high is because men cannot control their eyeballs when they lie.

 

Your first affair

 

An unidentified team of researchers from Tajikistan recently released controversial new findings that show women to be as duplicitous as men when it comes to fiddling with the new violinist on the orchestra. However, their findings were widely discredited almost from the moment they became known. It seems that society is more comfortable with research done in civilized countries like England and certain parts of North America.

There is broad agreement that men are genetically driven to spread their seed far and wide. Women, not having a spreadable seed, are inclined to stay at home knitting before the fire with the front door unlocked in the hope that a passing stranger will come in and do a spot of impromptu ploughing.

This is all a pack of filthy lies. Women, just as much as men, want to be ravaged mercilessly on a regular basis. The only difference is that women expect the ravaging to be preceded by dinner and perhaps a movie, followed by a bit of a hug and a nice chat.

If you want to have an affair, don’t give it a second thought. Even though, compared to men, you have a more developed sense of right and wrong, you are far better equipped to lie with a straight face. Watch those eyebrows, though. This balances things out nicely, and unless you are really careless, you should have many happy months or even years banging the butcher without being caught.

 

Your divorce

 

What I find remarkable is that one out of every two marriages does not end in divorce. This speaks volumes about what kind of society we have created and I, for one, would think long and hard before bringing a child into a world where he runs the very real risk of being among the 50% that gets stuck with the same person until he dies.

Everybody knows that beyond a certain point, every couple has to choose between love and sex. What happens is that the man chooses sex and the woman chooses love. Perfect. Now what? Neither of them have the energy or the inclination to start all over again with someone new, so they agree to stay together on the grounds of “companionship”. I have never heard such crap in my life. If you want a companion, get a Labrador. They make ideal replacements for the obsolete husband, not least because they share the ability to drool, break wind and eat like pigs all at the same time.

When deciding to dump him, it is important to bear in mind that men are extremely sensitive to rejection. For men, rejection implies failure. And, next to running out of beer, men fear failure more than anything.

Women are nowhere near as badly affected because they have never been encouraged to succeed, so they live in a permanent state of failure. Except it is not called this, of course. I would rather not say what is called because there are certain unspoken male codes that cannot be violated. All I can say is that it somehow ties in with the cycles of the moon and an ancient primal urge to breed and shop.

I am not suggesting that, when contemplating cutting him loose, you should bear his ego in mind for fear of hurting him. The truth is that he needs to be hurt, for the sake of the species. Unlike women, men grow stronger with every crushing blow dealt to them by the opposite sex. Their scar tissue is made from titanium while your scar tissue is porous like a coriander. This allows fresh, untainted love to seep through. If your wounds had to be hermetically sealed, like the wounds of men, there is a very good chance that you might not be able to continue propagating the species. And what kind of world would that be? A world without people, a world populated only by trees and birds and animals, that’s what kind of world it would be. Hmm.

Instead, I am suggesting that you treat his fragile ego carefully for no other reason than your personal safety and the safety of those around you. Men can only take so much rejection (13.4ml per litre) before they snap. Luckily, men have access to a very broad range of snapping methods, the most harmful of which is the taking up of golf. There are women who call themselves “golf widows” long before they even get around to shooting the stupid bastard as he heads for the 19^th hole for the 375^th consecutive Saturday.

Anyway. We have both reached a point where we have to move on. You, to the beginning of the cycle and me to the next chapter.

 

To be continued …

 

Guide to Everything – Part 2 Section C

 

How to make a man fall in love with you

 

The first date

 

Now that you have your man codified and assigned and you know precisely what you are dealing with, it is time for the first date.

Let him decide where to go. This will create the illusion that he is in charge and will save you a lot of trouble further down the line. However, if you have had to do all the work up to this point, then you will probably have to set up the date as well. Take the initiative.

Some men are slower than others and you may well have landed yourself one of those indecisive types who find it almost impossible to take a decision without some kind of divine guidance. If you are one of those women, leave immediately and don’t look back. I have seen relationships where nobody can take a decision and, “I dunno… what do you think?” can only be taken so far before the entire shebang collapses in on itself.

There are many places you can take a man on a first date, but avoid taking him to the one place that he really wants to go. Your place. Sooner or later someone will cough at the copy machine and you will think she said “slut” and you won’t be able to stop yourself from gouging her eyes out with the office stapler. Instead, try going to a place where other, more normal people might be gathering.

Restaurants are generally a safe bet. They also give you a valuable opportunity to see if he knows his wine and his way around the cutlery.

He will also be watching you closely and, since you are hoping that he will have fallen in love with you by the time desert arrives, it is best that you do not embarrass him with an epileptic fit after the first hit of wine.

Men are impressed by women who eat heartily. Unless, of course, you happen to be a big fat pig, in which case devouring plates of food can be decidedly unattractive. But tucking into your meal with gusto will send a subliminal message that you have a healthy appetite for all things hedonistic.

If your meal arrives first, wait for his to get there before laying into it. Starting without him sends disturbing signals on all levels, although men are increasingly open to playing from a handicap.

When it comes to ordering something to drink, take your cue from him. If he orders a beer, try to refrain from ordering a triple Mai Tai with two flaming Drambuies on the side. You will come across as high maintenance and maybe a little mad. Instead, have a beer with him. Even if you have to go and throw up afterwards, it will have been worth it. Half the battle will be won. But don’t keep on ordering beers, even if he does. He will start picturing you with a boep and once that happens you may as well put down your knife and fork and walk right out of there. However, you should at least try to keep up with his pace. No man wants to be ordering his seventh drink while the woman is still nursing her first glass of watered-down wine. It makes him feel like an alcoholic, and even if he is one it is important to remember that alcoholics in particular resent being made to look like alcoholics simply because they can’t stop drinking. So try to keep up without looking like a complete boozehound. Men have a curious respect for women who can hold their liquor without turning violent.

Don’t hog the conversation. Even though most men prefer silence to conversation of any kind, this does not mean that they have nothing at all to say. Very few men are sparkling conversationalists, but most manage to hold their own if they are given enough time and alcohol.

Early on in the date, make gentle enquiries about his education. You do not want a situation arising where you say between mouthfuls, “So, do you think Noam Chomsky was right when he said children are born with an inherent knowledge of the structure of language?” only to be met with the response, “I don’t believe in gnomes.” If this does happen, try not to fall off your chair laughing. Men enjoy being made to feel stupid marginally less than they enjoy having their testicles crushed in a metalworker’s vice.

When it comes time to leave the restaurant, let him call for the bill. If you do it, there is always the chance that the waiter will hand it to you. You do not want the bill. But nor can you hand it to him without him asking for it. If he has not noticed that you have the bill, slide it very slowly across the table using a napkin as cover. Distract him and remove the napkin. He will spot the bill and start fumbling for his wallet. This is your cue to start fumbling with your bag.

“No, no. I’ll get it,” he will say. “At least let me get half,” you will say. At this point, most men will insist that dinner is on them. Even if they have just blown half their monthly salary, most men do not have it in them to allow the woman to pay her share, let alone the entire bill. Like rape, this has nothing to do with money and everything to do with power. Indulge him. But don’t sleep with him yet. Unless you really want to.

 

The sex

 

Paulo, a Brazilian kickboxer who goes out with my neighbour’s third cousin on his father’s side, said that he once had a girlfriend who was so bad in bed that he used their intimate moments together to work on his hip action for the next fight. He said she never seemed to notice, but I find that hard to believe.

A man will have sex standing up, sitting down, crouching, standing on his head, standing on your head, driving, in his sleep and in the middle of Christmas dinner. You only have to say the words: “Do you want to have…” and he will be on you like a cane rat on a baby dove.

Sex is about the most dangerous and intensely personal thing that two people can do together. That, and sharing the same bank account. But even though most men are aware of the emotional significance of an inaugural coupling, they do not award it the same level of importance that a woman does.

While you are more likely to be worrying about whether you should be taking such a big step, he will be praying to all manner of gods that the dreaded attention deficit disorder does not strike him in the nether regions. He will also be worrying about the size of his willy, thanks to the endless articles in women’s magazines telling him that there is nothing to worry about.

 

To be continued …

Guide to Everything – Part 2 Section A

 

Section A Unit 4

 

At some point, if you want a man badly enough, you will have to engage him in conversation. Remember that, compared to you, a man is considerably less impressed by the first words. A man will not remember what you are wearing when you come up to him in a bar or restaurant or on the beach or in the parking lot of the magistrate’s court. Ask him to repeat your first words ten minutes after meeting him and he will scratch his head (actually, it’s more likely that he will scratch his crotch), and say, “Didn’t I make the first move?”

And while a woman approached by a man will make lightning-fast calculations based on body language, clothing, facial hair and shoes to determine her response, a man will react on a far more visceral level by watching her face.

This is why it is so important for you to make sure your face is doing the right things when you go up to a man with the express intention of getting him to fall in love with you.

A friend’s niece, Sandy, was telling me the other day how she had sidled up to a bronzed slab of man lying on the beach at Camps Bay and asked him for the time. She said he sat up and looked terribly guilty. He apologised profusely before hanging his head in shame and digging his toes into the sand. She reached out to touch him lightly on the shoulder as a way of thanking him for his trouble, but he recoiled as if she were about to strike him. I tried to make light of it and said that he was obviously batting for the other side, but it is far more likely that Sandy was wearing her Scary Face when she spoke to him. Sandy thinks she might have forgotten to change her face after the incident with the Joburg driver.

Men are extremely sensitive to what a woman’s face is doing when it is pointed towards them. For centuries, men have been trying to fathom out “the look”.

The ability of a woman to use her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth in such an infinite number of combinations to express such an endless range of emotions remains one of the most enduring mysteries of evolution. In terms of guerrilla warfare, a woman’s face is the tripwire and her voice the splinter grenade.

You need not even worry about matching your face to your words. Go up to a man in a bar and say, “You remind me of a lizard in a leather coat”, but say it in a low purr with a mysterious smile and one eyebrow raised. Guaranteed, he will wag his tail and lick your hand.

 

Chapter 2 Verse 11

 

Once he has swallowed your hook all you have to do is reel him in. But do not dawdle because the waters are full of meat-eaters who will try to nibble at your catch. Women find men with other women very attractive. It is almost as if by having a partner they acquire some kind of secret stamp of approval.

The first date is when you will start getting to know what type of man he is. A lot of men would rather you skip this part and go straight to bed.

In the minds of modern men, courting is an outdated and expensively circuitous route to a destination that you are both likely to arrive at regardless of how much time and money is wasted on the exercise.

Unhappily for modern men, the minds of modern women have not developed along similar lines. They want the whole deal. Flowers (not from the garage), phone calls (plenty), late-night text messages (romantic), movies (sexy), more flowers (not from the garage), dinner (expensive) and so on.

You may be one of those women with a less traditional approach, in which case skip this chapter and proceed straight to Sub-Section 23c. However, the odds are that you are a sloppy romantic. This is an essentially feminine trait, although more and more men can be found surreptitiously sniffing flowers and crying in the movies. Hopefully you will not want one of these men to fall in love with you. Believe me, it starts with the flowers and ends with the gold lamè bodysuit and feathered mask at the pride parade.

Determining where you go on your first date will largely be dictated by the type of man he is. Don’t be influenced by your addiction to sucking on oysters and quaffing fine champagne. Let him decide on the restaurant. But before you get to this point, it is important to ascertain certain things.

 

Book IV 2^nd Floor

Certain Important Things To Ascertain

 

Gender

You may think this is a no-brainer but I can assure you that there is many a slip twixt gangplank and ship. I live in Cape Town, the African equivalent of San Francisco with fewer steep hills but just as many cross-dressing deviants and a whole pack of dangerous goat-like creatures that are taking over Table Mountain.

The stories I have heard are frightening. Lucy, a good-looking brunette friend of some guy with a beard that I met briefly on the corner of Main and Beach, was taken out on a first date by a tall, good-looking pastor with the eyes of a poet and the hands of a steelworker. Perfect, she thought, and went on to have a romantic dinner where the sparkling conversation and fine wine flowed freely.

By the time Lucy kissed him goodnight at her front door (she’s very old-fashioned), she was well on her way to falling in love. That was until she accidentally brushed her hand across his crotch and there was nothing there. Nothing at all, she said, not even the slightest hint of convexity. In the absence of tumescence, Lucy fled into her building. I asked her if he was not perhaps possessed of a very small willy, as some Catholic men are, but she laughed harshly and said he was clearly a she out for a walk on the wild side. I have no reason not to believe her. So be careful. There’s a lot of dog-collar fraud out there.

Breeding

Women are more inclined towards genetic snobbery than men. They expect their males to have a certain pedigree. If they had the self-restraint of men, they would publicly feel our biceps and peel our lips back to check our teeth. Even women of dubious bloodlines look for men of good stock. It is all about wanting to have children that do not grow up into thieving, murdering bastards. South African women have a particularly low strike rate in this department.

Race

There is so much interracial fraternisation going on these days that it is becoming increasingly difficult to gauge a man’s race with any real certainty. I am not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing. It is just a thing.

The waters have been further muddied by black people using skin-lighteners and white people using tanning beds.

If you have met a man and you want to know which race he belongs to before you go on a first date, I suggest you pick a fight with him and then take some of his hair or skin from under your fingernails to a biologist and ask for a DNA test. This may be quite costly but at least you will be spared the surprise of finding out that your first child is the colour of an Easter egg. Or even the Easter Bunny, for that matter.

Marital status

Another tricky area. It is not uncommon for men to slip their engagement or wedding rings into their pockets when they are out on the town. This is a despicable habit heavy with symbolism that far outweighs the simplicity of the act. And yet, why should you care? If this is the man who you want to fall in love with you, it doesn’t matter how many wives he has. Deal with them later. But if you were brought up by jackals in the middle of the Kalahari Desert and are meeting men for the first time, you will probably be concerned about these things.

In this case, check his finger for the telltale white band left by a freshly removed ring. But don’t jump to conclusions. It may be that he is recently divorced. Ask him. Asking doesn’t hurt. In this case, however, asking should hurt. Whatever he says, keep telling him that he is lying. If he really is married, it won’t be long before he cracks under pressure and tells the truth. Even if he is not married, he will admit to lying about something else, if only to stop the questions.

Now that you have broken him down, you can start building him up again. This time, according to your blueprint. However, it may be that you are simply toying with him. This is acceptable sport for a Friday night but should not become a habit. Men can only take so much badgering before they go gay or go away.

Religion

Having counseled thousands of troubled couples over the past three weeks that I have been in the self-help business, I have to say that more and more women are looking for men who are completely without religion. They find it only gets in the way of good, guilt-free sex as god meant it to be.

Creed

I don’t know what this means, but some people find it important. If you are one of them, I suggest you keep it to yourself. Nobody like a smartarse.

Nationality

This is only important if you discover that the man you have your eye on is an Afghan on the run from Guantanamo Bay. Even though you are drowning helplessly in his big brown eyes, you do not want your name on any list that is being circulated inside the Pentagon. Stay well clear of men who are more interested in your passport than your pussy.

Sexual orientation

You are looking for a well-rounded man who knows what he is and what he wants. You do not want someone who has never made it out of the psycho-anal stage of his development. Nor do you want someone who would rather watch television than watch you strip. Be careful of any man who remarks on your shoes and hums Black Sabbath’s Changes (“I’m going through changes…”).

 

To be continued …