the japing ape

Zebra attack

2012-01-27T00:00:00.002Z

A woman from Texas has become a celebrity after getting bitten by a hungry zebra. After TV footage of her misadventure was shown at the safari guesthouse, I’m sorry to say that a young lady from Oklahoma asked me to bite her:

“Oh c’mon, GB!” she pleaded. “Just one lil’ ol’ hickey on the side a mah neck. Momma’s waiting to get it on the camcorder.”

(Her mother was a woman of generous proportions, standing a few feet away with her legs wide apart and the camera to her eye. I did not admonish her for being a willing accomplice in her daughter’s outlandish project. We live in a peculiar age.)

“By God, I won’t do it!” I thundered. “I don’t want millions of You Tube viewers deriding me as a crazy ape!”

“No one’s gonna think you’re crazy, GB, they’ll just reckon you’re a mite over-affectionate. Doncha wanna know what I taste like? Fellas tell me I taste real good.”

“We gorillas are vegetarian, Miss, didn’t they teach you that at school?”

“They sure didn’t teach us gorillas were spoilsports at school,” she huffed. “Guess I’ll have to ask a chimp or summin.”

I said nothing to this. A chimpanzee would probably dine on her like a vampire, but sometimes it’s better to let humans learn from their mistakes.

I wonder whether her envy of the zebra-bitten Texas woman was aggravated by being a native of an adjoining state. In my time in the circus, I became aware of the intense rivalries that exist between neighbouring human tribes. I remember once asking a Welsh clown whether I should financially compensate the ringmaster after accidentally trampling him underfoot.

“Why bother, he’s only an Englishman,” replied the clown. “They usually enjoy that sort of thing.”

It seems that even the Chinese are susceptible to such petty rancour. I was shocked to read about a man from Chongqing whose front door has been glued shut more than 30 times by an anonymous fiend. Had it happened only five or six times, one might have dismissed it as the prank of a practical joker, but gluing a door shut 30 times clearly amounts to a vendetta. Whoever is responsible must be motivated by boundless malice and a peculiar obsession about denying his victim free passage to and from his own property.

“I have no idea who I could have upset so badly,” said Zhou Fen, the hapless householder.

I would advise him to think back to his childhood, and make a list of all the boys he knew from neighbouring villages. It's quite possible that one of them has a grudge which has festered over the years. These things can happen inadvertently from the most trivial incidents. Maybe he humiliated another boy in a game of checkers or laughed at his willy when they were urinating against a wall.

If the mystery remains unsolved, and the door-gluing continues, he could always try appeasing his persecutor by leaving and entering through a window.

Viagra abuse

2012-01-23T00:00:00.000Z

An English TV gardener has been feeding his plants Viagra to stiffen up their stalks. Doesn’t he know that plants don’t have sex by poking their stalks in places? Even if they did, they wouldn’t want some meddling botanist playing the pander by feeding them chemical stimulants. Nature is not a giant whorehouse for humans to pimp around in with their pills and potions.

The worrying thing for the English housewife is that farmers might now start using this method to firm up their vegetables. The authorities better make sure that supermarkets label their produce correctly, so respectable households don’t end up chewing sticks of celery laced with Viagra. The English home is a finely-tuned ecosystem which depends on its resident sexual organs behaving predictably and obediently. Its harmony would be destroyed if willies started popping up all over the place.

You might think that a big macho gorilla like me would have no use for Viagra. Well, I have considered using the blue pills, but not in a way you might imagine. We jungle-dwelling apes, you see, have to deal with deadly creatures that might do us harm. The most dangerous beasts are not hippos and crocodiles, but critters that creep around slyly. Snakes are a particularly aggravating hazard. The manager of the safari camp advocates a no-nonsense approach in dealing with them:

“Chop their fucking heads off!” he once exhorted. “I’ll lend you my machete if you want.”

“That’s a very human solution to the problem,” I remarked. “We gorillas prefer less messy methods of removing unwanted guests.”

That’s when I dreamt up the idea of doping snakes with Viagra, which would render them harmless by making them as rigid as French bread. Snakes in that condition would be unable to hiss or squirm or move from A to B. We could just pick them up and humanely dispose of them, possibly by hurling them a good distance like javelins. The only difficulty would be getting the snakes to swallow the pills in the first place. One possibility is to feed them mice that have been force fed with Viagra. You may say this is cruel to the mice, but let’s face it: they’re going to get eaten anyway. Maybe we’ll let the little rodents have a last night of shagging before they’re sacrificed in a noble cause.

I shouldn’t leave you with the impression that I consider all humans to be machete-wielding maniacs, like the manager of the safari camp. Obviously, upright primates have a violent side to their nature (which they get from their chimp genes), but they also have a pacifist side to their nature (which they get from their gorilla genes). A laudable example of benign human behaviour was seen in the recent cuddle party at a London train station, in which pairs of humans attempted to break the world record for the longest hug. I don’t know if any of them succeeded, but the girls on the left deserve points for artistic impression.

Bell-end of the world

2012-01-18T00:00:00.002Z

Tending bar at the safari guesthouse, I overhear a Rasputin-like character telling everyone that the world will end in 2012. Accursed fool! Apocalyptic blabbering of that sort is tremendously harmful for our tourism industry, because people never visit Africa when they know their days are numbered. India has pretty much cornered the last-hurrah market thanks to its mystics and gurus, who can offer gullible visitors a final shot at enlightenment. In Africa we only have witchdoctors, who can offer gullible visitors potions that will make their eyebrows bushy.

Fortunately, I have the perfect titbit of news to change the subject:

“Ladies and gentlemen!” I declare, “I must inform you of an extraordinary development in Iran! A 21-year-old man is suffering from a permanently aroused appendage after getting his penis tattooed. This is a clear sign that the Iranian missile programme lacks a reliable guidance system and is therefore quite harmless. I’m not making this up, I’ll print out the news report if you want to read about it.”

As I anticipate, the guests turn their back on the doomsday prophet and focus their attention on the Iranian erection.

“Oh my God!” exclaims a middle-aged American woman. “Where can my husband get one of those tattoos?!”

The other guests weigh-in with their own suggestions and observations, and a lighter mood prevails in the evening’s social intercourse.

All joking aside, I don’t think a woman would really want the man in her life to have a permanent stiffy. The novelty is bound to wear off eventually. As the Roman nobility discovered, if every day is a party, partying becomes a chore. There would also be the problem of inadvertent prodding whenever she brushed within range, which would bound to get annoying after a while.

One point not covered in the news bulletin is whether the man’s todger was taut while the tattoo was being inscribed. It might have been necessary to provide a suitable surface, but how many tattooists could perform their art on an aroused sexual organ? One would need the hand of a surgeon and the nerve of a bomb-disposal expert to pull off a tricky stunt like that.

Now, the mad monk who was pontificating about the end of the world was actually an insurance salesman from Bulgaria. He had allowed his hair to grow unkempt to give himself a prophet-like appearance, and had financed his vacation in the Congo with the maturity value of one of his own policies. I later asked him what he knew about the Mayan doomsday prediction:

“No more than any gypsy who reads a newspaper,” he answered. “I was using this story to practice my English-speaking on the guests. If I appear convincing to them, maybe I call sell insurance in America.”

“I’m sure you could sell anything in America,” I replied, “but please lighten-up when you’re in the Congo. If you go around staring intensely at people over here they assume you’re in league with the snakes.”

He stared intensely at me like a snake, so I gave his beard a tug to snap him out of it.

The Austrian school

2012-01-13T00:00:00.001Z

I do hope someone nominates Ylva Maria Thompson for Businesswoman of the Year. This visionary lady has established an international sex school in Vienna, where students will be encouraged to practice their lessons in mixed-gender dormitories. Frau Thompson has been quick to refute suggestions that her school is a glorified bawdyhouse for swingers and exhibitionists:

“Anyone who doesn’t take it seriously and fools around will be sent to my office,” she declared sternly. “And get a big spanking from the headmistress,” she forgot to add.

What I like most about this venture is its power to transform the image of Austria, a country best known for giving the world Hitler and The Sound of Music. Both were profoundly anti-sexual. Let’s face it, no one was ever going to get laid in the von Trapp mansion with all those fresh-faced children running around the place, singing songs guaranteed to make a man dick’s shrivel. Can anyone imagine Captain von Trapp giving goody-two-shoes Maria a vigorous pounding? The thought makes me want to gargle with lemon juice to get the taste out of my mouth. As for Hitler, he was a mono-testicled voyeur who enjoyed watching women urinate, which doesn’t count as sex in this quadrant of the galaxy.

Hopefully, people will now associate Austria with the school’s promotional video, in which smooth naked bodies paw each other to Ms Thompson’s authoritative voiceover. There is something deeply life-affirming about a sixtyish woman tutoring people in the finer points of fondling their erogenous zones. I bet she gives out instructions with the same calm self-assurance when being pleasured by her own fancy man.

Now, most of the apes I know would consider giving sex lessons to be like teaching someone how to scratch an itch. Certainly, any human who offered gorillas mating advice would be hooted out of the jungle with his underpants pulled over his head. As an ape who prides himself on being a student of humanity, I have pondered the question of why humans, of all the primates, have to be taught how to do it. I believe the answer can be summed up in three words: the human female.

Female apes, you see, have a well-defined oestrus cycle. When one of our females is in season, all the male has to do is puff out his cheeks and fire at will. Nothing much can go wrong when the plan of action is that simple. Women, by contrast, don’t have a season when they’re in heat, so men are never sure how receptive they are. Most women, in fact, have to be wooed and cajoled and petted and prodded before they’re ready for action. That’s why men have to be taught how to arouse them, and women have to be taught how to help things along without making sarcastic remarks or laughing at the wrong moment.

This isn’t meant to be a criticism of women, of course. They may be complex, but then so are quantum physics and fluid dynamics. It’s all part of life’s rich tapestry.

Kepler-22b

2012-01-09T00:00:00.000Z

A fellow passenger on the flight home to Africa urges me to post a video monologue of myself on You Tube.

“You’d be a bigger sensation than the talking dog!” he exclaims.

(Apparently, this was the top-rated clip of 2011.)

I thank him for his high opinion of me and pick up a copy of Scientific American to discourage further conversation. In that prestigious periodical, I discover that the Earth has a habitable sister planet called Kepler-22b. Not the prettiest name, it’s true, but you can’t judge a planet by what it’s called. Venus is a complete hell-hole regardless of its beautiful appellation.

On returning to the Congo, I mention this nugget of astronomical news to the manager of the safari camp.

“I like the sound of that planet!” he enthuses. “And for all we know, gorillas might be the dominant species on it. If you went there as the ambassador from Earth, I’m sure they’d let you hump all the best-looking females!”

“I doubt that a gorilla-run world would adopt the diplomatic protocols of the Woodstock Hippie Camp,” I remark. “Looks aren’t important to gorillas, anyway. You humans love to anthropomorphize.”

In truth, I wouldn’t want to live on a planet where gorillas were the preponderant species. The good thing about being a gorilla on Earth is that you stand out from the crowd, by which I mean the great swarming mass of sweaty humans. Crowds of gorillas simply do not exist. All I had to do to become the talk of the town was join a circus and kick a few clowns in the arse. Humans, by contrast, have to take part in talent shows or have sex with celebrities if they want to get noticed.

Even actors have to work hard to stay in the limelight. For every instantly recognisable movie star, there must be twenty with vaguely familiar faces whose names are never mentioned in the gossip sheets. Many who were once household names later vanish without trace. I often wonder what happened to Charlene Tilton, the pint-sized blonde who played Lucy Ewing in Dallas. I’ll never forget the way her character responded to J.R. when he tried to bait her at the breakfast table:

“They say that fella you’re dating is the biggest jackass north of the Rio Grande!” he would say to Lucy with a malevolent sneer.

“He’d enjoy kicking your ass for sure!” she would reply with a scowl that might have scared a grizzly bear into putting its paws over its crotch.

If Kepler-22b really is a gorilla planet, we should send them Charlene as our ambassador. If they can’t intimidate a feisty little Earthling like her, they’ll know not to mess with the big boys. Maybe I’ll get the ball rolling by sending her a fan letter. She can’t be getting too many at this point in her career, and might welcome some adulation from a gorilla who relished her performances. If I get a reply, I’ll republish it in full in this blog.

Christmas Carols

2011-12-23T00:00:00.000Z

I arrive in London to spend Christmas with the noble Dr Whipsnade, benefactor of the worthy, guardian of the innocent and chastiser of the villainous. After taking supper with the doctor and his wife, I step outside to watch a band of humans singing Christian hymns. Their voices are earnest and tuneful, although rather affected for my taste. We gorillas prefer a more robust style of vocal expression that reaches the pelvis as well as the ear drums. This does not stop me from applauding their performance:

“Bravo!” I cry. “Wait here while I go inside to get something for you!”

I brush past the butler when he opens the door and return with a couple of crisp banknotes in my paw. I am about to hand them over when Dr Whipsnade emerges in his overcoat and grabs my forearm.

“Don’t do that, Bananas, they’re not licensed to collect for charity,” he says. “Jevons will bring them some mulled wine.”

The choir look disappointed. “We wouldn’t have minded a tip,” mutters one of them as I re-enter the mansion with cash in hand.

This incident illustrates one of the enduring features of an English Christmas: it’s the time of year when money is at the forefront of people’s minds. The first man who properly understood this was Charles Dickens, whose work is much celebrated in the festive season. A Christmas Carol, let no one forget, is a parable about a miser. I’ve seen it enacted so many times that I now hold revisionist views on it.

The story, you see, has a glaring moral defect: Scrooge was scared into turning over a new leaf by ghosts. The use of terror tactics to make a sinner repent is not the Christmas spirit. It seems obvious to me that what the old codger really needed was a woman. Instead of harassing him with spectres, Dickens should have given Nancy from Oliver Twist a supporting role as the Wench from Novels Past. If she had snuck into Scrooge’s bed at midnight, straddling him between her broad and luscious thighs, he would have definitely been a new man in the morning.

A consistent theme in all of Dickens’ work is that sex makes humans happy. Why else would Bob Cratchit be in such good cheer, in spite of all his woes? The size of his family suggests that servicing the missus was one of his favourite pastimes. The same is true of Dickens’ female characters. David Copperfield’s pretty young wife died with a smile on her face, which women don’t make a habit of doing unless they’ve been given a good seeing to. And no one was more miserable than Miss Havisham, the bitter old prune who renounced men after getting jilted on her wedding day.

After retiring to my bedroom, I look out of the window at the grand houses in this affluent neighbourhood of London, and wonder how much shagging is going on. Not much, judging by the long faces I saw moping around in the morning. I blame Dickens. People are so preoccupied with money and presents that their libidos have turned Scrooge-like. They ought to remember the event that Christmas celebrates: the first and only time that God had sex with a woman.

Gorilla Bananas wishes his readers a Merry Christmas.

The Japing Ape will return on Monday 9th January.

Polar bear dispute

2011-12-19T00:00:00.001Z

A lot of ignorant people are calling David Attenborough a hoaxer for using footage of zoo-dwelling polar bears in his latest nature programme. I bet these foolish hypocrites have enjoyed countless action movies in which stuntmen pretend to be Bruce Willis or Daniel Craig. What D.A. did was far more justified because: (i) there are no A-list actors in the polar bear community and (ii) all polar bears look the same to humans. Television viewers who want to see close-ups of real wild polar bears should piss off to the North Pole with a pair of binoculars.

I have to be honest and declare a personal interest here. D.A. is a personal friend who has often asked me about gorilla etiquette. He once hired me as a consultant for a film shoot in the Congo.

“Is it OK if I grunt and make eye-contact with the females?” he asked.

“Not advisable with wild females, Davy,” I said. “They might think you were making a pass at them and end up sitting on your face. I suggest you shoot the scene at London Zoo. The female gorillas there are used to men flirting with them and know it’s just pussy-teasing.”

Davy did as I suggested, and the BBC obtained some brilliant footage of him chatting up a female gorilla as she pouted and fluttered her eyelids. One of the most enthralling scenes ever filmed in a natural history show.

Humans often ask me whether I approve of wildlife documentaries. It’s the sort of question that makes me want to lie on my back and scratch my chin with my toes. Like many things in life, they have their pros and cons. A positive feature is that the sex they contain is suitable for family audiences. Because let’s face it, most human parents are far too embarrassed to tell their children how babies are made. It’s much easier to let them watch animals do it and put two-and-two together.

This is why documentary-makers should exercise discretion in the species they select for their hard-core scenes. Definitely not baboons. After watching them mate, boys might think that having sex involves drilling away for 10 seconds like a woodpecker and then running off to boast about it to their buddies. Elephants are not advisable either. The size and shape of a bull elephant’s appendage makes me clench my anus, so heaven knows how innocent girls would react.

So much for the sex, but what about the violence? In my view, it gives modern humans the same kind of kicks that the Roman amphitheatre used to provide. Why are lions the most popular wildlife attraction? Because people want to see them chase down a zebra and bite chunks out of it. As a vegetarian gorilla, I find it pretty sickening, but at least lions don’t combine their violence with sex, like in a Tarentino movie. Can anyone explain why the black crime baron got raped by the white gimp-handler in Pulp Fiction? If that’s entertainment, I’m a duck-billed platypus.

Mad rogues and Chinamen

2011-12-14T00:00:00.000Z

Scientists from two European universities have postulated that the human brain can’t get any cleverer without driving its owner nuts. Too much grey matter in the skull, they say, overloads the emotional circuits and produces a personality that veers between the obsessive and the diabolical. That’s why modern humans are no smarter, on average, than Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble.

This theory clearly has grains of truth. All the super-villains James Bond had to deal with were fiendishly intelligent and mad as hatters. Take Goldfinger, for example. He had 007 just where he wanted him, shackled to a worktop with his legs apart and a laser beam closing in on his groin. Everyone thought Bond’s testicles were toast, but Goldfinger spared him at the last minute and revealed the details of his insidious master-plan. He then allowed Bond to connive with his dolly-birds and turn the tables on him, to the point where he got sucked out of his own aircraft. The fat git was plainly bonkers.

When I mentioned this scientific conjecture to the manager of the safari camp, he made the following sceptical observation:

“If it’s really true, how come clever races like the Chinese don’t have an unusually high proportion of evil geniuses?”

He had a point, but not an unanswerable one.

“Obviously, there are cultural factors at play,” I said. “The Chinese are into feng shui and yoga, which bring about a natural balance between the yin and yang. If you discipline your mind with these oriental techniques, it’s not so easy to go off your rocker.”

“I don’t believe in all that stuff,” he replied. “The Chinese have their own unique brand of madness. Just look at Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. You don’t make noises and faces like that if you’re sound of mind.”

This inspired me to do my own research on the Mad Chinaman syndrome. The first case that caught my eye involves a man who does headstands on a metal spike. His name is Li Xin and he’s a former kung fu master who evidently got bored of giving people flying kicks. He then spent years perfecting his new stunt, which created an abominable hole at the top of his skull. His behaviour seems amazingly barmy on the face of it, but then I noticed that each headstand only lasts for ten seconds. This suggests it’s a party trick rather than a lifestyle choice, and he’s probably quite normal when he’s not upside down. Could there be health benefits too? I wouldn’t rule it out.

Then I came across a young fellow called Peter Chao, who lives in Vancouver and posts video clips of himself on You Tube. Chao is clearly very angry about a lot of things, but is he technically insane? I don’t think the ranting alone is sufficient evidence. However, he does have a habit of taking his shirt off for no reason, revealing the most hairless chest I’ve ever seen on a male primate. If that isn’t a sign of lunacy, I don’t know what is.

The Hugging Saint

2011-12-09T00:00:00.000Z

A correspondent has sent me an intriguing news story about an elderly Indian woman who goes around the world hugging people. Amma, the Divine Mother, offers her open-armed blessing to all who queue to meet her. On a good day she can deliver 200 hugs per hour, which is quicker than a cattle rancher can geld and brand his herd. My females hooted with laughter when I told them about her.

“Why don’t those fools come to us?” they jeered. “Our hugs squeeze parts that old women cannot reach!”

“Don’t be so cocksure,” I retorted. “Her embraces have a spiritual quality that yours lack, which is why she is revered as a saint by her followers. All you can do is grope and crush. Don’t forget what happened to that American footballer you tried to get friendly with.”

“He was a pussy!” they barked contemptuously, before wandering off to look for a baboon to molest.

Hugging etiquette in human societies is a fascinating subject. There are so many ambivalent situations where no one is quite sure whether a hug is appropriate. Consider the question of man-on-man hugging. In Latin countries, it is perfectly normal for buddies to greet each other in that fashion, as long as a safe air corridor is maintained between the trousers. But Anglo-Saxon men are only supposed to do it if they’re gay or work in show business. Women, of course, can cuddle like koalas in any part of the world. No one thinks it's foreplay unless there's bumping and grinding going on.

Another interesting grey area is whether pre-pubescent boys appreciate being hugged by women. It seems to depend on the context. My old circus chum, Smacker Ramrod, was sent to an English boarding school at the age of 8. He told me that being hugged by Matron was one of the few consolations of a miserable incarceration.

“She saw it as her duty to comfort homesick boys and would cuddle the ones who weren’t too grubby or obnoxious,” he explained. “Fortunately, I passed the test.”

“How lucky for you, Smacker,” I remarked. “But surely her maternal snuggles ceased when you were no longer a new boy. She wouldn’t believe you were permanently homesick, would she?”

“Yeah, but I came up with other excuses,” he said. “I once got my sister to write me a letter saying the dog had died. That worked like a charm.”

“Good heavens, Smacker!” I exclaimed. “Were it not for the pre-existing canine theme, I would call you a sly dog! Did you not suffer from pangs of guilt in procuring Matron’s motherly embrace through deception?”

“Not really,” he said. “It didn’t do her any harm and it did me a lot of good. Once you get used to burying your face in a woman’s bosom, you do whatever you have to to make it happen again.”

I offered no objection to this pragmatic ethical formula. When a willing bosom makes contact with a willing face, the why’s and the wherefore’s are of minor importance.

Lady Gaga's secret

2011-12-05T00:00:00.001Z

Lady Gaga has revealed the secret of her “perfect skin”. Apparently, her alabaster complexion is maintained through lots of orgasms and spinach. I share this information with the manager of the safari camp, who hopes to entice La Gaga over here for a holiday.

“Her spinach-orgasm therapy wouldn’t protect her skin from the mosquitoes,” I remark. “You’ll have to warn her if she visits.”

“Wouldn’t the sound of her orgasms scare off the mozzies?” asks the manager facetiously.

“Indeed not,” I reply. “Only female mosquitoes bite, and they wouldn’t be intimidated by her caterwauling. The female of the species instinctively knows when a creature of the same gender is getting herself off.”

“In that case you’ll have to give her some of your natural jungle ointment,” says the manager with a smirk.

“She’ll have to pay for it,” I insist. “Jungle skin cream doesn’t grow on trees, and she could easily afford the full retail price.”

“Aren’t you worried she might think you’re a tight-fisted wanker?” guffaws the manager before sauntering off. I suppose he thinks he made a joke of some variety.

As well as discussing her beauty secrets, Gaga explained why her love affairs have been short-lived and turbulent. It seems the artistic types she attracts soon grow envious of her musical talent:

If I go to the piano and write a quick song and play it back, they are angry with how fast and effortless it is. That's who I am, and I don't apologise for it.

I believe Mozart had similar problems, but Gaga is kidding herself if she thinks it’s why her boyfriends keep throwing her out of bed. Methinks the lady doth boast too much. The real reason for her break-ups might have something to do with her annoying little habits, like having 37 orgasms a day to avoid getting zits. And how do we know her skin is really so wonderful beneath the layers of make-up she puts on? I suspect her true complexion is like that of the Milky Bar Kid – pale and creamy, but lacking in lustre.

Now, the Scandinavians claim that the best thing for the skin is a sauna. I once got invited to one in Sweden, by a couple of flaxen-haired girls who had watched me perform in the circus:

“Please join us, GB!” they begged. “It will open up your pores and flush out the toxins. We will blow dry you afterwards if you like.”

I thought it best to decline tactfully: “A most generous offer, ladies, but sweating is for the hairless. We gorillas flush out our toxins in other ways.”

The girls were bitterly disappointed, and in truth I could have easily endured a sauna, which is not so different from the climate of a tropical rain forest. My real fear, of course, was wagging tongues. A gorilla should never get into a cabin with naked women unless there are witnesses who will testify to the absence of hanky-panky. That idiot King Kong has given us enough bad publicity.

Sleeping booty

2011-11-30T00:00:00.000Z

I’m feeling a little sorry for the 19-year-old Polish girl who mistook a snake for her boyfriend. She was asleep on a couch when the serpent coiled around her thighs, making her think that said boyfriend was exploring her nether regions. It’s an easy mistake to make in a country such as Poland, where snakes are rather thin on the ground. Apparently, this one had escaped from a pet shop and was looking for a safe place to hide in. It succeeded only partially, I should imagine.

The girl was naturally horrified to find herself in flagrante delicto with a reptile when she awoke. I hope she didn’t feel violated. The snake obviously had no idea what it was doing and must have been as shocked as she was when its comfortable resting place turned into a mass of squirming flesh. If anyone deserves blame it’s the boyfriend, who left the young woman alone and unprotected. What’s the point of having a 19-year-old girlfriend if you abandon her the minute she lies down on a couch?

Interestingly enough, the practice of fondling women in their sleep seems to be a growing niche area of erotic entertainment. Heaven knows why porn viewers find it arousing. In the first place, the actresses are obviously only pretending to be asleep; in the second place, their supposed condition severely restricts the range of acts they can perform. Maybe it’s something men dream of doing to their wives, to satisfy their needs with the minimum of fuss and no post-coital cuddling. I wouldn’t be surprised if quite a few husbands got kneed in the groin after unsuccessfully attempting the manoeuvre. Watching the deed depicted in pornography might help them live out their escapist fantasy.

You might be wondering how a busy gorilla like me keeps up with the latest themes of the adult entertainment industry. As luck would have it, a couple of on-line acquaintances send me video clips, with a particular focus on the kinky genres. Are these correspondents readers of this blog? I’m not going to say, but they do encourage me to ruminate on their offerings and promulgate my views. Many humans, it seems, want to have their hobbies validated by a gorilla.

Anyway, a more legitimate method of stimulating a sleeping woman has been devised by an Englishman called Tony Maggs. The Little Rooster Alarm Clock is a non-penetrative device that rests inside the knickers and brings the wearer to a joyous awakening at a time of her choosing.

“It starts very gently, then slowly increases in power until you wake up,” explained Maggs. “It’s so much nicer than a conventional alarm clock,” he added. “Why would a woman want to wake-up any other way?”

Maggs is clearly delighted with his invention, but I’d like to hear the opinion of a user before it gets the Bananas endorsement. If any lady bloggers are planning to give it a try, I will link their review at the end of this post.

Sealed with a kiss

2011-11-25T00:00:00.001Z

An Italian fashion house has launched an advertising campaign promoting the idea that enemies should kiss and make-up. A huge picture of President Obama and Hugo Chavez pressing lips recently appeared on a billboard outside the Brazzaville YMCA. Everyone knows the photo is a fake, so it generated very little excitement, even among the residents of the YMCA.

It’s just as well that Obama is secure enough in his sexuality not to blast the poster to kingdom come with a Cruise missile. He’s recently been proving his heterosexual credentials by canoodling with Julia Gillard, the raunchy redhead who rules the roost in Australia. After greeting Ms Gillard with a moist-looking peck on the cheek, he patted her receptive tush right into the White House. I hope Michelle was mature enough not to give him hell afterwards – there’s no such thing as cheating when you’re making political alliances.

The only person complaining about the poster campaign is Pope Benedict, who was depicted smooching an Egyptian holy man. A Vatican spokesman denounced it as a violation of the Holy Father’s chastity, but I suspect what really upset Benny was the lack of passion in the kiss. No one ever got to be Pope without sticking his tongue down a few throats. The fashion house withdrew the Papal poster under threat of legal action, but there must be a few thousand stashed away in a warehouse. They'll become a collector’s item after Benny has his sex-change operation.

The most puzzling poster is the one of Sarkozy kissing Frau Merkel. The couple were bosom allies the last time I checked, so why show them kissing? Could Sarko have bribed the fashion house to do it because he wanted to make his wife jealous? A new mother is often so infatuated with her baby that she neglects her husband’s needs. Maybe the poster will prompt Carla to accelerate her programme of coochie exercises so she can wrap her luscious thighs around Sarko the next time he ventures into the marital bed. If he keeps on fantasizing about getting into Frau Merkel's pants it might damage the French national interest. She doesn’t look like the sort of woman who’ll give it away for nothing.

Now, this advertising campaign is a clever gimmick, but its premise looks flawed to me. There is no evidence from human history that kissing is a reliable indicator of benign intentions. Delilah kissed Sampson; Judas kissed Jesus; J Edgar Hoover kissed Dillinger and a dozen other gangsters. It’s the oldest trick in the book to butter up your victim with a smooch before giving him the big shaft. As Shirley Bassey said, it’s the kiss of death from Mr Goldfinger.

Instead of kissing, humans who want to make peace should do what we gorillas do: bring about a controlled collision between their rumps. It takes real courage to turn your back on a rival and stick out your behind, trusting that he will do the same rather than kicking your arse or attempting some other unspeakable act. If President Obama started booty-bumping all the hostile characters who show up in the UN building, the Age of Universal Love might finally dawn.

The erect posture

2011-11-21T00:00:00.000Z

A professor from Utah is saying that man began walking upright to gain an advantage in fighting for females. A bipedal posture, he claims, makes it easier to punch your rival’s lights out and carry off his woman. To prove his point, he organised a few boxing matches between tall men and hunchbacks to see who could hit harder.

The professor has my admiration for propounding his theory with a straight face and getting people to fund his slapstick experiments. It’s just as well no one thought of the obvious point that women also walk upright. If the sole purpose of posture were mating, they would squat on all fours like vixens in heat while the men slugged it out for the right to mount them.

In reality, no sensible woman wants two men to fight over her. Being human, she is bound to prefer the good-looking one, so what would happen if he lost? The victorious Mr Goatface would come trotting over to claim his prize, not in a mood to take no for an answer. Even if Pretty Boy won, imagine the wear-and-tear he would be carrying from the recent battle. A broken nose? Missing teeth? Damage to the reproductive equipment if the fighting got dirty? In the light of these grievous perils, a woman’s best option is to elope with her favoured suitor, leaving his rival to run around holding his dick.

I’m not saying that a woman should reject violence in all situations. Suppose, for example, that she and her fancy man were ambushed by an evil-looking ruffian intent on pillage and rapine. If you believe Hollywood, she has nothing better to do than watch from the sidelines while her beau and the ruffian fight to the death. The feminist in me rejects this portrayal of women as helpless sissies. What a resourceful woman would do is find a blunt instrument and circle the adversaries cagily until an opportunity arose to wallop the brigand on the back of the skull. As any female gorilla will tell you, there’s nothing unfeminine about sneaking up on a marauder and laying him out cold.

Now the crux of the matter, of which the professor seems oblivious, is that humans are not built for unarmed combat. If Mother Nature had intended man to be a pugilist, she would have given him longer arms and a smaller nose. The last thing you need in a fist fight is an easy target in the middle of your face.

The real reason why humans walk upright is well-known to students of African zoology: the erect posture intimidates carnivores like lions, who stupidly believe that anyone taller than them must be strong enough to kick their arses. Hence, a couple of audacious humans can drive an entire lion pride off its kill by walking up to them boldly and telling them to fuck off when they snarl.

I should hasten to add that such bare-faced chicanery would never work with primates. You need cleverer tricks than walking tall to steal a monkey’s banana.

Bieber paternity suit

2011-11-16T00:00:00.001Z

The manager of the safari camp shows me a picture of the woman who is claiming that Justin Bieber is the father of her child.

“Look at her!” he demands in wide-eyed incredulity. “Why would a woman like that have sex with a scrawny teenage boy? She must be 6 inches taller and 50 pounds heavier!”

“You don’t understand the mentality of the infatuated fan,” I reply. “The excited groupie loses all sense of propriety in the presence of her idol. I experienced this first hand in my circus days.”

“You don’t say!” jeers the manager sarcastically. “I hope you were gentle with them, because women aren’t built like female gorillas!”

“As gentle as a lamb, manager,” I answer indulgently. “They left my embrace with not a hair out of place.”

The manager squeaks effeminately and plays with his hair, but is unable to engage in further repartee. Freed from the distraction of his facetious banter, I study the Bieber story in greater depth.

The woman at the centre of the case is a 20-year-old blonde called Mariah Yeater. She alleges that Master Bieber invited her backstage after a concert and offered her the honour of popping his cherry. He declined to use a condom (she says) because he didn’t want his first sexual experience to be like paddling in Wellington boots. After 30-seconds of breathless coupling, Bieber was a spent force, and disengaged shamefacedly from his concubine. Apparently, he had expected to pound away for 50 minutes like Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights. Children often get unrealistic expectations from what they see in movies.

The only thing one can say for certain about this tale is that it’s either true or false. It’s a logical dichotomy that cannot be avoided. Bieber has vehemently denied everything, claiming that Miss Yeater is a hoaxer and an embezzler and not his type. His bodyguards have backed-up his story, pointing out that they are trained to prevent licentious hussies from invading Justin’s personal space and ravishing him for nefarious ends. The maligned woman has tearfully stuck to her story, portraying herself as the delicate rose who got pollinated by an aggressive little wasp.

The dispute will soon be resolved by a paternity test. If Justin does turn out to be the father, it will clearly have implications for his career. I would advise him to re-style himself as ‘Bullet-pants Bieber’, the badass rap artist who knocked up the skank ho who tried to make him her bitch. And he shouldn’t fret about the speed with which he consummated the endeavour – 30 seconds is probably par for the course in the annals of backstage shagging events.

If the baby doesn’t have the Bieber DNA, Miss Yeater must be punished for her false and treacherous tongue. If I were passing sentence, I would order each of her thighs to be inscribed with a tattoo, one of King Kong and the other of Godzilla. It would be a brave man indeed who dared to venture between those raging monsters.

No weddings and a family

2011-11-11T00:00:00.002Z

Hugh Grant has finally become a father at the age of 51. God bless him. According to his spokesman, the baby is the product of a “fleeting affair” with Miss Tinglan Hong, a Chinese actress. Hugh is nevertheless delighted to have a daughter and intends to play a role in her upbringing. Not too active a role, one would hope. Chinese infants are taught to respect and obey their parents, which would obviously be a mad thing to do if your father were Hugh Grant.

Some people are tut-tutting because the couple had unprotected sex when they barely knew each other. They forget that Hugh has STD check-ups as frequently as most porn stars. As for Miss Hong, she may well have been a virgin who was saving herself for Hugh. Ludicrous though it may seem, people in the Far East actually revere him as the epitome of an English gentleman. One hopes he deflowered Miss Hong with the delicacy she would have anticipated.

Whatever the intimate details, the financial settlement appears to be generous. Hugh has already bought Miss Hong a fine house in London, one mile away from his own place. This will allow him to stroll over when the baby needs to be cuddled or listen to goo-goo noises. He seems, for now, to be relishing the prospect of such duties:

“As much as I adore myself, I’m quite keen to find someone to care about more,” he quipped.

He has no plans to live with his daughter, of course. Hugh may love his child as much as any father, but that doesn’t give her the right to ruin his beauty sleep.

The defining event in Hugh’s career occurred in 1995, when he paid a hooker to oblige him orally in the front seat of his BMW. The police caught him in the act and took a famous mug shot, which quickly went round the world. A lesser man would have sulked in the shadows until the story had blown over (so to speak), bitterly brooding on his humiliating fall from grace. What Hugh did was appear in chat shows so he could cheerfully admit to being an ass and grin at the jokes made at his expense. This artful piece of PR ensured he continued to get leading roles in romantic comedies, playing the foppish buffoon we have grown to know and love.

I was delighted to hear that the prostitute who siphoned Hugh’s manly fluids has thrived and prospered. Stella Marie Thompson (alias Miss Divine Brown) made a small fortune from the media interest in her escapade, allowing her to move into a four-bedroom house and put her daughters through private school.

According to Stella, Hugh told her she was gorgeous and asked if he could kiss her before agreeing to settle for a sixty-dollar blow job. Didn't he know that there's no need to compliment a call girl before she gets down to business? Or is it possible that beneath the rakish veneer of insouciance lies a gallant and amorous soul? No, that can't be possible - it must have been a conditioned reflex induced by the stiffy in his pants.

Deceptive behaviour

2011-11-07T00:00:00.001Z

Tending bar at the safari guesthouse, I serve a drink to a young American man who resembles the actor Robert Downey Junior. After exchanging a few pleasantries, he confides that he is a compulsive womaniser. We gorillas are used to hearing such confessions from humans, who often confuse us with their shrinks.

“I pretend to be gay,” he says. “Women love having gay boyfriends who’ll go shopping with them and tell them their ass looks great. The gayness puts them off their guard and they soon start hugging and kissing me. After that happens, I just pick the right moment to stick my nose between their hooters.”

“What if they object to being caressed in that fashion?” I ask.

“They never do,” he replies. “Women are vain and can’t resist the idea of turning a gay guy straight. It makes them feel special.”

“What a sly fellow you are!” I exclaim. “Don’t try it in the Congo, though. Pretty boys who pretend to be gay over here end up in the tent of a tribal chief.”

I later reflect on the women deceived by this wily seducer. What went through their minds when the man-friend who said he was gay started nuzzling their jahoobies? Clearly, emotion and wishful-thinking must have clouded their judgement. The lesson for nubile women everywhere is clear: the man who talks gay but pets straight is not to be trusted. He is probably a devious bounder with dishonourable intentions.

Having said all that, it is noteworthy that there are men in America who can feign gayness without feeling shame. This is a social advance to be applauded. Obviously, they must drop the act when they’re in a redneck bar or riding with the Hell’s Angels, but that’s just a matter of common sense. You don’t go for a swim in a pool full of sharks.

Not so long ago, it was gay men who pretended to be straight. Some, like the cowboys in Brokeback Mountain, even married women to camouflage their true nature. Apparently, women who perform this function are called “beards”. I learnt of this terminology when Chris Martin (the pop musician) referred to Gwyneth Paltrow (his wife) as a great beard. He was obviously joking, but it was still an ugly slur. No A-list actress should be given an epithet which befits the bush sprouting from Brian Blessed’s chin.

Do beards still exist in the modern world? Some people have jumped to the conclusion that George Clooney’s latest girlfriend is a beard, merely because she used to be a professional wrestler. That doesn’t follow at all. Being attracted to a female who can put you in a headlock has nothing to do with being gay, as any male gorilla will tell you.

I do have a suspicion that Britney Spears is an unwitting beard, though. Her current boyfriend is a narcissistic fellow called Jason Trawick, who co-starred with Britney in her latest pop video. Their simulated sex scenes were so unconvincing that Britney had to grope a couple of pillows to portray her ecstasy. A man who allows pillows to steal his love-scene obviously isn’t performing with his first choice.

Artistic exposure

2011-11-02T00:00:00.000Z

A fad seems to be emerging in the art world for daubing paint on the skin of naked women. The artists who are doing it (most of them men) say a woman’s body makes a far more interesting canvas than paper or board. Maybe so, but it’s rather less easy to frame a woman and hang her up on your wall. The most an enthusiastic collector could hope for is a good long inspection followed by some snaps for the photo album.

The latest exponent of this technique is a fellow called Andy Golub, who spent last summer painting volunteers on the streets of New York City. After being charged with “public lewdness”, he was allowed to continue with his work on condition that his models kept their G-strings on until nightfall. A fair compromise, I would say. For all its brash in-your-faceness, the Big Apple isn’t ready for beavers in broad daylight. Even I sometimes get a peculiar taste in my mouth after seeing them in humid conditions.

As with all art forms, there are radical pioneers pushing at the boundaries. A performance artist called Marni Kotak recently gave birth in a New York art gallery, claiming her delivery was “the highest form of art”. The critics were suitably impressed:

“I feel the entire audience accomplished this together with Marni using their commonly created positive energy,” declared Katherine Hybenova, editor of the Bushwick Daily.

I wonder what they did to make her feel their positive energy. I would have sung a gentle yet uplifting tune, like She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain. On second thoughts, I would have hummed it – a woman in labour shouldn’t be distracted with fatuous lyrics.

Araceli Cruz of the Village Voice arrived shortly after the birth to find Marni “calmly eating a banana”. You have to admire the devotion of an artist who continues to perform for her public after the exhibition is over. When I left the ring in my circus career, I scratched my armpits and buggered off quickly. Any bananas were eaten in the privacy of my trailer.

I have to admit I’m in two minds about Marni’s nativity performance. A human infant squeezing out of its mother’s birth canal is certainly an amazing spectacle that rivals the special effects in Alien or similar movies. But shouldn’t the baby have a say on whether it’s displayed covered in yucky goo, bawling its head off with a horrible tube sticking out of its navel? I wouldn’t want to be gawked at by New York avant-gardistes in such an undignified condition.

A photograph of Marni in the final days of her gestation is displayed below for my curious readers. Rarely have I seen such a prime specimen of luscious womanhood.I printed out a copy for my females, who immediately pestered me to invite her to the Congo in their eagerness to massage her thighs and buttocks. There was nothing remotely sexual about their request. We gorillas are broad-minded apes who appreciate firm flesh from whatever quarter, particular the hindquarters.

French twittering

2011-10-28T00:00:00.001+01:00

Although I don’t make a habit of interfering in human politics, I do feel obliged to offer words of support to Monsieur Eric Besson, the 51-year-old French industry minister who accidentally publicised a twitter message intended only for the eyes of his shapely young wife. The tweet went thus:

“When I come home I am going to bed. Too exhausted. With you?”

His treacherous followers forwarded this message widely before he could delete it. Consequently, he is being mocked throughout France for propositioning the ravishing Madame Besson with words that Basil Fawlty might have used to persuade Sybil to put on her crotchless knickers. The French expect better of their prominent men, having been raised in the belief that seduction is an exquisite art form perfected, over the centuries, by the nation’s bushy-eyebrowed poets.

This jeering at Monsieur Besson is a grave injustice, for even a one-eyed rooster could see he was paying his wife the greatest of compliments. There he was, making his way home, so dog-tired that he planned to hit the hay without even watching an episode of CSI Miami (with subtitles). Yet he still expressed a desire for physical intimacy with his mouth-wateringly sultry spouse. And let us acknowledge that Twitter is a wholly inadequate medium for romantic solicitation. Even the noble Lord Byron might have tweeted “Fancy a shag?" while riding home on his horse, his buttocks sore after a long day in the saddle. Sometimes a man has to get to the point instead of pussy-footing around with fancy language.

Now the French claim to be a nation of great lovers, but is this really true? There are baboons who claim their rumps are smoother than a billiard ball. I suspect the Gallic reputation for amorous indulgence is a myth created by overblown characters such as Maurice Chevalier and Pepé Le Pew. Even they did nothing particularly special, unless you believe that kissing a woman’s arm from wrist to shoulder while talking like Inspector Clouseau is guaranteed to turn her innards to putty.

The kind of love the French really excel at is self-love. Their cuisine, their fashion and even their affected language are presented to the world as the apogee of human culture and achievement. In the jungle, this kind of boasting would immediately be seen the defensive posturing of a beta male. You don’t make big noises in front of your rivals unless you’re scared they might rub your face into their armpits.

I shouldn’t end this French-themed post without offering my warm congratulations to Carla Bruni, who has given birth to a healthy baby girl at the age of 43. May little Giulia have the looks of her mother and the stature of her father. I was disappointed that some newspapers described the new-born infant as “President Sarkozy’s daughter”, as if there was any need to emphasise the point. Ms Bruni may be whimsical and impulsive, but she wouldn't allow any oily-arsed non-entity to plant his sprouts in her allotment.

Oxford blue

2011-10-24T00:00:00.001+01:00

The Oxford Union keeps on inviting me to give them a speech, but I’m not the least bit interested. You can’t flatter a gorilla into performing on a sinking ship. Their desperation for celebrity speakers became evident when they hosted a lecture from Miss Katie Price, a 33-year-old English “glamour model” best known for the buoyancy of her bosom.

After eight minutes of stellar oratory, Katie ran out of things to say, prompting the organiser of the event to call for questions from the floor. A beefy rugby-playing student asked Katie who her best lover had been.

“It could be you, you look really fit up there – buff!” she answered. “I bet you’re too young for me,” she added ruefully.

Full marks to Katie for disqualifying a potential stud on account of his tender age – I give her credit for her principled approach to brazen whoring. Someone then asked her what she looked for in a man.

“If you wanna get ten men to stand up here naked, I’ll show you!” she declared.

Sadly, none of the lads in the hall accepted her generous offer of a free knob inspection. Some audiences are just too shy to participate. The conference ended amid raucous hooting and cheering, to which Katie responded with raunchy pouting and blowing.

The next logical step would be to make her an Oxford don, so she could oversee new degree programmes in Bawdy Repartee and Artistic Disrobing. A woman with her contacts could easily recruit qualified staff to give lectures in arse-wiggling and chest exposure. As the gifted students began to graduate, Oxford University could offer PhDs in groping and dogging.

The main downside of such an exciting development would be its effect on the traditional subjects. Young humans already need tremendous self-discipline to study the arts and sciences when they’re far more interested in rampant fornication. My old friend Dickie Dawkins would find the ranks of his followers severely depleted, as all but his most devoted groupies went off to learn about hoochie-mama-ism and the like. Although he earns plenty of money from books and TV appearances, having to cancel his lectures would be a crushing blow to his pride. You can’t salvage the ego of an intellectual by telling him to count the cash in his bank account.

Dickie could always hang out with his hairy cousins, of course. I’ve told him on many occasions that he’d be welcomed with open arms if he wanted to join my band. He could pontificate in the jungle to his heart’s content while we pretended to listen in rapt attention. A man who promotes the idea of primate consanguinity ought to be entirely at home in a community of apes.

Katie could hang out with us too if she wanted. It's quite possible she might find life in academia too dry and oppressive. Although we could never make her an honorary gorilla because of her artificial bust, we wouldn’t mind at all if she ran around naked and sexually harassed the local witch doctor. There’s no point having guests if you won’t let them do their own thing.

Another girl

2011-10-19T00:00:00.000+01:00

I don’t feel snubbed because Paul McCartney didn’t invite me to his wedding. Paul knows full well that we gorillas find such occasions arse-scratchingly tedious, and didn’t want to put me in the awkward position of having to decline. The only wedding I’ve ever attended was that of my circus comrade, Smacker Ramrod, who needed a minder to stop his old school chums from de-bagging him at the reception. After the ceremony, his blushing bride combed the confetti out of my fur. A male gorilla will agree to most things after he’s been groomed by a female.

Now that Paul is happily hitched, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me telling you about the counselling I gave him after his divorce from Heather “Moneybags” Mills.

“I dunno, GB,” he mused. “If only we could do things as simply as you gorillas.”

“Don’t be an ass, Paul, you belong to a different species,” I replied. “Just make sure the next one you marry has plenty of cash, so if it doesn’t work out you’ll agree to call it quits. And pick a woman who’s above child-bearing age. You’ve already sired a decent brood, and don’t want another baby selfishly hogging your wife’s udders.”

The new Lady McCartney could not have fulfilled my specifications more perfectly if I had picked her myself. Ms Nancy Shevell, aged 51, is the heiress of a road haulage empire. She is attractive; she is demure; her eyes do not have daggers in them. In short, she is the kind of woman who wouldn’t throw her hairdryer at you for saying her new hairstyle made her look like a yeti.

When I discussed Paul’s nuptials with the manager of the safari camp, he affected a sceptical tone:

“This Nancy woman sounds a bit bland to me,” he said. “Some men prefer a hot-headed wife who curses and bites before you pin her to the bed.”

“You’re confusing humans with apes,” I replied. “A man married to a dragon-lady can only fantasize about bed-pinning scenarios. Attempting such a manoeuvre in real life would most likely provoke a stiletto in the groin.”

Is it possible for a man to find happiness in the arms of a bad-tempered woman? Count Dracula’s wives were obviously crazy bitches from hell, yet they seemed quite devoted to their sinister and remorseless husband. They also got on tolerably well with each other, which doesn’t always happen in polygamous situations.

I would guess that the cornerstone of their relationship was the total absence of jealously. The Count was perfectly free to pursue any virgins her fancied, even if it meant going on extended vacations with limited opportunities for correspondence. And his feral spouses didn’t hesitate to sink their fangs into any stray man-flesh that wandered into the castle grounds. The Count, indeed, often played the pander to their grisly debaucheries.

Clearly there’s a lot wrong with vampires and their lifestyle wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste. But you have to admire the mature way they dealt with their relationship issues.

Her master's voice

2011-10-14T00:00:00.000+01:00

Boffins from Scotland have made an interesting discovery about human speech. It seems that a man with a deep voice is more likely to imprint his words in a woman’s mind. This gives the huskier dude a huge advantage in the mating game, enabling him to mesmerise women with his guttural utterances, and persuade them to bear his babies.

I suspect the scientists may be on to something. Back in my circus days, I remember a horse trainer who had a low rumbling voice. He rarely used it, though, being what humans call “the strong, silent type”. Now it came to pass that one of the female acrobats borrowed a corkscrew from him, which she kept forgetting to return. He eventually lost patience with the absent-minded bint and accosted her while she was limbering up for a practice session.

“Bring it back before sundown or I’ll smack your rump like a stubborn filly!” he boomed.

So awed was she by this announcement that she ransacked her trailer to find the misplaced item, which was returned to its owner while the sun was still high in the sky.

Readers of this blog have inquired about the nature of my own voice. It is not particularly low in pitch for a gorilla. To give you a rough idea, I sound deeper and richer than Tom Jones, but shriller than Lurch of the Addams family. It goes without saying that I have never used my voice to gain an unfair advantage over women. My preferred method of getting them to pay attention is to make eye contact when delivering the key words of my address.

“I like my nuts roasted and unsalted,” I once said to a girl serving snacks from an open air stall, staring deeply into her eyes as I enunciated the last three words. She blushed nervously, but complied with my instructions to the letter.

It is an interesting coincidence that another bunch of eggheads have been investigating the features of a woman’s voice. Apparently it varies during her monthly cycle, becoming highest in pitch when she is most fertile. This is supposedly a cue for the man in her life to flex his loins for the conjugal endeavour.

Their theory seems to assume that a woman becomes more alluring to her mate when her voice is shriller. I can’t say I know of a case study which supports this premise. It seems more likely, in my view, that a man would give his missus a good seeing to in the hope of silencing her aggravating screeching. Such a measure would be counterproductive in many cases, of course.

All in all, it doesn’t seem like something a woman should rely on to get herself knocked up. Far better that she should follow example of her primate sisters. When a female gorilla is in oestrus, she informs the snoozing silverback that she’s ready to mate by curtsying on his face. There’s no point beating around the bush when you’re trying to reproduce.

Pamela's new position

2011-10-10T00:00:00.000+01:00

My friend Pamela Anderson is begging me to help her become a UN goodwill ambassador. I got a call from her yesterday:

“I want to do it so much!” she mewed. “Couldn’t you pull a few strings behind the scenes, GB?”.

“I’ll try my best, Pammy, but don’t expect miracles,” I replied. “There is only so much a gorilla can do to influence the big-wigs of international diplomacy. Throwing my weight around recklessly would be counterproductive.”

She gave me her loving thanks and expressed full confidence in my lobbying abilities.

To be perfectly honest, I‘m not sure what a UN goodwill ambassador does. The only one I know anything about is Ginger Spice, who promoted the cause of sex education for the world’s rampant teenagers. Pamela would certainly be overqualified for that task, but her instruction videos have already been widely disseminated. Touring the world to give the same lessons in person would be a pointless exercise. On the other hand, it’s quite possible that she’s made new breakthroughs in the field. Never underestimate the creativity of a woman who named her breasts Pancho and Lefty.

Perhaps I’ll write a letter to Banky-Moon, informing him of Pamela’s affectionate nature and well-rounded interpersonal skills. He seems like an earnest little fellow who wears his heart on his sleeve. I’m sure he’ll warm to the qualities of a philanthropic actress whose bosom is brimming with compassion. Even if Pamela doesn’t win the goodwill job, he ought to give her another position in his office. No prominent man wants people to think he’s biased against blondes. I can honestly say that Pammy is smarter than most of the elephants of the Congo Basin.

Not all blond women are intelligent, of course. Hitler’s squeeze Eva Braun was a pitiful airhead. The Fuehrer, it seems, was attracted to women who wouldn’t give him backchat or point out the flaws in his bogus racial theories. Eva had the good sense, nevertheless, not to remove her knickers in public and keep schtum about her boyfriend’s peculiar bedroom tastes.

Heaven knows what Adolf and Eva would have made of the German couple who had sex in a football stadium. Their lurid exhibitionism was an abject failure, because the crowd were too engrossed in the game to pay them any heed. They only got the attention they craved when an eagle-eyed steward told them that bonking each other wasn’t an acceptable substitute for the Mexican wave. They were later expelled from the ground after another insidious attempt at scoring in an offside position.

What this episode proves is that sex will never rival football as a spectator sport. People who roar ecstatically when a goal is scored just don’t feel the same elation when they watch strangers copulate. A ball thudding into the back of a net is a far more powerful image than all the cum-shots, cum-faces and cream-pies one could muster in craziest orgy known to pornographic science. Don’t ask me whether that’s a good thing – my job is to observe, not judge.

Witches and Dwarves

2011-10-05T00:00:00.003+01:00

I’m glad to hear that the British police are confiscating wands and broomsticks that visitors are trying to smuggle into the Houses of Parliament. There’s no telling what the honourable members might do after being hexed by a politically active witch. They already behave like utter buffoons in the debating chamber, venting amid a chorus of farmyard noises. If a witch managed to put a pagan spell on them, the midget who sits in the Speaker’s chair might not be safe. Uglier creatures than he have been molested by the goatish mob.

Most of the witches I knew in my circus days were wholly apolitical, which I thought was a very good thing. Politics is a dirty game which would befoul and corrupt the spiritual values of the Spooky Sisterhood. The witches I met were convinced I had supernatural powers, and invited me to their outdoor naked dancing events (as an observer).

“My dear witchy ladies,” I said to them. “Before I accept your gracious invitation, I must disabuse you of the notion that I am a hairy wizard. I regret to say that I have no magical benediction to bestow upon your sacred coven.”

“Come along anyway,” they replied. “You can scare off the peeping toms.”

This was a service I was more than happy to provide. The naked witch is a sublime metaphysical entity that should never be ogled by perverts and degenerates. Her succulent flesh is a sacrament for the forest demigods, not an aid to self-abuse.

My relationship with the circus dwarves was much less cosy. People thought they disliked me for tossing them in my act, but most of them thoroughly enjoyed sailing through the air with their little limbs akimbo. In truth, they resented me for being the star of the show. Dwarves are jealous by nature and would rather forgo the pleasures of unaided flight than see a rival win acclaim.

A recent episode of dwarfish rascality has occurred in Argentina, where the farmers of Catamarca are blaming a marauding leprechaun for ruining their harvests.

“It was short like a dwarf and I’ve seen it and spoken to it,” said Cosimus Behana. “I wasn’t drunk or drugged – we are really cursed.”

This craven peasant needs a kick in the seat of his pants. A farmer who fatalistically allows a dwarf to commit mischiefs on his land is a disgrace to his profession. One has to wonder what he said to the creature when he spoke to it. It wouldn’t surprise me if he offered to trim its beard and polish its hobnailed boots.

If this bothersome imp is really causing their crops to fail, the farmers could easily make him desist with a bit of old-fashioned bribery. In my experience, a dwarf will suspend any vendetta he is pursuing if you offer him beer and prostitutes. With any luck, the hookers will take him away when he’s drunk and sell him on the open market as a brothel mascot. I’ve yet to meet the dwarf who could outfox a call girl.

Hungry for power

2011-09-30T00:00:00.001+01:00

The manager of the safari camp refuses to believe that Sarah Palin had a fetish for black men in her carefree days as a nubile college nymph.

“There’s no way a white woman would marry a Caucasian after sleeping with black men,” he declared. “When they’ve had black, there’s no going back.”

“Perhaps it was a case of ‘too much of a good thing’,” I suggested. “I’ve heard of humans going off chocolate after binging on those dark chunky slabs they sell in the supermarket.”

“Fish-paste!” scoffed the manager. “A woman doesn’t go off men for being too chunky. Not unless they make her do kinky stuff, like biting their buttocks while the dog is watching. Black men aren’t into such vices.”

“I humbly bow to your superior knowledge,” I replied. “Your scholarship in this field is clearly second to none.”

Unfortunately for Sarah, the rumour will damage her politically whether or not it’s true. Many white men will deeply resent the idea that black college athletes enjoyed the flower of her womanhood at its freshest, while her hapless husband had to make do with the stale leftovers. I don’t see how the Republican Party could nominate her now, given that she’d have to take part in live TV debates with President Obama. All that Barry would have to do is flex his forearms and throw her a wink to make her go weak at the knees.

The unwritten rule for a woman with political ambitions is to get elected before embarking upon a sex scandal. Consider the case of Julia Gillard, the raunchy redhead who governs Australia in the name of the Queen. Before becoming prime minister, she fooled people into thinking she was a frigid schoolmistress who changed her knickers every time the wind blew up her skirt. When I say “people” I mean “humans”, of course. We gorillas knew she was an insatiable vixen from the minute she entered politics. You don’t deny yourself the carnal delights if you’ve got the orang-utan gene.

Now that her hands are on the levers of power, a show has appeared on Australian TV depicting an alleged kerfuffle on the floor of her office, in which she and her fancy man canoodle nakedly beneath the national flag. I’d be very surprised if this patriotic frolic will offend the voters. The last thing the Australian electorate want is a frustrated woman who obviously isn’t getting any to boss them around.

“What about Hilldog?” I hear you ask. I personally think it’s too late for Mrs Clinton to revive her flagging political career by having sex with someone. People would think she was doing it to win votes rather than because she genuinely enjoyed it. It’s time for the Democrats to pass the torch to a new generation of highly-energised hotties with the drive and ambition to get on top and stay there. If Chelsea isn’t interested, the heir apparent has got to be Monica Lewinsky. There aren’t many women in America with her record of selfless service.

Sky high mischief

2011-09-26T00:00:00.000+01:00

Tending bar at the safari guesthouse, I overhear the humans debating the safety of air travel. They agree that flying is the safest form of transportation, unless there is an accident or some crackpot terrorist sneaks on board. In either of those lamentable scenarios, they liken boarding an aeroplane to a death sentence with no possibility of reprieve. Hence the best thing for passengers to do, they conclude, is intoxicate themselves with alcohol to ensure they are suitably zonked out if the worst happens.

This coping strategy seems to be a popular one, judging by a spate of alcohol-induced incidents on commercial jets. A recent one involved a comely young woman by the name of Katherine Goldberg, who drank a pint of whisky on a return flight from South Africa to London. Unfortunately, the quantity of liquor she consumed had the effect of liberating her inner hussy rather than rendering her senseless. One assumes she’ll learn from her mistake and drink two pints next time.

What happened on the flight was this: Miss Goldberg clutched the private parts of an air steward and demanded his sexual favours. Caught by surprise, the man appealed to his co-workers for assistance without responding to her request. The cabin crew then harried the disappointed woman back to her seat and informed the captain of her misconduct. She was later reported to the authorities, who promptly charged her with sexual assault.

After reading about this sorry affair, I got in touch with my old friend Smacker Ramrod, the circus vet, to acquaint him with the facts of the case. Although critical of Miss Goldberg’s behaviour, which he described as “futile” and “inopportune”, he was adamant that he wouldn’t have pressed charges if he’d been the air steward.

“A man who prosecutes a woman for groping him is a pussy,” he declared stoutly.

Smacker said that he would have grabbed Miss Goldberg by the wrists and escorted her to the galley for a private chat. After giving her a stern lecture on the etiquette of making propositions, he would have sent her back to her seat with her cheeks flushed red with shame. He added that he would have given her his business card so she could contact him if she needed further advice.

I must say I prefer Smacker’s “tough love” approach to putting the woman on trial. She seems like a good-natured girl who made a mistake because her brain was befuddled by the demon brew. How will the public interest be served by raking over the coals in front of a haughty judge and a smirking jury? Far better to deal with her issues informally with a friendly pat on the backside.

In the general scheme of things, of course, there is nothing wrong with a woman grasping a man’s todger. I am certain that the world would be a happier place if it happened more frequently. Once Katherine learns there is a time and a place for everything, those who cultivate her acquaintance will surely be touched with many blessings.

Duck delusion

2011-09-21T00:00:00.005+01:00

The manager of the safari camp is laughing his head off at a news story from England. Apparently, a hoary old farmer is being followed everywhere by a duck, which mistook him for its mother after hatching in his pocket. In the manager’s eyes, such mollycoddling of a duck egg is patently absurd:

“Why didn’t he just soft boil it for breakfast!” he chortled. “The yolk would have been delicious on strips of toast.”

“I believe the English farming fraternity prefer their eggs fried with bacon,” I said. “And now and again, they are swayed by their consciences to treat an egg in accordance with its parents’ wishes.”

“Aren’t they just, the sentimental ninnies!” proclaimed the manager guffawing. “That’s what happens in a nation of animal lovers. The beasts become tame and the children run wild!”

“Bravo, manager!” I exclaimed. “I shall add your pithy aside to my list of never-to-be-forgotten proverbs.”

Are the English really a nation of animal lovers? That depends very much on both the animal and the lover. Many of them love dogs, many of them love cats, but few of them love both. Foxes are adored by the urbanites and persecuted by the country folk. Fish are ruthlessly fished in the belief that they derive some perverse enjoyment from wriggling at the end of a line.

As for us gorillas, we are feared by some and admired by others. Occasionally that admiration swells into outright hero-worship, but I have dealt with this syndrome in previous posts, and have no wish to indulge in gratuitous boasting.

The complex attitude of the English to animals is highlighted in another news item about a man who defecated on a dead hedgehog. The hedgehog is a much-loved creature of the English woodland, which often receives snacks from humans, yet relatively few of its benefactors feel obliged to treat its remains with respect. Only pets adopted as surrogate family members are given a Christian burial in England.

I should add that the man who crapped on the hedgehog was arrested and put on trial for his misdeed. As with many cases of this type, the pivotal issue is the intent behind the act. If the accused deliberately pooped on the deceased animal, it’s as clear an example of a hate crime as you could wish to see. He ought to languish in prison until his nose hairs turn grey. But if he simply emptied his bowels recklessly without looking where he was shitting, he ought to be left off with a warning. I speak as a gorilla who may have accidentally dumped on the odd dead critter after getting caught short on jungle expeditions.

Of course, it says something about England that you can be prosecuted for defecating on a dead hedgehog. In less enlightened nations, such behaviour would barely elicit a murmur of disapproval from onlookers, or even be cheered as an inventive form of high jinks. There is probably no better place for an animal to pop its clogs.

Update: The man was fined £200 and barred from Scotland for 3 days. (There are a lot of dead hedgehogs in danger of being pooped on in Scotland).

French divorce settlement

2011-09-16T00:00:00.000+01:00

I have a certain amount of sympathy for the Frenchman who had to pay his ex-wife 10,000 euros for not having sex with her during their marriage. A French court ruled that a wife is entitled to a regular rogering from her husband, and must be financially compensated if the said rogering is not delivered with reasonable frequency. Speaking as a gorilla who has been ruthlessly pressed into service by females in season, I would never dispute a woman’s right to have her natural yearnings satisfied. Rather like a postage stamp, the female of the species must be moistened and mounted to fulfil her destiny.

What I don’t think is fair is putting all the blame on the man for the absence of conjugal deeds. To my way of thinking, a resourceful wife should always be capable of goading her husband into giving her a good seeing to. Did this particular lady just lie on the bed like a sack of potatoes, waiting to be ravished like a sacrificial virgin? If so, she must accept her share of the blame for the lack of bedroom action. Sometimes a woman must take the bull by the horns rather than waiting for the beast to gore her.

I am reminded of the scene in Midnight Cowboy where young Joe Buck is inexplicably unable to oblige a funky femme fatale who has hired him for that purpose. She then challenges him to a game of Scrabble and puts a suggestive word on the board, provoking him to pounce on her like a tomcat.

The other puzzling aspect of this case is that the wife supposedly endured 21 years of a sexless marriage before deciding to call it a day. That’s a hell of a long time to realise that something is amiss in your relationship. It makes me wonder whether she was really celibate for all those years. Most wives in her situation would invite their tennis instructor home to practice his serve-and-volley, soon to be followed by the postman, the plumber and the hard-hatted workman with a tool belt.

Having said all that, the past is past, and there’s point crying over skimmed milk. The woman is 47 years old with money in her purse and plenty of lost time to make up for. Some would say that she should settle down with an honest fellow who will shag her twice a week and go down on her on their wedding anniversary. I would advise her to get sowed with a few wild oats before committing herself to another matrimonial project.

I don’t know whether you can look up gigolos in the Yellow Pages, but one assumes they have ways of advertising their services. If she doesn’t trust the dandies of her native land to deliver value for money, she could always visit Africa and hire the young bucks who hang out on our beaches. Most of them don’t speak French, but that shouldn’t matter – they are used to giving satisfaction on a pidgin vocabulary.

Swiss brothel fire

2011-09-12T00:00:00.001+01:00

News arrives of a brothel in Switzerland that was burned to the ground after its owner lit a barbecue for his guests. It’s a timely warning for anyone running a business in the hospitality industry. Trying too hard to please the customer by offering services outside your area of expertise often ends in disaster. We’ve never been tempted to make call girls a part of the safari experience in Africa. Humans with sex on the brain are prone to rash acts in the presence of wild animals.

The Swiss brothel-owner should have known that a bawdyhouse doesn’t need gimmicks like a barbecue unless it’s in the wrong place. If I were starting up in the madam-ing business, I’d choose a seaside town with a warm climate. Sea air and naked flesh are what stimulate the human libido. Sex will never be a popular pastime in a country like Switzerland, famed for its mountain hikers and thermal underwear. The average Swiss couple copulate twice a year while holidaying in Italy or Greece – and not necessarily with each other.

Before anyone accuses me of being anti-Swiss, let me say that I have every respect for the concept of a Swiss-themed brothel. Buxom milkmaids, cuckoo clocks and girls called Heidi are the dog’s bollocks for a certain type of punter. I’m sure a bordello like that would rake in the cash in Rio or Acapulco. The point is that you need to have a party atmosphere to encourage hanky-panky, and the Swiss are not party animals. Theirs is an alpine lifestyle, where cold showers and yodelling on the hillside take precedence over socialising with other humans.

The main problem for any entrepreneur who needs to relocate abroad is understanding the local language. I’ve never understood why a genetically uniform species like homo sapiens speaks in such an absurd babble of different dialects. Why, for example, are there two types of Chinese? Isn’t it bad enough for Peking Chinaman to be incomprehensible to the rest of the world without also being incomprehensible to his countryman in Shanghai?

Some humans, of course, exploit this confusion by becoming multi-lingual. Like parrots, they thrive on hearing foreign words and repeating them frequently. An example of such is Rianhan Brooksbank-Jones, a pretty polyglot with a peculiar obsession about Korea. Her fascination with their oriental tongue is so great that she is having her own tongue surgically lengthened to speak it with greater fluency.

I must say I never realised Koreans had long tongues. It’s an attribute that would serve them well in the jungle, where there is no shortage of tasty titbits that need to be winkled out of crannies. That’s not something I would expect a well-bred girl like Miss Brooksbank-Jones to do, of course. After a busy morning spent babbling in Korean, she could volunteer to lick envelopes and postage stamps for a local charity. And then, before supper, she could stick out her tongue at bossy old fishwives from her bedroom window. Those who possess an unusual gift should do what they can to give something back to the community.

The dangers of bull seed

2011-09-07T00:00:00.000+01:00

I hear the authorities in Tennessee closed an interstate highway after several canisters of bull semen fell off a bus. Frustrated motorists accused them of overreacting, but I say it’s better to be safe than sorry. It only takes one mad woman with a bull-impregnation fantasy to create a Minotaur-like monster that would shock the world. Religious fundamentalists would claim a creature like that portended some dire prophecy, and incite their followers to make a hullabaloo. We don’t need a lot of excitable humans tugging their beards in wide-eyed fervour.

We gorillas are very wary of interspecies mating and the begetting of bizarre crossbreeds. Humans are fascinated by the idea because they’ve been misled by propaganda on popular TV shows. Consider Mr Spock of the Enterprise. He’s supposedly a Vulcan-human hybrid, yet is capable of anything a pure-bred Vulcan can do, while retaining the human ability to raise one eyebrow in ironic disdain. Real-life hybrids are nothing like as stylish or proficient. Mating a horse with a mule produces an ass, and no one in his right mind wants to be an ass.

Perhaps women who want to breed with a bull-like creature should ask Gerard Depardieu for a test tube of his man goo. He shouldn’t wish to deny them, as jerking off more frequently might alleviate his prostate condition. He claimed to have this infirmity after relieving himself in a plastic bottle on the aisle of a passenger jet. As the bottle wasn’t big enough for the contents of his bladder, the plane had to be evacuated while the carpet was shampooed.

Depardieu’s fellow passengers were naturally shocked by his exhibition and assumed he’d pissed in front them because he was pissed himself. Although this would be a reasonable presumption to make of a Frenchman, I prefer to put his behaviour down to desperation. The facts indicate that the cabin staff barred him entry to the lavatory because the plane was about to take off, which must have riled the pants off him. One shouldn’t expect a man to observe the normal decencies when his taut bladder is in a state of anticipation.

An actor whose prostate must be in tip-top condition is George Clooney. I say this because an ex-girlfriend of his has revealed that one of his favourite pastimes was sharing a hot tub with his men friends. Apparently they did it naked, in the style of the ancient Greeks. I don’t believe Clooney’s buddies would have risked such an intimate convocation if there was the slightest chance of underwater leakage from the great man.

Clooney has brushed off suggestions that there’s anything fishy about enjoying a naked soak with one’s boyfriends.

“I’ve always had really great friends on both sides of the aisle, so to speak,” he explained.

I don’t doubt this for a minute, but why does one side of the aisle get special bath-time privileges at the Clooney residence? I’m beginning to suspect he feels awkward in the presence of naked women.

Hopping mad

2011-09-02T00:00:00.000+01:00

I do hope the Czech authorities are lenient with Benji the kangaroo, who ran amok in Prague, stealing ladies’ knickers as he hopped from garden to garden. A kangaroo doesn’t do such things out of malice or depravity, and he must have learned the behaviour from a human role model. Benji’s owner was quick to deny culpability:

“He certainly didn’t pick up the habit from me,” said 35-year-old Petr Hlabovic defensively.

I hope they’ll search Hlabovic’s house for incriminating evidence before accepting his denial. I’ve often heard rumours of knicker-collecting men, who display their stolen artefacts as trophies to their beer-guzzling buddies. The home of such a brigand would be a highly corrupting environment for a kangaroo.

A more innocent explanation is that Benji was influenced by what he saw on TV. Kangaroos are impressionable creatures, and I believe that re-runs of The Benny Hill show are popular in the Czech Republic. Who could blame Benji for mimicking the antics of a pie-faced buffoon who gets cheap laughs by ogling busty women? He simply wouldn’t have known any better.

The kindest thing to do with Benji now would be to send him back to his native land. Australians are a patriotic bunch, and have a notably relaxed attitude to knicker-theft and other larrikin pranks. I would expect them to welcome Benji home as a returning hero and present him with a harem of females for his (and their) amusement. Bush nookie is a popular pastime in that part of the world.

One émigré animal who certainly shouldn’t be repatriated is Nico the gorilla, who petulantly tossed away the flowers he was given on his 50th birthday, and greedily wolfed down the fruit cake he later received. A gorilla that spoiled wouldn’t last five minutes in Africa. If I ever dared to pour scorn on a gift from my females I’d be walking with a limp for the next three months.

It has to be said that humans are not always astute in their choice of presents. Back in my circus days, I remember getting a silk necktie for my birthday from the female acrobats.

“I’m sure I shall find an excellent use for it,” I said to the girls.

“You’re supposed to wear it around your neck,” they explained.

“Yes, I believe that’s what a man would do with it,” I replied. “We gorillas are not so conventional in our use of ornamental textiles.”

I initially considered wearing around my chest as a nipple protector, but soon realised that such an application would be pointless. A gorilla’s nipples are pretty secure at the worst of times, and I’ve not met the human who would dare to pinch them without prior consent.

I eventually settled on using it as a line to hang pot plants on. This was a great success, allowing me to cultivate an impressive range of herbs and medicinal narcotics. As we say in the jungle: if it can’t be used in horticulture, you may as well give it to the crocodiles.

Sleeping arrangements

2011-08-29T00:00:00.001+01:00

Apparently, a lot of British people find that listening to jungle noises puts them to sleep. I suppose the chattering of monkeys reminds them of childhood visits to the zoo, rather than annoying creatures who might piss on their heads. When I want to fall asleep quickly, I listen to an audiotape of a woman nagging her husband. It takes me back to my carefree circus days, when I sniggered at humans queuing for tickets in the hot sun.

Sadly, Britain no longer produces women like Mary Poppins, who could coax people to Noddyland by a singing a soothing lullaby. Cut-glass English accents are out of fashion in the UK, where the current crop of nannies are burly young women with hoarse voices from places like Woking and Slough. Listening to them warble is not conducive to a restful night of slumber.

Now, the crucial point about sleep is that quality is more important than quantity. The best bit of the nightly snooze is the first part, when the brain is switched off and the spirit resides in a peaceful void on the dark side of the Moon. Things go downhill when the brain wakes up and finds that nothing is happening. In its boredom, it manufactures the mental poo we call “dreams”.

There are people who claim to have wonderful dreams in which they fly above the Earth like an eagle, laying eggs on top of the Eiffel Tower and getting their feathers stroked by Carla Bruni. You only have dreams like that if your subconscious mind is trying to lift your spirits because your wakeful existence is incredibly shitty. In other circumstances, dreams are weird little pantomimes that signify nothing and foretell less. This doesn’t stop humans from assuming I’m a hairy soothsayer who can interpret their dreams. Last week, a fresh-faced girl on safari took me into her confidence:

“I keep on having this horrible nightmare!” she mewed. “A giant python wraps his coils around my body and starts squeezing me ever more tightly. And while he’s squeezing me, he lifts his horrible head and looks right into my eyes:

‘I’ll stop squeezing if you’ll kiss me on the mouth,’ he says.

‘A French kiss?’ I ask.

‘Is there any other kind?’ he replies, making his tongue dart in and out.

‘I won’t do it, you beastly serpent!’ I cry. ‘I’d rather be squeezed like a lemon than kiss you!’

But in my heart, I know the real reason I won’t kiss him is because I want him to carry on squeezing me! Oh what does it mean, GB?!”

The dream was total nonsense, of course. No self-respecting python would give up its supper for a bit of tongue action with a human female. Yet I sensed it would be unkind to denigrate something which she clearly believed was a highly significant piece of theatre.

“It means you are a virtuous young lady who will not kiss a snake however good it makes her feel.” I declared.

She thanked me profusely and skipped away contentedly. I just hope my interpretation doesn’t end up ruining someone’s life.

Hello Dolly!

2011-08-24T00:00:00.002+01:00

My females have been shaking their hairy haunches to the music of Dolly Parton and I’m not ashamed to admit I joined them. The feisty diva’s latest CD is a must buy for anyone with an ear for cheerful ditties, sung in the chirpy-yet-defiant voice of a busty-yet-diminutive southern belle.

Miss Parton is now wealthy enough to produce her own albums, having previously been frustrated by shallow and avaricious record companies that will shun a female artist whose nipples are lower than her rib-cage. In a recent interview, she was quick to point out that being her own boss had its advantages:

“I don’t have to listen to anybody,” she explained. “I’m the only person that I have to tell to kiss my ass.”

She was speaking figuratively, of course. There are very few humans whose spines are flexible enough to kiss their own behinds, and I’d be very surprised if Dolly could get within 12 inches at her age. Thankfully, a singer of her rare and extraordinary genius will never have to attempt this inelegant feat to entertain her adoring fans.

“It ain’t really about the money, it’s about the art.” she declared when pressed on the matter.

I couldn’t agree more. There’s nothing remotely artistic about smooching your own rear end, even if the perverts and ghouls would pay top-dollar to witness it. A lady of style does not sully her image by performing unnatural stunts.

On the subject of ladies’ bottoms, a woman of infinitely lower pedigree than Dolly Parton has displayed a photo of her naked posterior in an English law court. Accused of the heinous crime of punching a lesbian, she claimed the rainbow-coloured flower tattooed on her backside proved she harboured no prejudice against the Sapphic sisterhood. This dubious “evidence” immediately sowed seeds of dissension among the jury, who were subsequently unable to agree a verdict. The authorities decided against a retrial, so the woman walked free with a triumphant smirk on her face.

It disappoints me that 12 honest citizens could so easily be distracted by a wholly irrelevant arse snap. How could they be sure it belonged to the defendant in any case? There was no question of exposing her rump in open court, which might have given the judge a stroke, and you can’t accept the word of a queer-basher. As a result of their pusillanimity, a truculent hussy will be free to inflict further aggravations on innocent lesbians and their collaborators.

Had I been a member of the jury, I would have pointed out that law-abiding women do not deface their buttocks with rainbow-coloured tattoos. The fact that she shamelessly displayed a photo of the alleged tattoo was proof enough of her brazen and disruptive character. And if the derriere in question did not belong to the accused, she was guilty of perjury to boot.

There are times when it doesn’t need much deliberation to determine a person’s guilt – you could say it was written on their butt cheeks.

Serbian love supper

2011-08-19T00:00:00.001+01:00

A Serbian mayor has invited single women from across the country to a love supper with the town’s resident bachelors. In his eagerness to nurture romance, he has offered budding couples free holidays in Greece, there being no better place to excite the amorous passions. Let’s hope the girls won’t dump their new boyfriends for the first bushy-eyebrowed Stavros who ogles them on the beach.

Much as I approve of a mayor playing the pander, I can’t think of a species less suitable for group pair-bonding exercises than homo sapiens. Everyone knows that humans vary enormously in their attractiveness to the opposite sex, often for utterly trivial reasons such as the shape of the chin or the size of the nose. If you put single humans together in groups, the ugly ones get shunned because they’re ugly and the beautiful ones get shunned because no one will risk getting rejected by them.

My preferred method of pairing humans off would be to draw lots. That way everyone has an equal chance of getting a sugarplum or a lemon. The unlucky ones would obviously be disappointed, but at least they’d begin their married life with low expectations. Humans are mysterious creatures, and what initially appears to be the booby prize may turn out to be a serviceable household appliance. There might also be fewer recriminations about adultery, given that cheaters could use the line “I didn’t ask to be married to you” to mitigate their infidelities.

When I mentioned this item of news to the manager of the safari camp, he grinned like an alligator:

“That mayor is a crafty old vulture!” he chortled. “I bet he’ll be offering consolation prizes to the girls who don’t find their dream-boy at the love supper!”

Much as I abhor his cynicism, it’s possible that he’s right. The mayor looks like a burly ex-wrestler who could knock out a grizzly bear’s teeth with his bald head. Men like that are renowned for their prodigious sexual appetites. Maybe he'll go to the love supper himself, making toasts and acting like the star of the show, while his aides invite the best-looking fillies to a slumber party at the mayoral mansion. There’s no shortage of women who’d rather be the concubine of the bulldog than the wife of the poodle.

Even if the mayor is entirely on the level, there’s something not quite right about bribing nubile women to come to a dinner party. Men who want to get hitched should do the chasing themselves rather than being spoon-fed with bussed-in totty. If I saw one of those lovelorn bachelors moping around, I would give him a stern lecture:

“Young man,” I would say, “if you want to find a bride, saddle up your horse and ride out of town with a lasso in hand. A worthy suitor takes what he wants rather than waiting for the world to come to him.”

As a fan of the western, I’m assuming that being carried off on horseback would quicken the pulse of any eligible spinster. Am I wrong?

Chinese dress code

2011-08-15T00:00:00.001+01:00

The Chinese government is cracking down on “vulgarity” in public places. The nation’s biggest on-line gaming fair has been told that the models who appear in the event should not display advertising logos in “sensitive positions”. That sounds like the deliberately vague catch-all prohibition of a Communist regime scared of counter-revolutionary nipple slogans. Some might think Chinese girls were insufficiently endowed to carry seditious material on their bosoms, but apparently much can be said with a couple of well-chosen characters. During the Cultural Revolution, the red guards checked whether suspects had shaved insults to Mao on their pubic hair.

A more specific restriction on the models’ attire is that no more than two-thirds of their backs should be uncovered. One has to respect the mathematical precision of the ruling. A professor on safari told me that at least six measurements would be required to work out the bare-back ratio. I suppose an eager little fellow with an inch tape will be taking the girls’ dimensions from behind and feeding the data into his programmable calculator. It’s the sort of job any self-respecting geek would pay for the privilege of doing.

I’ve only ever encountered one man who was besotted with the female back. He was a quarter Chinese but one-half Welsh, so we can’t draw any conclusions from that. The circus I worked for had hired him as a human cannonball, which meant that his own back was subject to considerable compression. Maybe that’s why he yearned to rub his face against the unspoiled vertebrae of a well-postured woman.

He evaded capture for some time by preying on female spectators, who assumed their molester was another member of the audience. His luck ran out when I caught him sneaking behind a lady in an open-backed frock and licking her between the shoulder blades. He was wearing clown’s make-up as a disguise, but I saw through the subterfuge immediately.

“Cheong-Jones!” I exclaimed, as he strove to escape my long-armed grip. “There’s no point struggling, my hand is like a vice on your collar! Never again will your lizard-like tongue moisten the innocent flesh of a ticket-paying customer!”

After realising there was no hope of escape, he tried to mollify his bemused victim, who had turned round to face us. He began with flattery, telling her what an irresistible back she had, which had tasted even better than it looked. He then made the fatal error of offering to cleanse the defiled flesh with a damp sponge, which made the woman shudder and flinch.

Cheong-Jones was later given his marching orders with a decent severance package. Before he left, I asked him why he was drawn to women’s backs.

“They remind me of the marble columns in my uncle’s mansion,” he explained. “I used to rub against them when I was a boy. Nothing has ever come close.”

The ingenuity of humans in finding sexual surrogates has never failed to impress me. I suppose you can’t beat marble if you like it smooth and hard. A bit too cool for my liking, I should fancy.

Blessed are the peacemakers

2011-08-10T00:00:00.001+01:00

Earlier this year, I rebuked a chimpanzee for wearing a Manchester United football shirt.

“You silly chimp!” I exclaimed. “Have you ever been to Manchester? The place is cold and grey and full of sour-faced humans.”

“But I’ve seen them play on the satellite sports channel!” he protested. “Their best player is the spitting image of our band’s alpha male.”

“Looks aren’t everything,” I replied. “I assure you he’d be useless in a fight with marauding baboons.”

I was reminded of this exchange on hearing news of a 19-year-old Mancunian who is patrolling the mean streets of his city in a costume that might have been designed for Spiderman’s bumbling sidekick. His aim is to dissuade rowdy men from brawling and encourage them to settle their differences amicably.

“All I want to do is try and get people to like each other," he explained to a journalist.

Remarkably, none of the ruffians he has attempted to mollify has responded to his message of goodwill by using his masked head as a football. Perhaps that’s because he judiciously calls the police if he senses his intervention will provoke antagonism rather than reconciliation. Even Batman and Robin used to bring in the fuzz to sort things out in the final stages.

Before you get the wrong idea, let me emphasize that I have no scorn for this idealistic young simpleton. When I was a young gorilla, living among humans, I also tried to pacify men engaged in fisticuffs. I then discovered a remarkable paradox – the only effective method of putting an end to their violence was to threaten (and often deliver) more brutal violence. This led me to revise my tactics. When I see men fighting nowadays, I pull up a chair, order a tub of popcorn and watch the action like a film buff at the cinema. If this alone doesn’t bring about a truce, shouting “I’ll fight the winner” usually has a calming effect.

A very different approach is required when I encounter an affray between women. Obviously I can’t just watch them, which would be the behaviour of a roguish voyeur. Fortunately, my years of experience with female circus acrobats taught me what to do in these situations. Rather than intervening to settle the dispute, one must impose oneself as the referee.

The main rules to enforce in a catfight are as follows – no scratching, hair-pulling or pinching of the bosom flesh. Blows must be delivered cleanly to the fleshy parts of the body and biting is only acceptable if the face is being pummelled. Wrestling and slapping of the posterior are encouraged as forms of aggression less likely to cause injury or disfigurement. Coarse swearing or mean remarks are strongly censured.

A danger of refereeing such bouts, of course, is getting caught up in the melee yourself. Enraged women don’t like being chided by a gorilla and are apt to question his neutrality. My immediate response to such an impropriety is to hoist the combatants off the ground, holding one under each arm. I have always found that women are much calmer when their feet are airborne.

Dreaming of Obama

2011-08-05T00:00:00.000+01:00

A correspondent has sent me a blog post written by a strange young man who dreamt he had been raped by President Obama. If you read the post, you'll discover that the Obama of his dreams drugged his drink, raped him violently and then pinched his cheeks for good measure. What I find odd is that the fellow seems to think his dream is something to be proud of, and his readers, judging by their comments, appear to concur. Anyone would think that he’d been invited to the White House for a game of checkers and a hot dog.

My own view is that dreaming you've been raped by the President of the United States is nothing to boast about. Men have suffered greater calamities in their sleep, and in their waking hours too. I should imagine that most people could easily replicate the dream by gazing at pictures of Obama during the day and inserting a butt plug before turning in for the night. I'm not suggesting anyone should do that, of course. Any US citizen who intentionally generates a nightmare of being buggered by the president is arguably guilty of sedition. I believe there's a legal precedent involving President Ulysses Grant and the owner of the Fancy Britches Saloon in Tennessee.

I dare say this fellow's confession is the tip of the iceberg - millions of men all over the world are probably having similar rape fantasies. If Village People were re-forming today, one of the band members would certainly be an Obama lookalike. When a good-looking black man gets his finger on the nuclear button, men of ambiguous tendencies discover their inner catamite.

Anyway, I mentioned this blog post to an American man staying at the safari guesthouse in the hope of making light conversation during the rainy season. His eyebrows didn't move a millimetre.

“There's a guy in Washington DC who claims Obama raped him in real life,” he said. “He sits under a sign with the words “OBAMA RAPED ME” on it, and below the headline is a story about how Obama drugged his drink and crept into his bed on a dark and stormy night. He says he told Obama's bodyguards what happened, but they didn’t do anything.”

“What a fool!” I exclaimed. “As if it’s the job of Obama's bodyguards to console his rape victims. Alleged rape victims, I should say. He sounds like another bi-curious white boy, fantasizing about being ravished by the black commander-in-chief.”

“Actually, the man was black,” corrected the guest.

“Was he indeed?” I remarked. “The plot thickens.”

Whatever the colour of his complexion, the behaviour of this fellow annoys me. America may be the land of free speech, but you shouldn’t be allowed to accuse the president of rape without substantiating the accusation. Where is the proctologist's report? Where are the cotton swabs?

If you happen to encounter this lamentable guttersnipe on a visit to Washington DC, please pass on the following message:

Gorilla Bananas says “Put up or shut up!”

Strip for Putin

2011-08-01T00:00:00.002+01:00

It seems the Russians still have a long way to go before they understand how the free market works. A bevy of the nation’s most beautiful women are supporting Mr Putin’s bid to regain the presidency in 2012 by taking off their clothes. I dare say ogling their naked bodies is as good a reason as any to vote for Pootikins, but you don’t bribe the voters by giving them the goodies in advance. They should have offered to strip off after their hero got elected Czar again.

Putin has been an explosive sex symbol for Russian women ever since he promised to wipe out terrorists when they were sitting on the toilet. It takes a special kind of ruthlessness to blow a man away when he’s taking a dump. Most assassins wait until their victim has emptied his bowels and scoured with paper or douche. We gorillas would never attack an adversary who was answering a call of nature. Shitting animals are civilians in the jungle, and confronting them runs the risk of stepping in their poop.

Now, Putin has been keeping very quiet about his stripper fan club and I don’t blame him. If he publicly disowns them he’ll look like an ungrateful KGB apparachnik, but if he thanks them too warmly people might think he put them up to it. In the heyday of my circus career, I attracted a large following of nubile young women, who sometimes deigned to show their devotion by disrobing. I never encouraged them. A busty young lady once told me she was going to dance topless through the streets of her home town with “GORILLA” printed on one breast and “BANANAS” printed on the other. Believe me, they were big enough for the words to fit.

“Your adulation touches me greatly,” I said, “but I cannot publicly acknowledge your gesture or thank you for it.”

“Don’t you want me to do it?” she asked.

“It is not for me to forbid you,” I replied. “Do what you must do, but don’t expect me to attend the event or cheer you on. A family entertainer must maintain a discreet silence when a woman jiggles her jahoobies in his honour.”

As you can see, my answer occupied the narrow middle ground between incitement and disapproval. She nevertheless interpreted it as a green light to proceed. When my circus colleagues rushed excitedly to tell me that she’d exhibited her assets to great hoopla, I maintained a poker face.

“She was courteous enough to inform me of her plans in advance,” I remarked dryly. “I am glad she found an appreciative audience.”

Her performance attracted the interest of various media outlets, and the graffiti on her bosom did not go unnoticed. This resulted in excellent publicity for my act, and our shows were sold out for the rest of the summer. As a token of my gratitude, I sent her a gift from the lingerie department of Selfridges, signing the card “Your hairy idol”. There’s no point displaying false modesty to a fan.

The frog that won't croak

2011-07-27T00:00:00.001+01:00

The manager of the safari camp has bet me 15 coconuts that Robert Mugabe will be ready for embalming before the year is out. He certainly looks overdue if recent photos are anything to go by. Yet Mugabe is telling his followers that he plans to live to 100, by which time he might resemble the skull and crossbones on a pirate flag. Zanu PF could then create a new party emblem called the “Jolly Robert” to terrify their opponents into submission.

My jungle instincts tell me that a man of Mugabe’s character has too much demonic energy to die of natural causes. He feels the world is against him, which makes him cussed and resilient, capable of puffing out defiant rhetoric until his enemies have run out of steam.

Enemy Number 1 is the former colonial power, which he refers to as the “Gay United Kingdom”. Relations hit rock bottom during a private visit to London in 1999, when a gay rights campaigner jumped into his limousine and tried to arrest him. Mugabe was badly shaken by the incident, believing, in his vanity, that he was about to be molested. Every since then he has railed against the British government and its “gay gangsters” for orchestrating a queer conspiracy against him.

Many Zimbabweans, of course, believe that Mugabe himself is a repressed homosexual, like Mr Garrison in South Park. There is certainly something rather camp about him when he pontificates and postures in one of his brightly-coloured shirts. My own theory is that his hatred of gay men originates from his dealings with the late Canaan Banana, his old Zanu PF comrade, who gave him regular prostate examinations. When it was later discovered that Banana was a gay date rapist, Mugabe felt violated and humiliated, even though he’d probably enjoyed the examinations as much as Banana.

Perhaps the manager is hoping that an assassin will finish Mugabe off. The cleanest method of dispatch would be to shock him to death with a devastating insult. African autocrats have incredibly fragile egos which can’t handle disrespect from the common rabble. Mugabe was so upset when a policeman used his private toilet that he sent him to prison, even though the poor fellow was desperate. It would be wrong to single out Mugabe for this peculiarly African vice. In neighbouring South Africa, a man was arrested and roughed up for showing Jacob Zuma his middle finger.

In an ideal world, an assassin with an exceptionally wobbly behind would moon at Mugabe during his daily breathing exercises, causing him to expire with his tongue hanging out. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that the mooner could get close enough to dominate his field of view. A more feasible plan would be hiring a fearless wag to traumatise the tyrant with vulgar abuse from a megaphone.

“Hey Mugabe!” he might boom to get his attention. “Your head is so far up your arse that you don’t know whether you’re talking or farting!”

A scatological barb of that severity should puncture his airbags for good.

Unbelievable

2011-07-22T00:00:00.004+01:00

I’m coming to the conclusion that surveys of human mating practices are worthless. The participants simply say what they think the interviewer wants to hear rather than confessing their deepest desires (to say nothing of their kinkiest fetishes).

I base my opinion on the results of a recent survey of human couples in long-term relationships. It appears that the women said regular sex was essential, whereas the men said they needed to be kissed and cuddled. After pinching myself to make sure I wasn’t in a parallel universe, I realised what must have happened. The women were so worried about appearing needy and emotional that they pretended to be men, while the men were so fearful of looking like heartless lechers that they pretended to be women. The result of all this disinformation was a report with findings that would make a baboon chortle.

The ability of humans to lie convincingly is a big problem for us anthropological apes. Mother Nature has designed the face of homo sapiens to be the perfect lying machine. Those devious inscrutable eyes; that prominent nose (which unlike Pinocchio’s remains the same length unless you pull it); that weaselly mouth, capable of beguiling the naïve listener with its forked-tongued phrases. Many an honest gorilla has been hoodwinked by deceitful humans.

Fortunately, my time in the circus enabled me to hone my human-face-reading skills. I remember a clown once asking me not to kick his arse during our act, because his pelvis had been replaced by a metal plate after a riding accident.

“You would break your foot,” he warned, apparently concerned for my welfare.

I sensed he was lying from the way his eyebrows twitched as he spoke. After some diligent detective work, I discovered that the only metal plates in his backside were those he stuffed into his underpants before putting on his costume. To teach him a lesson, I entered the ring with a large mallet in hand and smashed his buttocks like a pair of cymbals. The audience loved it.

Another devilish trick humans employ is to tell you something that sounds like a tall story which turns out to be true. A few days ago, the manager of the safari camp asked me if I’d been invited to the “monkey wedding” in India.

“A simian of your stature ought to be present at this ground-breaking event,” he said. “If I were a monkey I’d want you to be my best man.”

“You don’t say,” I replied. “Well, unfortunately I’ve got a prior engagement to attend a chimpanzee christening before going to the barber to get my arse-hairs trimmed.”

“Look it up if you don’t believe me,” he said sniggering.

I did and was amazed to find a corroborating news item. It seems that an Indian villager brought up a monkey as his son and found a bride for him in a neighbouring village. Their betrothal was celebrated with a traditional Indian jamboree involving saffron and plenty of coconuts. I don’t see it lasting unless their tails are tied together.

The Atkins diet

2011-07-18T00:00:00.001+01:00

Silly scientists are claiming that we gorillas invented the Atkins diet. On behalf of the gorilla nation, I issue an official denial. The scientists who came up with the idea are a bevy of boobies and a caboodle of clowns. Pour scorn on this nonsense if anyone asks you about it. You can tell them you heard it from the horse’s mouth.

The Atkins diet was actually invented by lions, who eat nothing but fresh meat garnished with tufts of grass for seasoning and decoration. Actresses copied the diet after noticing that lions never seem to get fat, even after gorging themselves on the equivalent of 67 wildebeest burgers. This may be true, but another consequence of their meat-addiction is chronic halitosis, making it impossible for them to kiss during mating.

Thus, actresses who followed the Atkins diet maintained slim figures at the expense of getting lion breath. A good many subsequently got divorced because their husbands refused to kiss them and insisted on having sex in the “rodeo” position. Female performers are far too vain to be humped like lionesses, however how bad their breath is.

My advice to actresses is to forget about dieting. You can’t develop your range if you keep on playing skinny women trying to catch the eye of the leading man. There were times in human history when it was fashionable for women to have some meat on them – consequently, the period drama is a bonanza for chubby actresses. Queen Victoria is the classic role for the small plump woman with a round bottom. Ann of Cleves, affectionately known as “The Mare of Flanders”, is suitable for the more heifer-like figure. In years to come, casting directors will be looking for someone to play Oprah in a biopic. Black women with the bodies of cheerleaders need not apply.

I shouldn’t leave you with the impression that I have a particular animus against actresses. Male thespians are just as insecure, although less often about their weight. Take George Clooney, for example. He was so worried about what people would think, following his recent break-up with the gorgeous Elisabetta Canalis, that he got one of his flunkies to make a statement on his behalf:

“I saw them together and I can say their love story was very intense,” said Manuele Malenotti. “You never know in life, and men are having an identity crisis, but I can tell you George is not gay.”

I find this rather pathetic. Surely no one even imagined Clooney was gay before he started getting paranoid about it. Not being willing or able to settle down with a woman doesn’t necessarily mean you’re hungry for cock. Having said all that, one can’t help wondering about him now that he’s made such a big issue of it. And his use of interlocutors is cowardly and unconvincing. If George Clooney isn’t gay, he should say so himself instead of getting one of his boyfriends to deny it.(For the record, I think that he and Richard Gere would make an attractive couple.)

Tarentino is a sucker

2011-07-13T00:00:00.000+01:00

A 23-year-old woman called Beejoli Shah is claiming that Quentin Tarentino sucked her toes during a sexual encounter at the movie maker's residence. Her story is entirely credible, of course. It would be surprising if a man of Tarentino's character did not engage in kinky and unsavoury fetishes. One has to wonder, nevertheless, why Miss Shah was so eager to confess her part in this ugly incident. Was she warning future "guests" about what to expect if they ventured into the lizard grotto that Tarentino uses for a bedroom? You couldn’t fault her for that.

She definitely exceeded her tattling rights, however, when she complained about the appearance of Tarentino's penis, describing it as "the chode of all chodes". Even prostitutes generally avoid such graphic language for fear of giving people nightmares. Someone should tell Miss Shah that Mother Nature did not create the male appendage for ornamental purposes. Its function is to do a job of work rather than bask in compliments from female admirers.

Incidentally, I have a theory that the practice of circumcision originated as an attempt to prettify the penis, so that Jewish maidens would not be horrified by what they saw on their wedding night. Although a nice girl doesn't look, she can't always control what pops in front of her eyes, especially if the man she marries throws all delicacy to the winds once the forbidden fruits of her fruitery are no longer forbidden.

Regrettably, Miss Shah's behaviour suggests that she is something other than a nice girl. What can one say about a young Asian woman who drops her knickers for a famous film director with indecent haste, and then shamelessly spills the beans to her friends? Nothing complimentary, that’s for sure. The fact that she is a graduate of Berkeley College compounds the disgrace. The University of California should create a new degree classification for floozies of her calibre called "summa cum-on-my-face".

One thing Miss Shah shouldn't have to worry about is getting sued. I doubt even Tarentino would expose himself in open court to pursue a claim for dick defamation – the risk of the jurors agreeing with the defendant would be too great. She is luckier, in this respect, than Miss Lisa Ostermann, who received a court summons after referring to a man as "the biggest asshole in the world" on her Facebook page. A complicating factor in the case was that the fellow she insulted happened to be her father.

No one likes to see a daughter call her father an anus, even if it happens to be true. That sort of epithet should be reserved for cads, bounders and gym trainers who make unflattering remarks about the shape of one's tush. I'm glad to say that Papa Ostermann dropped his lawsuit after the matter was resolved behind closed doors, presumably by persuading his daughter to eat an extra-large helping of humble pie. As my friend Lady Chuffington says, a family's dirty linen should be washed in private, possibly with the aid of a biological detergent.

Rap queens

2011-07-08T00:00:00.020+01:00

An academic from Texas, by the name of Dr Mia Moody, is claiming that female rappers often write lyrics boasting about their sexual prowess. Before giving credence to this shocking allegation, it would be prudent to review the evidence thoroughly. Such a precaution would be particularly apt in this case, as “Dr Mia Moody” sounds suspiciously like the pseudonym of a mischievous hoaxer. However, given that I can’t be bothered to carry out the necessary investigations, I will assume, for the sake of argument, that there are sufficient particles of truth in Dr Moody’s findings to make them worthy of comment.

What can one say about women who tell people they are fantastic in bed? As well as being extremely unladylike, I would consider their bragging to be devoid of substance. Men are simply too varied in their coital preferences to give such boasts any clear meaning: some of them want a dominatrix who will tie them to the bed-posts before straddling them; others desire a dainty wood nymph who will whimper submissively during copulation. Admittedly, a high-class harlot might be versatile enough to satisfy the diverse and peculiar whims of her clientele, but this is clearly not what the conceited rappess has in mind when she tells her listeners she’s the hottest snake-handler on the planet.

My ape intuition tells me that what these lyrics mean is that the performer has an insatiable sexual appetite, capable of draining the virile energy of the baddest mofo in town, leaving him lying on her rug with his paws in the air like a desiccated lizard. In other words, that she is good at enjoying herself in bed, rather than good at pleasing her partner. While it’s true that most men would prefer a woman who derives pleasure from their virile exertions, not many would wish to tangle with a voracious meat-grinder capable of turning the mightiest sausage into mince. A wise rooster avoids the hen who needs to get laid more frequently than her eggs do.

Rap, it must be said, is a lowbrow art form. Aggressive chanting is what one expects to hear from a mob of garrulous football supporters rather than a performing artist. Women who aspire to excel in such a macho and misogynistic pastime must be suffering from some kind of hormonal imbalance, which might explain why they boast about their sexual abilities. The queen bee has to buzz loudly if she wants to be serviced by an unending procession of drones.

The only rap song I ever enjoyed was an ironic sporting ditty called Come on, Aussie, come on!, sung by a man who was obviously an outlandish humbug. I defy you to listen to it three times without joining in at the chorus. It now has an exalted place in my pantheon of favourite Australian hits, a coterie which includes Tie me kangaroo down! and Bite me arse, yer drongo! You can always trust the Australians to turn something vulgar and inane into a humorous classic.

Reservoir dog

2011-07-04T00:00:00.002+01:00

I hear the authorities in Portland have drained an 8-million gallon reservoir because a man was filmed urinating in it.

“Nobody wants to drink pee,” said the head of the city’s water bureau.

Who gave him the authority to speak for mankind? I know for a fact that many humans are dedicated piss-drinkers, convinced of the fluid’s therapeutic properties. A celebrated exponent of the practice is the English actress Sarah Miles, whom I met many years ago after a circus show.

“Miss Miles, how delightful to meet you!” I said. “What a fine performance you gave in Ryan’s Daughter! You must have been pretty uncomfortable when Robert Mitchum slumped on top of you in the wedding night scene.”

“Thank you, GB,” she said smiling coyly. “Fortunately I emptied my bladder into a thermos flask before we shot that scene. It gave me something to drink during the tea break.”

“How fascinating!” I exclaimed. “Did it taste good?”

“It’s a bit like weak beer,” she said. “Would you like to try some?

“Thank you, Sarah, but we gorillas have no need of beverages. We get all the moisture we need from our lush and fruity diet.”

It goes without saying that I would have rather sucked a frog dry than sample Sarah’s effluence, but one has to be tactful when refusing a woman’s water. She went on to say that drinking your own pee protects you against allergies and poisons any parasites in your blood. I almost believed her.

But let’s get back to the Portland piddler. By my calculation, the concentration of urine in the reservoir following the unlawful micturation was one part in 100 million. This is less than the concentration in the sea (where fish relieve themselves continuously) and far less than the concentration in swimming pools, which human infants use as pissoirs. Thus, the decision to drain the reservoir cannot be explained as a public health precaution.

Perhaps the real reason for pulling the plug on all that water was to protect the honour of the city’s residents. Taking a leak on another person’s property has been an act of ritual humiliation since the Bronze Age, when the Assyrians pissed in the wells of their enemies. Witness the rage of the suburban householder whose flowers beds are watered by a neighbour’s dog, even though the nitrogen-rich dog-pee is a tonic for thirsty plants.

Another possibility is that the fellow chose to empty his bladder into the reservoir because it was too big a target to miss. As every lavatory attendant knows, the human male is a remarkably inaccurate pisser. My friend Lady Chuffington has a grand home in England which contains several bathrooms and standalone lavatories. In every one of them is a sign with the following instructions on it:

IF YOU SPRINKLE WHEN YOU TINKLE

PLEASE BE NEAT AND WIPE THE SEAT

As no human males reside in the property, the sign is purely for visitors. Shaming men into cleaning up their mess is more tactful than telling them to pee sitting down, which would be an affront to their manhood.

Hef is spurned

2011-06-24T00:00:00.001+01:00

I sent a condolence card to Hef on hearing that his 25-year-old fiancé had jilted him shortly before the date of their wedding. Hef and I have had our differences in the past, but I’m not the sort of ape to kick a man when he’s down. In actual fact, the only men I’ve kicked were strutting so conceitedly that they were practically airborne. I wrote a little message in the card, advising Hef against stifling his sorrows with Viagra and orgies. A man of Hef’s age has to take his debauchery in small doses to avoid dehydrating his vesicular glands.

When I first heard the news, I assumed that the bride-to-be had got cold feet because the prenuptial agreement had been too stingy. Then I discovered that Hef was so smitten with Miss Crystal Harris that he intended to marry her without a pre-nup of any kind. Did you ever hear of such a thing! She would have become the most eligible future widow in America! Could she have suffered an acute attack of revulsion at the prospect of Hef rubbing his reptilian face over her milky-white flesh? No, that can’t be true: she must have got accustomed to such ordeals during her time as a playmate in the mansion. A woman who prostitutes herself for a wage doesn’t refuse to prostitute herself for a fortune.

Media gossips have not been slow to suggest other reasons for the cancelled wedding. One sordid allegation is that Crystal was offered half a million bucks to turn Hef down at the altar in front of millions of gawping TV viewers. A humiliation of that magnitude would have made Hef grimace like a badger with its tail in a trap, arguably justifying the fee. If this rumour is true, one would hope that pangs of conscience persuaded Crystal to abort the dastardly scheme. She may have also realised, as the fateful day drew near, that behaving like the nastiest hussy in America would not have advanced her career prospects.

Crystal gave her own explanation in a tearful TV interview, claiming that her fiancé’s promiscuous lifestyle had given her second thoughts. Noting that Hef was constantly being canoodled by blonde floozies like herself, she said that playing the part of Mrs Hef would have been too painful for a maiden of her homespun sensibilities.

“Marriage is supposed to be about two people,” she remarked succinctly.

This is very true – but did the implications of being hitched to the world’s most famous lecher only dawn on her a few days before the wedding? I’m not the sort of ape to accuse a woman of lying, but you have to wonder.It’s possible, of course, that Miss Harris is simply not very bright. The world is full of stupid beautiful women who get into a muddle after receiving a marriage proposal from a rich man. If that’s the real explanation, we should wish Crystal well and advise her to consult an agony aunt the next time a suitor asks for her hand. If she keeps on breaking off engagements at the last minute, people will start calling her names like “flippertigibbet”, which might tarnish her reputation.

Gorilla Bananas is taking a short vacation and will return on Monday 4th July.

Funny old world

2011-06-20T00:00:00.002+01:00

The Germans have been voted the least funny humans on Earth in an international poll. I feel for them. In the 1920s, a brilliant young comedian called Adolf Hitler was on the verge of ousting Charlie Chaplin as the world’s premiere clown. Then the Germans put him in charge of their government – immediately his jokes grew stale, and by the outbreak of WW2 he had completely lost his comic timing. As the war drew to a close, even his moustache stopped being funny. Little wonder that he killed himself.

The Hitler debacle severely disabled the German sense of humour, making it virtually impossible for them to laugh at verbal gags. A recent example of this incapacity was seen in the dismissal of an office worker in Mainz for saying “Ja wohl, Mein Führer!” to his boss’s secretary. Although a court later re-instated the man, it did so on the grounds that he had deserved a warning before being sacked. His claim that the remark had been jocular rather than nostalgic fell on deaf ears. The only acceptable jokes in modern Germany are slapstick pranks, such as a wedding singer swallowing his microphone.

The dire post-war climate forced the few remaining funny Germans to emigrate. Once such luminary was Professor Heinz Wolff of Brunel University, whom I met many years ago in a VIP lounge.

“Professor Wolff,” I said, “I watched you perform on television and you made me chortle like a chipmunk. Do you employ joke writers or is it all your own material?”

“You misunderstand my role, Mr Bananas,” replied the egg-headed one sternly. “I am a scientist, not a comedian, and any humour in my remarks is incidental to their main purpose. I do not have a comedy act and would never perform in a circus as you do.”

“Come, come, Professor Wolff!” I protested. “You enjoy making people laugh as much as I do! If all you cared about was Science, you would stay in your laboratory doing experiments.”

The professor tossed his head in irritation, briefly dazzling me with the glare from his shiny pate.

“I admit I would enjoy making people laugh by performing experiments on you,” he said in a slightly menacing tone.

I decided not to rile him any further. You never know what these German scientists will do when they get a bee in their bonnet – look at Dr Frankenstein.

I am glad to say that Professor Wolff did not tone down his comic persona as a result of our tête-à-tête. The pinnacle of his career came later, when he gave his views on penis enlargements in an interview with Ali G. Being a seasoned wag, he was quick to point out that he didn’t need one himself, whatever his sympathies for men who were meagre in the meat-pole department.

Sadly, there is no medical procedure for a humour deficiency. Perhaps the Germans should pay more visits to the USA, whose citizens were voted the funniest in the poll. Many of them manage to make people laugh without even trying. Take Mr Chris Roller, for example, who believes he is God and has tried to sue famous magicians for misappropriating his divine powers. This excerpt from a talk show shows what a promising talent he is.

The idealism of youth

2011-06-15T00:00:00.000+01:00

I’ve just found out about a wonderful charity that campaigns against deforestation. It was set up by young Norwegians and it’s called ‘Fuck for Forest’ (FFF). Their method of raising funds is to have sex in public and collect donations from sponsors and voyeurs.

These young people are truly the best of their generation. Never before have humans held orgies to ensure that we apes will still have trees to climb. Fans of pornography should also rejoice. They will now be able to watch porn with a clean conscience, knowing that their cash is going to a worthy cause rather than lining the pockets of a dirty old reptile like Hef. They will also have the privilege of seeing fresh-faced amateurs in action, rather than over-milked studs with over-sized meat poles penetrating over-used females with vaginas like buckets.

It amazes me that not everyone approves of this bold and big-hearted venture.Apparently, the mainstream conservation charities have refused to accept donations from FFF. Mr Horsten Torsten, chairman of the Norwegian chapter of the Rainforest Foundation Fund, made the following statement about them:

“These silly people just want to have parties and fuck. Those who care about rainforests should contribute directly to us. We will not accept money from the pockets of masturbators and other perverts. Besides, the girls have not shaved their pussies, which doesn’t work in the porn industry except in Japan. Everyone knows that.”

Mr Torsten should go and shave a reindeer’s pussy. If his stupid organisation doesn’t want to take their money, they should give it directly to field workers like me. I would happily set up a Congo office for FFF, using their cash to protect our beloved forest. Although there aren’t any logging companies in our vicinity, the trees face many threats: termites who chew them; parrots who peck them; monkeys who piss from great heights on them, showing an utter lack of respect. With a moderate amount of funding, I could settle their hash once and for all.

I shouldn’t leave you with the impression that Norway is the only country where humans agitate for the welfare of their hairy cousins. For many years, we gorillas have had a relationship of mutual empathy with the people of Wales. Their most famous son, Tom Jones, is an honorary gorilla of the highest standing, and a purveyor of music which can bring our females into season.

I’m glad to say that this tradition of succouring apes is alive and well in Wales. A 21-year-old student of Cardiff University has recently camped in a zoo to raise money for an ape charity. He hung out on Gorilla Island so that visitors would notice the many similarities between humans and us, such as our method of scratching itches.

My females were so touched to hear of Master Lewis Rowland’s sojourn in Paignton Zoo that they are pestering me to invite him to the Congo. It seems they want to smother him with their own effusive brand of jungle hospitality. I’ll have to make discreet inquiries about his sex life first – it wouldn’t be right for a human lad to lose his virginity to a gang of rampaging female apes.

Cat noises

2011-06-10T00:00:00.001+01:00

An Australian senator has been forced to apologise for meowing at the country’s lesbian finance minister. It’s not clear whether he was mocking her gender or her sexual orientation. Whichever is true, there’s no reason for women to get huffy about being likened to cats, which are rather attractive creatures in spite of their airs and general moodiness. It’s better to be an animal that people stroke than one which they ride or milk.

I wouldn’t like to be in the minister’s shoes now that she’s revealed the chink in her armour. Australia is a nation renowned for its uncouth and vulgar jesters. If any of these pranksters see her in a restaurant, they won’t hesitate to put a saucer of milk on her table. Whenever she appears in public, she’ll have to listen to larrikins making pussy-pussy noises or telling her to lick her whiskers. She may as well wear a Catwoman costume to pre-empt all the jibes she’s going to face.

I used to laugh my head off when people tried to make animal noises in the circus. Most humans are only any good at mimicking dogs and pigs. The English aristocracy are not too bad at horses. Only men with very deep voices are capable of sounding like a gorilla. Tom Jones is one, and Davy Attenborough managed to imitate some of our grunts after soaking his scrotum in rum. I remember a pie-faced fellow trying to impress me with “Ook! Ook!” noises after watching me perform in the ring. He was hopeless.

“You sound like a castrated baboon!” I jeered. “You’d better get some hormones injected if you want to impress a female gorilla!”

In spite of rubbishing his performance, I didn’t mind the fellow having a go.Humans are perfectly entitled to express their inner ape in front of a real one. They might not get the approval they yearn for, but there’s no harm in trying.

When all is said and done, I salute Australia for putting a carpet-munching Sheila in charge of its financial affairs. Where are the gay women in high offices of state in America? Conspicuous by their absence if the rumours about Hilldog are false, which I certainly believe them to be.

The most eminent lesbian in America is Ellen Degeneres, who recently invited a beefy black man onto her show. It seems he became a pin-up for American women after exposing his hunky torso on an aftershave commercial. To please her mainly female audience, Ellen encouraged him to remove his shirt to wild acclaim.

If President Obama is re-elected next year, he ought to consider appointing Ms Degeneres to his cabinet. A woman of her populist instincts could keep him in touch with the voters and give him sound advice on when to bare his chest. She could also accompany Mrs Clinton on her overseas trips, ironing her panty girdle and licking her into shape before her encounters with foreign statesmen. Any tomcat who dares to meow at Hilldog will be paying a visit to the vet.

Italian meatballs

2011-06-06T00:00:00.000+01:00

My old circus chum Mario the Bum-pincher sent me a couple of news stories from his native Italy.

The first one is about a college student whose mother wouldn’t leave him alone. It seems she was ringing him a hundred times a day and visiting his lodgings without warning. He got her off his back by using the anti-stalking laws to persuade the courts to issue an order against her. She can now only phone him once a day and isn’t allowed to visit without permission.

I must say I don’t have much sympathy for the lad, who seems like a bit of a sissy. Pursuing litigation because your mother is harassing you is like scratching an itch with a pineapple. He could have easily put Mama in her place by letting her catch him in bed with a girl. When a mollycoddling mother finds a naked woman in her son’s bedroom, she knows the game is up. It doesn’t matter how tasty her ravioli is, she can’t compete with poontang.

The second story is about a crook who begged to be sent back to prison after serving a term for fraud. He told the police he would rather spend the rest of his days in gaol than live with his nagging wife. You don’t have to be a baboon to smell the buffalo crap in that one. No man chooses to stay in prison because his wife is vexatious. Italy is a big country, with many places for the henpecked husband to obtain refuge. My guess is that the fellow was on chummy terms with the prison governor, visiting his mansion every day to help with the household chores, and shagging his trophy wife on the quiet. Men have done stranger things than incarcerate themselves for totty.

Anyway, the reason Mario sent me these news reports was to demonstrate that Italian men are frequently tormented by the women in their lives, which places them under abnormal stress. They should therefore be viewed sympathetically, he argued, if they let off steam by groping the buttocks of strange women. When I later phoned him to dissent from this squalid suggestion, he forcefully reiterated his point:

“Supposing your females bugged you every minute of the day?” he asked pointedly. “You wouldn’t go out and squeeze some nice-looking ass?”

“Mario,” I said gravely, “my females could pester me until the parrots stopped squawking and I still wouldn’t go around pinching bottoms without permission. People do such things because they are dissolute and incorrigible, not because they are driven to it by events in their lives.”

“Hey, whaddya judging me for?” asked Mario indignantly. “Are you a priest now?”

I told Mario that although I had not taken the holy orders, many rank-and-file Catholics wished they had a pastor like me.

"They know a gorilla is supremely qualified to scare off the kiddy-fiddlers and kick the Devil’s arse," I explained.

“Haha!” laughed Mario. “Why doncha pinch the Devil’s ass instead?”

“Because I’m not Italian, Mario,” I replied.

That shut him up.

Powerful women

2011-06-01T00:00:00.000+01:00

A study has revealed that powerful women are just as likely to cheat on their spouses as their male counterparts. Someone should tell Angela Merkel. She’s been chancellor of Germany for over five years and still hasn’t put out. Could she be a dark horse who’s been quietly playing the field? I doubt it. A woman who’s getting laid frequently doesn’t look as tense and uneasy as Frau Merkel. The only kind of horse she is is a riderless one.

When I mentioned this disappointing lack of Merkelian action to the manager of the safari camp, he grinned with a knowing look in his eyes.

“She’s obviously not used to making the first move,” he said. “If I were one of Merkel’s aides, I would pay some young Wolfgang to bang her and let her take it from there. It only takes one polar bear to make a hole in the ice.”

Beneath the vulgar language, I detected a valid point. It’s quite likely that successful women are too intimidating for men to proposition, so they have to do the chasing themselves. Such forward behaviour may not be in Frau Merkel’s repertoire of political skills. I’m tempted to invite her to the Congo for some tuition from my females, who have never been shy of grabbing what they want with both hands. My only worry is that the aromas and rhythms of the jungle might turn her into a sex maniac before she’d returned to human civilisation. A randy woman in a community of apes might provoke gross and unnatural acts.

A powerful woman who shouldn’t need any assistance from her hairy cousins is Julia Gillard, the prime minister of Australia. The first thing to note about her is her flame red hair – clear evidence of the orang-utan gene, which implies a high sex drive. I don’t know anything about her private life, but I’d bet you a hundred coconuts that she’s a tiger in the sack. Living in Australia should also help her extramarital ambitions. The country is full of larrikin men who wouldn’t think twice about cornering Ms Gillard in an official function and offering her the use of their didgeridoo. It’s true that her voice isn’t very sexy – she sounds like a frigid schoolmistress, in fact – but that may be part of her political act. There’s no point giving the leader of the opposition an erection when debating changes to the superannuation laws.

I’ve deliberately left Mrs Clinton until last. She’s obviously entitled to cheat on her husband, given the brazen debauchery that he has got away with in his long and distinguished career. My suspicion is that she’s one of those women who is only interested in very clever men, which narrows the pool considerably. She needs to go somewhere with a high egghead density to improve the odds of finding a suitable paramour.

Perhaps I'll contact the Oxford Union to suggest they debate the motion “This house believes that Osama had bigger balls than Obama”. Honour would demand that Hilldog accepted an invitation to participate, obviously speaking against motion. Although most of the boffins in Oxford are untouchable with a barge pole, there’s always the chance that she’ll bump into a smooth-talking hustler like my friend Dicky Dawkins, who could teach her a thing or two about genetic recombination. It’s a match made in heaven.

A treat for film buffs?

2011-05-27T00:00:00.001+01:00

The manager of the safari camp is thrilled at the news that Jennifer Aniston will appear topless in her next movie.

“She wouldn’t be doing it unless her melons were in great shape!” he exclaimed. “I bet they’re ripe and ready for plucking!”

“That would be quite an achievement for a 42-year-old woman,” I remarked. “Could they really be so different from the many melons you’ve ogled on the internet?”

“That’s not the point!” he insisted. “You never forget a famous pair of titties. I can still picture Jamie-Lee Curtis pulling off her sweater in that movie where she pulled off her sweater.”

“Miss Curtis would surely be delighted that her acting made such an impression on you,” I replied sardonically. “It’s a pity there isn’t a titty Oscar.”

“Damn right!” agreed the manager. “They’d have to share it, though. You couldn’t give it to one boob and make the other one jealous.”

“Why not give each boob its own one?” I suggested.

“That’s just crazy talk!” he sneered. “They obviously work as a team.”

I told the manager he had no equal in the etiquette of bosom appreciation and left him to his daydreams.

I wonder what prompted Miss Aniston to let her puppies pose for the camera. Could she be worried that her image is too goody-goody, like Julie Andrews? On the whole, I think it’s a sign of desperation when a famous actress bares her breasts in anything other than a French film. The French, being French, know how to integrate the female bosom with dialogue and plot in an entirely naturalistic way – you never feel like a peeping tom when a pert pair of dumplings appears in their movies. In a Hollywood flick, by contrast, the boob shot is obviously a scrap of meat thrown to the hounds.

I will now make a controversial statement that most men will find ludicrous to the point of absurdity: there are more interesting things on a woman than her breasts. I’m thinking particularly of her nose. Smalls ones are supposed to be cute and feminine, yet long pointy ones are far more intriguing. Miss Aniston should reflect on the fact that Meryl Streep has never once exposed her bust in a movie. People are too interested in her face to wonder what her jahoobies look like.

I am glad to note that some humans share my peculiar fascination. The organisers of the Long Nose World Championship, to be held next month in Germany, are still looking for promising candidates to compete in their “snoot out”. Unfortunately, women from really long-nosed nations, like Armenia and Moldova, are reluctant to participate for fear of damaging their marital prospects. This is a great shame. I’m sure there are many single men who would love to have their nerve-endings nuzzled by a long-nosed wife. "If you've got it, poke it!" would be an apt slogan for such ladies.

Maybe they need an organisation based on the gay rights movement which encourages them to take pride in their noses. I would volunteer to help with the publicity if they allowed me to tweak a few beaky ones.

Electronic seduction

2011-05-23T00:00:00.001+01:00

A men’s magazine has published data proving that women are agreeing to sex sooner. Apparently, bombarding a woman with text messages and emails can reduce the number of dates required to get her into bed. I feel sorry for all the ugly girls who used to attract men by being an easy lay, and have now lost their competitive advantage. There are always losers when new technology arrives.

The winners appear to be men, but I’m not convinced they have gained all that much. Whether they chat to women in person or on-line, they still have to put in the hours. Virtual communication is effectively overtime, which they wouldn’t bother doing unless it shortened the journey to Humpsville.

The main drawback, from the woman’s point of view, is the risk of fraudulent seduction. One often hears of literate prison inmates acquiring the goodwill of their cellmates by drafting letters for girlfriends and wives. How long before some nerdy poet starts offering to write tender love messages for paying customers? Women imagining themselves to be the muse of an artist would end up as the game bird in a poacher’s sack.

Male gorillas are lucky in not having to jump through the hoops required of the human male. Women are fickle, and the wrong word at the wrong time can ruin hours of painstaking wooing. Female gorillas, by contrast, don't care what text messages you send them as long as you thump your chest and uproot a few saplings. Smells and deeds are what turn them on.

And yet there are still men who can seduce women without any form of electronic communication. In some cases, indeed, they barely need to say anything intelligible at all. Let us never forget the words that Christiano Ronaldo used to persuade a waitress to mate with him on a visit to Los Angeles:

“Me, you, fuck, fuck?” asked Ronnie with a look of boyish sincerity on his face.

The second “fuck” was probably unnecessary, but there’s no harm in repetition if making your meaning clear is of paramount importance. The encounter was a fruitful one, with the waitress bearing Ronaldo a son and letting his family have custody of the baby. Her reward for this selfless act of breeding was $15.1 million. Apparently, Ronaldo’s mother insisted he pay the waitress this extravagant sum so the boy wouldn't be greeted by a toothless hooker if he ever decided to visit her. Never again will I doubt the farsightedness of the mother of a Portuguese footballer.

Seduction works both ways, of course, although women generally have an easier job of coaxing men into servicing them. The human male is like the female peacock in being aroused by visual displays. We saw a good example of this at the royal wedding, when the bride’s younger sister wore a dress that covered her rump like plastic wrap on a peach. I don’t know who she was trying to excite, but I hope he had the effrontery to goose her at the party that evening.

Hello Goodbye

2011-05-18T00:00:00.002+01:00

I am delighted to hear that Paul McCartney is getting married for the third time. As a friend of the gorilla nation, he is entitled to the warmest of good wishes from me and my females. The omens for this union are good. Paul has wisely gone through a five-year courtship rather than rushing, lemming-like, into wedlock with a woman of avaricious and cantankerous disposition. His fiancé’s first name is Nancy, one of the select few that Macca has used in one of his own compositions. Admittedly, the woman in the song was a saloon bar dancer of easy virtue, but one is entitled to poetic license in making such artistic analogies.

It reflects well on Paul that he is still willing to get hitched after the ignominy of his second marriage. Let us never forget the calumnies that emerged from the poisonous tongue of Ms Heather Mills, who accused her husband, among other things, of being obsessed about her breasts. The woman was clearly unfit for matrimony – an honest wife would have thanked her lucky stars that he wasn’t obsessed about another woman’s breasts. Yet in spite of the humiliations and pecuniary losses he suffered at the hands of his ex-wife, Paul is now taking the plunge with another woman (albeit of very different temperament, one hopes). All those sappy romantic lyrics he wrote must have genuinely come from the heart.

As one musical man marries, another brawny one divorces. It gives me no pleasure whatever to hear that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wife has given the old beef steer his marching orders, even though he has no one to blame but himself. I don’t know what possessed him to declare that mulatto women have the best behinds. His wife, who is not a mulatto, must have burned with indignation as she strained her neck to inspect her own tush in the bedroom mirror. As a woman from the Kennedy family, she might have forgiven Arnie the odd affair, but she could never tolerate him publicly scorning her charms. Apparently his remark was made on the spur of the moment, after a Brazilian samba dancer nudged him with her buttocks, but there are times when a husband should salivate in silence. A wise man never comments about the first thing that rubs against his thigh.

Arnie’s troubles remind me of the advice I gave Smacker Ramrod before he popped the question to his current lady wife. My devoted circus buddy had asked me whether he ought to inform his intended of his past dalliances and debaucheries, of which there had been many.

“Don’t do it, Smacker!” I exclaimed. “However much she says it doesn’t matter, it will always prey on her mind! Just smile enigmatically if she asks. Let sleeping cats lie!”

I am pleased to say that Smacker followed my advice and has remained happily married for almost a decade. As we say in the jungle, the truth is like a hornet sting – only give it to creatures with a thick hide.

Literature appreciation

2011-05-14T00:00:00.000+01:00

A correspondent draws my attention to a new stage production in which passages from great works of literature are read to the audience. To ensure customers get full value for the 20-dollar admission price, the reading is done by naked women who wouldn’t look out of place in the Playboy mansion. Those who can’t get hold of a ticket can buy a video recording for 19 dollars or an audio recording for 99 cents.

On watching a trailer for the event, I was shocked to discover that the girls aren’t actually very good at reading. Some of them can barely pant out the words without tripping over their tongues. Heaven knows how they get away with fobbing off the audience with such amateurish performances. I certainly wouldn’t let them read me a bedtime story until they’d been properly trained in oral exposition.

Perhaps the featured works are too advanced for their reading skills. Had I been directing the show, I would have made them read excerpts from children’s classics such as Puss in Boots, James and the Giant Peach and The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse. These innocent fables would also avoid straining the brains of the audience, which are presumably more accustomed to processing visual data. The unlettered masses should feel their way into literature rather than jumping off at the deep end.

The show wouldn’t be my cup of cocoa whatever the nature of the reading material. When I pay 20 dollars for a seat at the theatre, I like to see action as well as dialogue. The only kinetic activity in ‘Naked Girls Reading’ is the flapping of lips, the wagging of tongues and the fingering of pages. The girls should be utilising the rest of their bodies to justify the admission price.

‘Naked Girls Singing’ would be an improvement, assuming it produced more activity in the chest region. ‘Naked Girls Playing Ping Pong’ would be better still, involving plenty of agitation in all areas of the anatomy. When I asked the manager of the safari camp what he’d like to see, he unfocused his eyes and went into a trance for a minute:

“Naked girls sucking ice lollies and removing the sticky juices that dribble onto their bodies by licking each other,” he said eventually.

I told him that a title of that length would never work and I had reservations about the content as well. Women are not cats, and making them lick each other would merely replace one kind of sticky fluid with another. Using moisturising wipes would be a more hygienic option under theatre lights.

On the subject of health and safety, I have deliberately not opined on whether it’s appropriate for women to perform in the nude. The naturists believe it tones the skin and allows the pores to breathe, but they are not an impartial source. All I will say is that I wouldn’t let them do it in jungle. Not without first rubbing them from head to toe with insect-repellent, anyway.

Scarlett's phantom pregnancy

2011-05-09T00:00:00.000+01:00

Scarlett Johannson has denied that she’s carrying Sean Penn’s baby and I, for one, believe her. The bulge in her belly could have many innocent explanations, such as a bout of dropsy or too many side orders of potato wedges. She might even be hiding a gopher beneath her sweater like a mommy kangaroo. Most actresses go through a sentimental phase about animals. We gorillas will always remember the visit of Daryl Hannah, who approached our hairy community like a girl in search of a piggy-back ride. A kindly female patted her on the head and gave her some roots to chew.

There’s another reason why Scarlett is unlikely to be pregnant – I seriously doubt whether The Pennster’s man-seed is up to the job. Actors who’ve led dissolute, drug-taking lives often end up with lackadaisical sperm that chase their own tails rather than making a beeline for the nearest egg. The couple must have had carnal relations, of course. A woman doesn’t shack up with one of Hollywood’s leading men unless she’s ready and willing to spread her legs for him. Refusing to oblige would have certainly provoked a huge tantrum from Penn, possibly culminating in Mel Gibson-like threats to burn the house down.

One thing that doesn’t surprise me is Scarlett taking to an older man. Those of you who’ve seen the film Lost in Translation will know what I’m talking about. In that movie, she plays a bewildered young woman who wanders around Tokyo looking for someone to talk to. Amid the unsettling hordes of inscrutable Japanese, she finds an American man played by Bill Murray, who soothes her troubled soul with his mellow reflections. It was obvious, even then, that Scarlet hankered after a craggy-faced Daddy figure who would tell her bedtime stories while balancing her on his knee. You may say that she was only acting, but A-list thespians habitually draw on their own emotions to make their performances convincing.

Speaking of older men, the relentless hounding of Silvio Berlusconi is beginning to get on my nerves. The latest accusation against him is that he encouraged a pair of party girls to make love to a statue of the god Priapus, whose broken todger he had previously repaired. Is this supposed to be a crime? What would be the point of restoring a statue’s manhood if you didn’t intend to help it use its new equipment? If a man is prosecuted for being a pimp to a restored work of art, the emasculated sculptures of the world will remain forever dickless.

The allegation I utterly refuse to believe is that Berlusconi has had sexual congress with multiple high-class harlots in his “bunga-bunga” parties. Aside from the fact that “bunga-bunga” means “masturbation” in the Congo, the statue incident proves beyond doubt that he prefers watching to participating. A wily old goat like Silvio knows better than to endanger his health by allowing whores to milk his waning gonads. When a man gets to his age, vicarious titillation is a safer option than the real McCoy.

Secrets of women

2011-05-04T00:00:00.001+01:00

I’m back in the Congo after an unusually pleasant flight. For once, the stewardess didn’t give me a funny look when I used the hot towel to dampen the soles of my feet. The other passengers in first class, who were diplomats and ministers, knew better than to complain about my creative use of the toiletries. An aluminium tube 30,000 feet above sea level is the wrong place for an argument with a gorilla.

What really made the time fly was the book I was reading, a translation of De Secretis Mulierum, an ancient guidebook on the human female. It was written by Albertus “Catweazle” Magnus, a medieval theologian with unusually progressive views about women for his time, only advocating their torture in extreme cases of witchcraft or hen-pecking. The main thrust of his argument was that women should be shunned, especially when menstruating, when they emitted “evil humours” capable of killing a goat at ten paces.

The chapter of the book I found most fascinating describes a foolproof test for female virginity, no doubt perfected after months of clinical trials. According to Doctor Magnus, a woman whose purity is in doubt should be forced to sniff a lettuce. If her flesh has been corrupted by man (or some other agent of defilement), she will then pass water. It was state-of-the-art science in its day, although one has to pity the innocent maids who gave false positives because they’d drunk a flagon of prune juice before inhaling the salad fumes.

The only modern equivalent of this virginity test I’ve heard of is the one proposed by Vladimir Rakovsky, a Russian psychologist who runs a charm school in Moscow. According to Rakovsky, you can find out everything you need to know about a woman by watching her eat a carrot. If she blushes and nibbles, she’s a virgin; if she chews like a horse, she’s a fishwife; if she sucks before biting, she’s slept with every member of the village council. He didn’t say what kind of woman would refuse to eat the carrot. A lesbian or a prick-teaser, perhaps? In all honesty, the test sounds as if was devised by someone who spent his youth peeping at hefty farm girls during their lunch break.

Fortunately, we now live in an enlightened age when no man of substance cares whether the woman he courts is a virgin. Take Charlie Sheen, for example. I bet he never even bothered to ask Bree Olson whether she was a virgin before inviting her to join the harem in his kingsize bed. Miss Olson, for her part, has not given any indication of feeling ashamed that Charlie was not her first lover. Indeed, her self-esteem was so undiminished that she callously dumped him by text message.

Good for both of them, is what I say. Charlie deserves credit for believing that a woman with a past is still worthy of his cocaine-snorting lechery. And Bree deserves credit for not clinging to Charlie out of fear that no other man could afford her. I like it when famous humans set a good example for their fans.

Snubbing the wedding

2011-04-29T00:00:00.001+01:00

A girl in a gaudy dress and high-heeled shoes hands me a flyer outside Moorgate tube station - it is an invitation to attend a punk rock festival on the day of the royal wedding. The words “Don’t stand on ceremony!” are printed on the card in bold letters, along with a promise that the only mention of the Queen at this event will be “when we play the Sex Pistols”.

“What is the dress code for this jamboree?” I ask the girl.

“Bare midriffs are preferable but body piercing is optional,” she replies with a smirk.

“In that case I will have to excuse myself,” I say, “for I am both overdressed and under-perforated.”

I nevertheless keep the invitation as a souvenir, as it reflects well on the independent spirit of Londoners. I wholly approve of their refusal to pay homage to the princely nuptials, destined to be one of the most boring spectacles since Dick Whittington put a gold-plated collar on his pussy.

My lack of interest in the proceedings is not because I harbour a grudge against the House of Windsor. Although I have never met the Queen, we once exchanged meaningful glances in heavy traffic along the A243. In truth, I would turn my hairy back on any ceremony in which one might encounter weeping matrons, befrocked clergymen or overdressed horses. Putting on such a pageant to celebrate a marriage which hasn't even begun is like gift-wrapping an onion.

Prince William, of all people, should know that making solemn oaths in public is tempting fate. Look what happened to his parents. After a few years of unholy wedded angst with Diana, Charles was fantasizing about being a tampon in Lady Camilla’s birth canal. You may say that the prospects for the current pair are more auspicious, given that the bridegroom is not an emotionally-repressed fogey who was bullied into the marriage by his father. Yet who is to say that Kate will wear the glass slippers without getting corns? One person who has his doubts about her is Bernie Anus, my old circus chum.

“Her face is pretty,” he conceded over a tankard of ale. “But if I were Prince William I would have married a girl with a bigger bosom. It won’t be long before he’s wondering what it feels like to get his face buffed by a decent pair of jugs.”

“Isn’t that a job for the royal nanny?” I asked. “His cheeks look shiny enough, so maybe he’s already got it out of his system.”

“No man ever grows out of boob-to-face action,” asserted Bernie. “And there’s also Kate’s image to consider. A future Queen of England doesn’t want pitying looks from well-stacked women.”

“Have you considered the possibility that Kate’s accession will make small breasts fashionable?” I asked.

“Not until you just mentioned it,” said Bernie glumly. “I prefer not to dwell on doomsday scenarios.”

I didn’t pursue the topic further, as bust size is a trivial issue for us gorillas. Kate is undoubtedly a comely lass, but I wouldn’t watch her wedding if her breasts were bigger than Chesty Morgan’s.

Baby Gaga

2011-04-25T00:00:00.000+01:00

I arrive in London to discover that a new brand of ice cream is the talk of the town. Its unique selling point is the milk it’s made from, freshly extracted from the udders of lactating women. The principal supplier of this essential ingredient is Victoria Hiley, a 35-year-old mother from Leeds, who has been trumpeting the tastiness of her tata juice.

“There’s nothing more natural than fresh, free-range mother’s milk in an ice cream,” she declared. “My boobs produce far more than my baby needs and I love having them squeezed. If other mothers realised how delicious their milk was, we’d put the cows out of business!”

I’m glad to hear that the milk is free range. In my ignorance, I had thought that the breast-feeding mothers of England were cooped up in suburban lounges with barely enough room to wiggle their arses on the settee, mooing peevishly while voracious human babies sucked them dry. It’s good to know that they are allowed to roam freely in patios and conservatories as Nature intended. I’m sure the extra cost of providing such facilities is amply repaid in the quality of the milk.

Nor can I refute the other assertions made by Ms Hiley. The milk from human females is unquestionably natural, and I dare say many women could feed a crèche full of babies, judging by the size of their jahoobies. As for the taste, I will accept Ms Hiley’s assurance that it is excellent in every way. The suckling woman is not a rare sight in Africa, and I have yet to witness a baby spitting out her secretions in disgust.

Now let’s move on to the question that’s on all of your minds. Will Gorilla Bananas, a noted aficionado and connoisseur of ice-cream, sample a tub of the much-heralded Baby Gaga and appraise it for the benefit of his curious readers? Let me assure you that I have given this question much thought, examining its merits from every conceivable angle. After carefully weighing the pros and cons, I have decided against.

My reasons are not what you might suspect. I have no time for silly people who think that consuming a woman’s milk is “yucky” or “sick”. It is certainly no more disgusting than drinking the milk of a cud-chewing herbivore that defaces grassy meadows with its dung and farts like thunder with a stupid expression on its face. Drinking human milk is a perfectly wholesome activity provided that the decencies are observed and one doesn’t attempt to take it from the teat like a greedy piglet.

The reason I won’t be tasting the product is because of all the hype. Call me an old-fashioned ape, but I don’t like having the delectable qualities of a dessert rammed down my throat. In particular, the self-laudatory chirping of the lactatious Ms Hiley has left a sour taste in my mouth. There are few things less ladylike, in my view, than a woman who boasts about the flavour of her bodily fluids. The negative impact of all this hoopla on my taste buds would make it impossible for me to savour the ice cream with an unbiased tongue.

American Pie

2011-04-20T00:00:00.000+01:00

I hear that little Jimmy Oliver has been making waves in the USA. Schools in California have banned him from their kitchens for fear of being shamed into feeding their children his “pukka” recipes. Someone should tell them that celebrity chefs like Jimmy are basically entertainers. You can watch them sprinkle and toss over a hot stove without the slightest intention of attempting to emulate their culinary feats. Jimmy is a sprinkler and a tosser par excellence, but British fans who want to taste his food just go to his restaurant.

The nature of Jimmy’s true calling should have been obvious when he appeared on the Letterman show and beguiled the audience with his cheeky cockney banter. His most memorable quip was that vanilla ice-cream contains an ingredient found in a beaver’s anal gland. Full marks to Jimmy for doing his homework and knowing that “beaver” is a rude word in America. There are no beavers in England, of course, only otters and ferrets, which are not particularly rude unless you put them down a man’s trousers.

I’m sure Jimmy means well in promoting healthy eating across the USA, but the premise of his transatlantic odyssey seems flawed to me. The problem with food in America is not its quality but its quantity. On my first visit to the country, I was surprised to discover that the restaurants served portions large enough for my appetite. While this was excellent news for me and other 500-pound gorillas, watching humans gorge themselves on this abundance made me feel queasy. When I noticed the overfed diners trying to squeeze their wobbly behinds into their capacious motor vehicles, my queasiness turned to revulsion. The USA, it seemed, was the Land of the Fat and the Home of the Bulbous.

Not everyone in America is overweight, of course. President Obama cuts a particularly pantherine figure as he prowls across the prairies, announcing his intention to run for re-election. I can’t help wondering whether the lardish folk of middle America resent being governed by such a svelte figure. Maybe Barry could win them over by promising to give them the secret of his slim waistline, which I suspect has something to do with sleeping with a black woman. His new campaign slogan might be “Vote Obama if you want to see your genitals without the aid of a mirror”.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, let me emphasize that I will be strictly neutral in next year’s presidential election. A gorilla does not meddle in human politics or hand-out endorsements willy-nilly. I have no idea who the Republican candidate will be, but I’m sure he’ll measure up to Barry in his vital-statistics – or her vital-statistics, for that matter. Let’s not forget Sarah Palin, still wowing her supporters and keeping in shape with her dumbbell exercises. If she wins the nomination, she’d be a much stronger candidate if she divorced her husband and persuaded Hilldog to be her running mate. The thought of two ladies cohabiting in the White House might be just the kind of gimmick that voters find irresistible.

Facial cues

2011-04-15T00:00:00.001+01:00

Have you noticed that a lot of internet sites are displaying the faces of women supposedly having orgasms? A totally pointless exercise, in my view. You’d find similar expressions on the faces of women suffering from muscle cramps or trapped wind. Some of the more extreme portraits remind me of a slave girl having her toe amputated in the tent of a Mongol warlord. These faces provide no reliable data about a woman’s drives and juices.

A picture gallery showing the faces of ovulating women would be far more useful. Biologists have recently discovered that female rhesus monkeys have special “ovum faces” which only their steady boyfriends can discern. The same is true of gorillas. The eyes of my females flash like police sirens when they’re ovulating – if I gave them the chance they would handcuff me to a tree and read me my rights. Fortunately, it’s the ape who’s packing the biggest pistol that lays down the law in the jungle, so I generally manage to keep on top of the situation.

The manager of the safari camp once told me that he knew when his wife was fertile.

“The point of her nose changes colour and her eyes moisten,” he explained. “We’ve never needed to use contraception since I learned how to read her cycle.”

“But doesn’t she want you to service her when she’s fertile?” I asked. “I’ve heard that women can be very horny at that time of the month.”

“Of course she does,” he said. “I get some lube from the drawer and tell her I’m using the tradesman’s entrance this time.”

“And is she happy to receive you through the back door?” I inquired.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” he replied.

A man who would currently benefit from such perspicacity is David “The Hoff” Hasselhoff, who has been energetically squiring a 31-year-old Welsh nymphette by the name of Hayley Roberts. Rumour has it that The Hoff is considering making an honest floozy of the blond part-time factory worker and aspiring model. Further rumour has it that she is eager to produce a brood of Hofflings for the great man, which might be more than he can handle at the age of 58. If he knew when she was ovulating he could thwart her cunning reproductive schemes.

Yet there are more important things in life than helping The Hoff with his family planning. Take road safety, for example. It’s an issue we take very seriously in the safari business, even though there are no actual roads to travel on. Our bus drivers always give animals the right of way and never break the speed limit unless being chased by an elephant. I was therefore shocked to hear of a Polish truck-driving instructor who gave his pupils the following advice:

“If a car gets in your way, fucking hit it!”

If the Polish authorities want to send Mr Krzystof Bojemski to the Congo for retraining, there’s a herd of elephants I’d like to introduce him to. If a truck drives into them, they fucking squash it.

Wearing the trousers

2011-04-11T00:00:00.001+01:00

My females cackled their heads off on hearing that Elton John described himself as a modern woman in a radio interview. They took this to mean that he was trying to suckle baby Zachary, an idea which they found hilarious. I suppose it might be possible with the aid of a baby-formula breast implant, but I found their banter distasteful.

“You silly flea-bags!” I exclaimed. “A man can’t allow a baby to suck his nipples! That would be unlawful abuse of a minor!”

They snorted and broke wind at my assertion. Female gorillas don’t hide their emotions when they’re confounded or disgruntled.

“How can he be abusing the baby if he’s having his nipples sucked?” they asked. “The passive one can’t be the abuser!”

“Technicalities like that aren’t important,” I explained. “You can only give a human baby a nipple to suck if it’s attached to a woman or made of an authorised rubbery substance.”

They grunted irritably before wandering off to look for a baboon to molest.

Elton’s statement had nothing to do with breast-feeding, of course. When a man in a gay relationship admits to being the woman, it’s pretty obvious what he’s getting at. Frankly, I don’t see why Elton felt the urge to disclose this information on air. Do fans of his music really need to know that he’s the one biting the pillow? And aren’t gay men supposed to take turns in a healthy relationship? Perhaps he made the statement to suck up to his partner David Furnish, who was sitting right next to him in the radio studio. Mr Furnish was quick to back Elton up (so to speak).

“I am the one who wears the trousers!” he declared, putting the matter beyond all doubt or ambiguity.

It’s strange that a gay man should take pride in wearing such a conventional garment. Maybe he thinks he has a macho image to protect. I just hope he doesn’t expect Elton to iron and press them, like a good little housewife. There are limits to what a world-famous pop star should do to massage the ego of his other half.

Yet the psychological importance of trousers to the human male should never be underestimated. Long gone are the days of the bare-legged hero, flaunting his waxed limbs in the Roman amphitheatre. There are few places left on Earth where a trouserless man can walk with his head held high.

This vulnerability was recently exploited by the German police, who frogmarched a suspect to the station with his trousers around his ankles. Having threatened to kill five hostages in a bungled bank robbery, he is now suing the police for humiliating him. The police pointed out that they had pulled his sweater over his head to preserve his anonymity. Few men are recognisable from their bare legs alone.

Although the man deserves to win his civil suit, I hope he isn’t awarded monetary damages. Were I the presiding judge, I would knock a week off his prison term as compensation.

“You will now have cause to be grateful to the police for an extra week of liberty,” I would say to him. “I hope you have the good manners to write them a thank-you note.”

A moderate dose of humiliation can be good for the soul of a scoundrel.