Wednesday, August 05, 2015
Incurable Afflecktion
Ben Affleck has got in a tizzy over allegations that he slept with his children’s nanny:
“The story is complete garbage and full of lies!” he bawled. “It’s shameful and desperate!”
Any man who contests a conjecture so hotly is probably hiding something, but that would be straying into matters of irrelevance. I have no interest in what games Affleck and the nanny played inside the wendy house. What bothers me is the vehemence of the denial, which indicates a lack of etiquette. A man should never imply that having sexual relations with a particular woman is an abomination on a par with massaging the devil’s buttocks. The poor nanny must be feeling like Henrietta of Hagsville.
I remember when my old circus buddy Smacker Ramrod was rumoured to have slept with the daughter of a local farmer, thereby obtaining free supplies of fresh milk, whipping cream and other choice delicacies. The ringmaster publicly confronted him on the issue:
“Ramrod, you sly dog!” he exclaimed. “Have you been procuring fresh produce by rogering the farmer’s daughter?”
Smacker smiled wistfully and sighed, looking into the distance.
“I should be so lucky,” he said.
His answer was the last word spoken on the subject, and when the farmer’s daughter got to hear of it she was immensely gratified. So much so, that the favours she allegedly performed for him were extravagantly enhanced and upgraded.
Another fine example of such gallantry occurred in the film Live and Let Die, in which James Bond seduced a virgin priestess played by the nymph-like Jane Seymour. The downside of this auspicious event was that Miss Solitaire (as she was known) lost her power of prophecy, which is the unavoidable fate of any virgin seer who is despoiled by a sharp-shooting servant of the Crown.
This greatly displeased the crime baron who controlled her. After capturing Bond, he summoned Miss Solitaire to the interrogation chamber and immediately guessed what had happened. In the style of the ringmaster, he put the question to his captive directly, not sparing the blushes of the deflowered maiden who unwillingly witnessed the scene. As one would expect of a British secret agent, Bond was unflappable:
“That’s not the sort of question a gentleman answers,” he replied dismissively.
Everyone knew, of course, that Bond had tutored her in the wiles of the boudoir, but a man of honour is discreet in his utterances about the ladies he consorts with.
One has to pity Mr Affleck for lacking the refinement to respond to an accusation of hanky panky with the decorum befitting a squire of the parish. It is too late for him to learn these niceties? One would like to think that he could acquire such habits if he served an apprentice as a dogsbody of Colin Firth or some other thespian of more notable pedigree. On the other hand, one look at his spoiled, whiny face suggests he is too far gone to be improved by an example of superior manners and deportment.
Labels: Ben Affleck, Colin Firth, hanky-panky, James Bond, Miss Solitaire, nanny
