by Ben Trovato
Biderman might have broken hearts, but he broke no laws. Stone him. Don’t stone him. I don’t particularly care either way. I do think, though, that by acting as judge, jury and executioner, the crusading hackers are pretty much cut from the same cloth as the Islamic State. Meting out “moral” justice without allowing for mitigation? Shades of Sharia. A community newspaper in Nelspruit posted two links, presumably as some kind of twisted public service, allowing people to check whether their spouse was on Ashley Madison. All you had to do was type an email address into a box. On a site called Trustify, you’d either be cleared or get a message saying, “You have been compromised.” Later, checking to see if any of my married friends had been compromised, I discovered the service had been “temporarily removed”. I tried the second link. This site warned, “Do not use the Trustify search site. They are recording email address searches and spamming/ extorting people.”
Indeed, the potential for extortion has never been better and the hum of computers firing up from Lagos to Ljubljana is almost drowning out the sound of weeping women and laughing lawyers.
Before Trustify went down, so to speak, I typed in my email address and was duly notified that I had been compromised. I was asked if I’d like their help in protecting my information. I got the impression a fee might be involved. The other site also said my email had been found. They offered advice and said don’t trust Trustify.
Both sites were right. My email address was indeed registered with Ashley Madison. Oh, please. Don’t look at me like that. It was research. Seriously. I joined half a dozen dating sites earlier this year because I thought it might make good material for a column.
It went no further than that, but even if I had shagged someone else’s wife it wouldn’t have counted as adultery because I’m separated. Okay, fine. It’s a fifty shades of grey area.
Given the choice, though, I’d rather not get jiggy with married women. Not for any ethical or moral reasons, but because South African men are quick to resort to violence and I really can’t run that fast anymore.
Things turned nasty, with at least two reported cases of people killing themselves because of the leak. And two Canadian law firms filed a $578-million class-action lawsuit against Ashley Madison for failing to secure their site. In turn, Ashley Madison’s parent company, Avid Life Media, offered a R5-million reward for information about the hackers. There was panic in the air and nobody was getting laid. Not ideal.
Fortunately, I have a solution. Well, technically it’s not mine. It belongs to a company called Sprout Pharmaceuticals and it’s a little pink pill designed to boost the female libido. The pill, taken daily, is called Addyi. Its generic name is flibanserin. How ridiculous. If I had to invent a drug that restored sexual desire in women, I’d call it Yeehaa!
Addyi comes with side effects of fatigue or fainting if combined with alcohol or certain other drugs. Every woman I have ever known has, on at least one occasion, passed out or pleaded fatigue when I have sounded the Last Post and set about the ceremonial lowering of the broeks. In their defence, though, or perhaps in mine, drugs and alcohol were almost always involved.
My point – let’s call it a theory – is that married men might not be so quick to sign up to sites like Ashley Madison if their wives were able to boost their dopamine levels and show more of an interest in bumping uglies.
On the other hand, there might be nothing wrong with your wife’s sex drive. She wants it, alright, just not with you. So while Addyi might very well awaken a ravening beast in your woman, there’s no guarantee you’ll be the beneficiary.
Meanwhile, if I ever have another daughter, I shall call her Ashley Madison. Nobody would ever dare cheat on her.
YET ANOTHER BUNCH OF SICK HUNTS
We’re coming to that time of year when everyone should spare a thought for the animals. With the holidays approaching, the roads will soon be jammed with people rushing to their destinations. Many of you will be too busy to think about which animals you’re going to eat and how you intend cooking them. Should you boil, bake, braai, grill, steam or fry? There are no easy answers.
Meanwhile, a group met recently at a Polokwane resort to think deeply about animals. You might not have read much about it. That’s because journalists were thin on the ground at the 14th African Wildlife Consultative Forum. And not, as you might think, because there was no open bar. They simply weren’t allowed in.
The conference, organised by our very own Department of Environmental Affairs, is the creation of something called Safari Club International, an American outfit made up of hunters. Their main mission is to safeguard the freedom to hunt. They are like the National Rifle Association except they demand the right to shoot bears in the arms or wherever the hell they wish. They are also very proud of their anti-poaching stance. They would be, though. Too much poaching and there’d be nothing left for their own members to kill.
Their headquarters are in Tucson, Arizona, a proudly jingoistic state full of heavily armed rednecks and wife-beaters. In other words, the perfect base for Safari Club International.
So what we’re doing, essentially, is putting the welfare of our wildlife in the hands of hunters. A senior SCI member even helped the department moderate the sessions. This is a bit like the head of a paedophile ring offering childcare facilities at his office.
SCI, incidentally, was founded by the bravest man on four wheels. At great personal risk to himself, CJ McElroy spent many years killing thousands of animals around the world, often at distances of only two or three hundred metres.
But it’s not just animals SCI is interested in. They also care about people. For instance, a splinter group called Sportsmen Against Hunger distributes the meat from their kills to food banks through the network of SCI chapters.
“Oh, man. Armadillo again? We had armadillo yesterday.”
“Shut up and eat your meat. You goddamn Vietnam vets are spoilt rotten.”
“Yeah, rotten like this …”
“BANG!”
“Hey, man. You killed Kenny.”
Then there’s the Sensory Safari programme that allows sight-impaired people to get a “visual” perspective of what animals are like by feeling their skins, skulls, horns and pretty much anything with a head big enough to be cut off and stuck on a wall. At some point, they are going to get turned on by all that fondling and will want to go out and kill something of their own. Blind hunters. Now that’s my idea of sport.
There’s also the Disabled Hunter programme where cripples get to kill stuff. And why not? Just because you’re missing a leg or arm or eye after someone shot you in Afghanistan or the local supermarket doesn’t mean you can’t do the same to something else. I bet even Stephen Hawking would have signed up if he could’ve shot a wildebeest with a twitch of his eye.
But wait. It gets better. The SafariWish programme is designed to give children with life-threatening illnesses a chance to go hunting. Because what kid dying of leukaemia wouldn’t want to blow an antelope’s brains out before he died?
When your government organises a wildlife conference and invites hunters but excludes the media, environmentalists, conservationists and non-governmental organisations, you start to sense something might not be quite right.
Oh, well. There’s so much of not-quite-right in this country that it’s just going to have to get in the queue of stuff we really should do something about. Well, not us, obviously. But someone needs to do something about whatever. Oh, look. It’s Happy Hour.
BAPTISM OF FIRE IN THE DEEPEST SOUTH
Airbnb is a wonderful thing. You can make money simply by not being at home. Well, obviously other people need to be there for the money thing to happen. The downside is that you then have to be somewhere else. So I continue to lie low in Cape Town while Special Agent Banks deals with those who would abuse my Durban home as they would their own.
He let the last batch in this week. He even helped carry their bags into the house, which will no doubt be listed under “additional s
ervices” when the mercenary bastard invoices me. He said that when he introduced himself to the wife, she refused his hand on the grounds that it was against her religion. He said the husband was wearing some sort of a cap. Special Agent Banks is not an expert on world religions. Surfing, yes. And other things. But not religion. All he knew, he said, was that they had brought a suitcase with their own special food and she wouldn’t shake his hand. He said they might have been Arabs. Pressed further, he said they might have been Jews. He made it clear that further speculation on his part would be invoiced as “additional information”.
It mattered little to me. As long as they didn’t hurt the monkeys, fire nerve gas at the neighbours or offer human sacrifices to whatever gods they believed in, they could do whatever the hell they wanted. That’s the Airbnb credo. It’s all about the money, honey.
Special Agent Banks hasn’t been dealing with my guests for very long. He says he’s had enough. One family from “somewhere foreign” complained that the fridge was too small. There were six of them. I live alone. The fridge I have is big enough for two ready meals and nine six-packs. It’s fine.
Another guest said she had spotted a cockroach. In Durban? Surely not. Just one? They usually move in packs and have been seen carrying small children down the street at night.
Apparently I am not leaving Cape Town any time soon. This is the problem with Airbnb. Just when you’re about to come home, someone emails to say they want to stay in your house. I suppose I could just say no. But this is literally free money. Besides, ‘no’ is one of my least favourite words.
In keeping with my New Year’s resolution, I went for a walk on Constantia something-or-other. The next morning I woke up with an ankle swollen to the size of a prostitute’s thigh and could barely walk at all. I am bitterly disappointed with my body. One resolution. To use my legs for something more strenuous than operating the brake, clutch and accelerator pedals. And, obviously, walking from the couch to the fridge and back. It couldn’t even handle that one, easy task. Stupid body. I shall take it out at once and abuse it viciously. That will teach it.
On my way to punish my body, I stopped off at a doctor with whom I had made an appointment. I limped heavily through the doors, prepared to settle for nothing less than amputation or death. Some men are comfortable with the hobbling image. I am not. I stride. I swagger. Sometimes I stagger. But only wimps limp. Wimps and gimps.
The receptionist’s dead eyes drifted to my ankle and back to her appointment book. I noticed an imperceptible shake of her ridiculous head. My handicap was all that prevented me from vaulting the counter and biting her in her tight, judgmental face. I can understand that people who work for doctors must see terrible things at this time of year, but it’s not as if I had burst in off my nut on crystal meth with a chopper embedded in my skull demanding to put a million on number three in the seventh race.
The doctor, who looked as if his bar mitzvah was coming up, had an implausible name which I shan’t reveal here because that would constitute advertising and I’m not sure he should even be allowed to practise.
Almost immediately he asked me to lie down. “Shouldn’t you take me out for dinner first?” I said. He blinked once, then regained his composure. It was probably the wrong thing to say, given that my toenails were painted a delicate shade of blue. Long story. Even longer night.
I told him about my walk. He wanted details and I was quite proud to recount that I had covered approximately one kilometre. He seemed unimpressed. I assured him I had kept myself well hydrated at the rate of one beer per 100 metres. This is apparently the international standard.
He prodded my ankle twice. “Gout,” he said. I was outraged. How can a walk bring on gout? People who walk don’t get gout. They have chauffeurs. Overweight, indolent capitalist pigs who can’t control their food and alcohol intake get gout. Oh, right.
He told me to present my buttocks for an injection. I could suffer no further indignities. My reputation as an athlete was in tatters. He might as well do whatever he wished with my buttocks. As it turned out, my underwear was also in tatters.
He said gout was genetic but I could see he was lying through his perfect, capped teeth. Neither of my parents suffered from gout. Perhaps I inherited it from mad cousin George. I always thought I might have got a touch of his special brain. Turns out I got his gammy joints that attract uric acid like weed attracts sniffer dogs. Thanks, cuz.
If the diagnosis is accurate, and there is no reason to believe it is, then I have to say that I’m not entirely to blame. My holiday in Cape Town has turned into an episode of Survivor, where the contestants are given nothing but alcohol and are only allowed off the island to fetch more alcohol.
I spent a night with a friend who has a PhD and a drinking problem. She recently did time in one of those appalling 12-step facilities that succeed mainly in turning people into atheists. I helped find her a place after her parents threw her into the street when, after a few days of sobriety, she dismantled the wagon and sold the parts for beer. It was a room in a house being sub-let by a coke fiend and his three-legged dog. A second room was occupied by a sprawling, unruly woman with two cats who subsisted on nothing but vodka and chocolate. The woman, not the cats. A third room was taken by what appeared to be a Nazi war criminal. Drunk cat woman has since been hospitalised, the shnarf addict has hit on my friend, the Nazi brought a hooker home and our bed capsized in mid-coitus because it was balancing on four empty beer crates. I haven’t been back.
The island I’m on is in the deep south. It’s an island only in the sense that it’s surrounded by lunatics. I have fallen in with a trio of beautiful but dangerous women and am starting to feel like Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick.
At night I sleep in the bed of a 13-year-old boy. Without the boy, obviously. Just because I allegedly have gout doesn’t mean I am a beast, you know, although I do have fairly catholic tastes in other areas.
A dozen surfboards are stacked against my bedroom wall. There are more in the lounge. And outside. These aren’t your average surfboards. These are designed for surfing waves 20 feet and bigger. The owner is currently in Hawaii and I am staying with his girlfriend. I am on my best behaviour. Only a fool would tangle with a man who can hold his breath for three minutes in shark-infested waters after taking nine tons of water on the head. Also, she’s not that kind of girl.
A few nights ago I moved into the even deeper south, to a hamlet on the edge of nowhere. I was woken at 3am on my first morning by the landlady banging on my door shouting something about the mountain. I assumed she was having a psychotic episode and went back to sleep. I woke much later to what sounded like the 101st Airborne Division coming in low over a village north of the Mekong Delta. Thanks to the previous evening’s events, my eyes even looked Vietnamese. But they weren’t coming for me. Their sights were set on a wildfire raging out of control 100 metres from my bed.
Turns out my landlady is a volunteer firefighter. She came home four hours later and went off to work, returning at 6pm, upon which she climbed into her overalls and boots and prepared to set off for the fire line once again, her two-way radio crackling like a burning pig. She popped her head into the flatlet to see if I was still alive. I was sitting at my laptop, shirtless, with a beer at my elbow, my boep around my knees and my moobs swaying gently in the breeze. I asked if there was anything I could do to help. She smiled and walked away.
As I write this, the road in and out has been closed. There is no escape. Even worse, there is no bottle store.
This may be the end.
THE DAY MY DOCTOR TRIED TO MURDER ME
I am girding my loins for the antibiotic apocalypse and I suggest you do the same. Actually, what you do with your loins is none of my business.
I get sick once a year when the seasons turn. This year my body decided flu was so, like, last year, and decided to give me an infection instead. Nothing deadly, unfortunately.
I don’t have a doctor for the same reason I don
’t have a religion. I don’t get sick and I don’t believe there is a god. Maybe not for the same reason. I tend to judge people on their looks rather than their abilities, and doctors are no exception. This means I have dallied with a number of beautiful women before taking the trouble to find out anything about them. Many have turned out to be not quite right in the head. This suggests my modus operandi is fatally flawed but there is nothing I can do about it now.
I turned to Google to find a doctor’s face I could trust. I didn’t care what qualifications he held – firstly, because they’re just a jumble of upper and lowercase letters, and secondly, because I’m not convinced a huge skills gap exists between doctors. They’re like pilots. You have to know what you’re doing or people will die and then you’re unlikely to still be working, let alone flying.
Very few doctors, it turns out, put their photographs up. Perhaps they don’t want people recognising them in the street and making them look at unsightly rashes on their genitalia.
Eventually I found one that looked okay. Middle-aged. Glasses. Slightly dishevelled. You don’t want a doctor who looks like he stepped out of GQ magazine. He should be worrying more about how other people look.
His surname sounded foreign but his first and middle names were about as Waspish as you can get. Perhaps he was Jewish. God’s chosen people sometimes have weird surnames. I made an appointment.
The waiting room was like any other. Scuffed pleather couches, toys for unimaginative children, magazines from the Boer War – all coated in a thin veneer of other people’s disgusting germs.
I took my infection off to a corner chair and tried not to touch anything. I loathe sick people. I can’t even bring myself to look at them. Just because I was sitting among them didn’t make me one of them. I was different. My bacteria were far superior to theirs.
I heard my name called. An Indian gentleman standing at reception was smiling at me. Had we met at a party long since erased from memory? I twitched my mouth and nodded, then quickly looked away. Doctor’s waiting rooms are no place for socialising. It’s embarrassing enough to be recognised. He called my name a second time. I pretended not to hear. A woman with the face of a diseased kidney barked, “Hey, the doctor’s calling you.”