Saturday, August 6, 2016

The Idler, Thursday, August 4, 2016

The mistress dispeller

"THE mysterious East faced me, perfumed like a flower …" Yes, Joseph Conrad knew there was something very different about the Orient. Its currents are mysterious and deep.

Take the Weiqing International Marriage Hospital Emotion Clinic Group, for example. Set up in Shanghai in 2001, it now operates in 59 Chinese cities. It specialises in saving marriages from being torpedoed by a mistress, as reported in our financial section, Business Report, this week.

How does it do this? Lawsuits? Threats of violence? No, the Weiqing International Marriage Hospital Emotion Clinic Group is more subtle. For a fee of about R800 000 it appoints a lady to befriend the mistress. They become close, they become confidantes.

The mistress dispeller (as she is termed) then tells the mistress what an awful bastard the errant husband actually is. She prises her away from him and the marriage is saved.

It takes time, of course. But the Weiqing International Marriage Hospital Emotion Clinic Group is nothing if not persevering and tenacious

Hardly has one digested this astonishing information when in comes another report of a Hollander who found online romance with a lady in the Chinese province of Hunan. They arranged for him to fly out and meet her in person but she didn't show up at the airport as arranged.

He waited 10 hours, getting into a terrible tizz. He'd never heard of the Weiqing International Marriage Hospital Emotion Clinic Group – who would almost certainly have helped – and the airport authorities admitted him to a conventional hospital in a state of nervous collapse, before putting him on a return flight to The Netherlands.

But they also managed to contact the lady he mentioned, who had failed to pitch, and she was absolutely astonished. She had thought the whole thing was an online joke.

Oriental inscrutability, they call it.

 

Obituary

AN OBITUARY comes this way, reputed to have appeared in the London Times:

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years.

No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn't always fair and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place.

Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate, teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student only worsened his condition. 

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. 

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student, but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion. 

Common Sense suffered further as the churches became businesses and criminals received better treatment than their victims. 

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault. 

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live after a woman failed to realise that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. 

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason. 

He is survived by his five stepbrothers: I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, I'm A Victim, and Pay Me For Doing Nothing.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realised he was gone.

 

 

Tailpiece

"KNOCK! Knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Mandy."

"Mandy who?"

"Mandy lifeboats – de ship's hit an iceberg!"

 

Last word

Behind the phony tinsel of Hollywood lies the real tinsel.

Oscar Levant

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