Letters received by The Lion Standards Ombudsman: Ensuring the highest standards in lions since 1948.

Lion face by Mark Dumont

The Lion Standards Ombudsman issues guidelines regulating the behaviour of lions, and addresses complaints by members of the public about lions. It was founded by the former Deputy Prime Minister and amateur zebra – Sir David Cresswell - in 1948. The ombudsman's current membership consists of former professional lions and other animals who are affected by lions.

The Lion Standards Ombudsman regrets that, owing to recent changes in legislature, it can no longer address complaints relating to sea lions. 

 

Dear Lion Standards Ombudsman

I recently attended the Shrewford Monster Truck Rally with my son. The advertising on the poster for this event was misleading as there was only one monster truck present. The man in the seat next to me, who proved himself knowledgable on these matters, informed me that even this vehicle did not meet the technical specifications for a monster truck as it was clearly a 5 litre Range Rover Sport - a fact that had eluded a monster truck novice like myself who drives the diesel version of the Range Rover Sport.

Ten minutes after the event started the (none) monster truck broke down. For the remaining five hours and fifty minutes of the rally we watched a display team of mechanics unsuccessfully attempting to repair the engine, while the announcer talked at length over the PA about the merits of different brands of spanners. This was not what I expected at all.

As a result of this experience my son now wants to pursue a career as a mechanic. I was hoping that he would confound both entrenched gender roles and peer pressure by training as a classical dancer, with a view to joining the Royal Ballet.

- Alex Perry

Dear Mr Perry

Your complaint does not specifically make any mention of lions and, as such, falls beyond the remit of the Lion Standards Ombudsman. I advise that you contact the Monster Truck Ombudsman who occupy the offices nextdoor to ours, and who will be better placed to address your complaint.

Due to current office policy we are unable to pass on your complaint ourselves and suggest that you resubmit it to the correct ombudsman by mail.

Dear Lion Standards Ombudsman

Further to my previous letter which I posted five minutes ago, I have just remembered that the (none) monster truck had the image of a lion painted prominently on each door and a lion's head emblem on the roof. It was referred to in the publicity for the event, and during the event itself, as 'The Lion', and the driver wore a realistic-looking lion mask. The Shrewford Arena where the event was held was temporarily rechristened 'The Shrewford Lions' Den'. Upon entry our hands were stamped with the image of a lion and we were each given a free Lion Bar. Does this have any bearing on my earlier complaint?

- Alex Perry

Dear Mr Perry

The additional information you have provided casts your experience at the Shrewford Monster Truck Rally in a disturbing new light. Clearly the organisers and the promoters have acted in a manner that has brought the reputations of lions into disrepute. 

This incident will subsequently be the focus of a joint public inquiry undertaken by the Lion Standards Ombudsman and the Monster Truck Ombusdman. The inquiry will be headed Lord Fearn. You may asked to provide witness testimony.

While we do not ordinarily comment on the likely outcomes of such inquiries, let me assure you Mr Perry that in this case heads will certainly roll, arms will be torn from sockets, and bellies will be torn open and eviscerated.

Dear Lion Standards Ombudsman, if that is your real name:

During a visit to the Clawson Brothers Safari Park, which bills itself as a small corner of Djibouti in the heart of Buckinghamshire, I was very disappointed to see the resident pride of lions sprawled near the edge of their enclosure, almost out of sight of the road.

I unwound the passenger window of my car and loudly instructed the lions to get up off their fat arses, while my wife repeatedly sounded the horn. It was at this juncture that the head of the pride informed me that they were on a tea break and that I should come back at 3 o'clock. At the time it was 10:27am. I know this because the clock on my car dashboard runs six minutes fast and I noted that it was reading 10:33.

Why were these lions allowed to act like total dicks? I work hard so that I have enough money to visit three or four safari parks at the weekend. I deserve the full lion experience which I did not receive in this case.

- Ben Hillman

Dear Ben Hillman

In response to your complaint we wrote to the Safari Park in question. Acting on our advice they launched an investigation into the behaviour of their lions. As a result of this inquiry two of the lions who were present on the day have been suspended from duty for 12 weeks, while another has been sacked by the park. Subsequent action taken against this lion by the ombudsman has resulted in his name being removed from the National Lion Register. He will henceforth be forbidden from practising as a lion for five years. After this time if he wishes to continue his career as a lion he must reapply for his licence.

We trust that you find this outcome satisfactory.

Dear Lion Standards Ombudsman

While holidaying with my fiancée, Henry, in 1920s Egypt, a lion ambushed us, snatching my beloved from my arms and dragging him over to nearby baobab tree where his body was eventually consumed by a great variety of wild animals. 

Whatever is to be done with this unruly beast who has surely condemned me to spinsterhood?

- Edith Meadley

Dear Ms Meadley

It is the opinion of the Lion Standards Ombudsman that the lion in question has behaved in an exemplary fashion, befitting of his species. I must inform you that as a direct result of your testimony he has been nominated in the Best Lion category at 2015 Lion of the Year Awards. Furthermore, now that all the CGI lions played by Andy Serkis have been disqualified from the competition, he stands a good chance of winning.

None-the-less we are sorry for your recent loss. Please accept this lion key ring and lion voucher as tokens of our condolence.

Dear Lion Standards Ombudsman

I recently endured the life-altering misfortune of purchasing Lionel Richie's 1998 album 'Time', which I found to be extremely disappointing. Can you believe this is the same guy behind classics such as 'Running With The Night', 'Dancing On The Ceiling', 'Hello', 'All Night Long' and many other songs that were also hits?

Isn't it about time that his status as an honorary lion was reviewed?

- Miss Brenda Yates (aged nine)

Dear Miss Yates

It may interest you to learn that lions have consistently voted 'All Night Long' as the best song ever written, even though lions are mentioned nowhere in the lyrics!

In regard to your complaint about the 'Time' album we find ourselves in agreement with your assessment: It is quite clearly a rare miss-step by an otherwise mercurial talent.

While, on this album, Lionel Richie appears to have behaved in a less than than lionel manner, we must accept that even an honorary lion has the occasional off day. As a fan of his work you will have no doubt seen the recent footage on YouTube of Mr Richie in the Serengeti, single-handedly bringing down a pair of wildebeest with his bare hands. You may also be aware of the sterling charity work that he does preparing orphaned lion cubs for careers as professional chess referees. Even though his recent music seldom matches the unimpeachable quality of his earlier work, we continue to regard him as a first rate global ambassador for lions.

Dear Lion Standards Ombudsman

I recently had sex with a lion which was not quite as good as I imagined. When it was over the lion said that, even though he wasn't a lion prostitute, it was customary for me to pay him a small gratuity. I had never in my life heard of such a thing and refused. Was I correct in doing so?

- Ms Meadley

Dear Ms Meadley

We are sorry that your recent sexual encounter with a lion proved to be a disappointment. In common with humans, individual lions vary in their levels of sexual prowess. We hope this experience has not soured your opinion of lions as lovers, or deterred you from engaging in sexual intercourse with lions in the future.

Pursuant to the 1986 Sex With Lions Act, a small sum of money may be solicited by a lion or lioness following intercourse. This is intended to fund transport costs and other supplementary expenses and shall not be regarded as begging or prostitution.

We hope that this clears up the matter for you.

Please include any complaints that you have about lions in the comments section below. The Lion Standards Ombudsman regrets that it is unable to return any Wildebeest or antelope that are sent to us.

Alex and Hans recall Dutch Guilders with great sadness in their hearts

Alex and Hans were both old enough to recall a time prior to the introduction of Euro when the Dutch Guilder had been the reigning currency of the Netherlands. Both men harboured deep nostalgic feelings for this bygone period in their native country's economic history.

Hans reminisced fondly over a childhood where you could toss a One Guilder coin into the air. If it landed heads-side up it would transform into a dragon. If it landed tails-side up then it would become a unicorn. He attempted to picture in his mind the charred architecture of Amsterdam in his youth. The fire-scorched buildings, the feverish whinnying and the sharp clip-clop of hooves that sparked rainbows from the flat cobbles.

Alex recalled how the Two and a Half Guilder coin had a rosewater caramel centre and how, in 1986, the government had introduced a sugar-free variant for diabetics.

There was only one Five Guilder coin in existence, represented by the planet Saturn. Alex had received it once as part of his change after purchasing a copy of Smallish Males magazine from a news-stand.

Both men agreed that, while Euro notes conferred upon their owners a variety of powers that in the right amount and configurations could elevate a man above his peers, the single European currency was nowhere near as good nor as egalitarian as Guilders had been.

My address to the world on the occasion of New Year's Eve, 2014

Ah, New Year's Eve, we meet again, each of us 12 months older, but neither one the wiser.

At this eleventh hour there is a choice to be made and it is Hobson's choice:

Either the purgatorial limbo of a party, where time will slow to a near standstill as the outgoing year drags its feet like an irritable child reluctant to go to bed. And on the horizon the god-awful moment where asinine social convention compels you to link hands with people who you would quite happily nudge over a high precipice if you thought that you would get away with it, while the whole rotten lot of you pretend to know the words to Auld Lang Syne, and give a single ounce of a fuck as to their meaning and sentiment.

Or, if not the party, then the dismal prospect of the Hootenanny on BBC2. The spectacle of Jools Holland locked in stilted conversation with Dawn French, before accompanying Dave Stewart (formerly of The Eurythmics) on boogie-woogie piano in a re-tooled version of a song that he wrote for Alisha's Attic in 1996. I was young then. Even the prospect of Oasis releasing another dreadful album, written in the plodding tempo of a knackered dray horse, could not dampen my enthusiasm for life.

The greatest and most inspired New Year's Eve celebration I ever participated in took place in 1999 during the premature millennium festivities: I began urinating shortly before the stroke of midnight - a continuous stream of piss that, like a gracefully arcing, golden bridge, spanned two arbitrary ages, each one bearing the weight of a thousand years.

"Start as you mean to go on!" I yelled to no one in particular as outside fireworks pointed at the witching hour, like batteries of nuclear weapons, launched on either side of it, and the sky was momentarily filled with colour and noise.

Last Christmas by Wham! is an ambiguous and confusing head fuck

Last Christmas by Wham! is an ambiguous and confusing head fuck

Like listening to your eight year old self making an enthusiastic but mostly inaccurate attempt at describing sexual intercourse, the lyrics to Last Christmas by Wham! make absolutely no god damn sense whatsoever.

“Last Christmas
I gave you my heart”

Clearly we are in metaphor territory, only apparently we're not:

“But the very next day you gave it away.”

So George Michael has given his heart away to someone who has in turn re-gifted it to somebody else. How does that work exactly?

Is George Michael no longer in control of his heart and compelled to love a stranger chosen by the very person who spurned his affections? What in the name of honey-glazed fuck is going on here?

The final lines only add to the confusion:

“This year
To save me from tears
I'll give it to someone special.”

At this point George Michael is one year older and wiser. He has regained possession of his heart; how, we do not know and George can or will not say. Possibly it has been returned to him by the recipient, perhaps out of pity or embarrassment, or in exchange for a small sum of money. Or it might be that legal ownership of the heart reverted back to George after a period of time had elapsed.

No further insight is provided in the remainder of the lyrics which are sketchy at best and would not hold up as testimony in court. Consider the following verse:

“I wrapped it up and sent it
With a note saying, "I love you,"
I meant it.”

What the shitting hell did you wrap up and send George?. If it was a heart then it clearly wasn't your own and was only yours in the sense that you momentarily possessed it. Before that it beat inside the chest of a terrified living thing.

For fuck's sake George who did you kill?

Jesus fucking Christ!

Why it must never be allowed to rain men

Why it must never be allowed to rain men

Far from being a cause for joyful celebration, 'man rain' as it is described in the hit single - It's Raining Men (Homer Simpson's favourite song) would be a tragedy on a par with Hurricane Katrina, a tsunami, or an alien invasion of Canada.

It is a practical reality that few of the men would survive the fall from several thousand feet. Going out and letting yourself “get absolutely soaking wet” would in this case equate with allowing yourself to be thoroughly drenched in blood and gore and impaled with shards of human bone.

Among the surviving men the majority would be seriously injured, requiring urgent medical attention and, in the long-term, extensive physical rehabilitation. As somebody who investigates and writes on local health issues, I can say that the healthcare providers in my home town of Southend are ill-prepared to deal with an incidence of man rain.

It is likely that on the ground further casualties would result, either directly from the rain itself, or as a consequence of accidents caused by it. Would man rain be intense enough to bring down an aeroplane? I would like to answer 'no' but we all know that the real answer to this question is 'Yes.'

There would be extensive damage to property. Emergency services would be stretched well beyond capacity. It is likely that in some areas the rule of law would break down altogether.

In the aftermath of the man rain somewhere would have to found to store the bodies and the other disparate remains until such a time that these could be identified and the next of kin notified. Every death would need to be treated as suspicious until the police could rule out foul play in individual cases.

The Guardian newspaper would invariably pronounce the man rain as misogynist. For The Daily Mail it would be held up as yet another example of the government's failure to control immigration. The Daily Express would, with some wild leap of media logic, link it to the death of Princess Diana.

Disco music has a way of making mass tragedies seen acceptable (see The Trammps - Disco Inferno). We must condition ourselves to look past the catchy rhythms and infectious melodies and see the human cost that lies beneath.

The Parson's Hassock - Lady Margaret Seacombe answers your questions on matters of modern etiquette

The Parson's Hassock - Lady Margaret Seacombe answers your questions on matters of modern etiquette

In her new monthly column – The Parson's Hassock - Lady Margaret Seacombe bids a fond temporary adieu to her busy social calender of organising charity dinners and giving out the prizes for good attendance in school assemblies, to answer your questions on matters of etiquette in the 21^st century.

“A refreshingly modern approach to age old dilemmas” - Country Life

Dear Lady Margaret Seacombe

Last week my housekeeper walked in on a threesome involving myself and two other men. She is an unmarried, deeply conservative catholic woman and so was understandably traumatised by the sight of a trio of naked male bodies writhing together in an exquisite carnal ballet, choreographed by deep-seated, libidinous desires that are as old as mankind itself.

How can I apologise to her in a way that communicates that, in my eagerness to see Jason's and Roy's penises, I momentarily forget that it was 11am on Tuesday?

Bill (Clerkenwell)

Dear Bill of Clerkenwell

Bone china is the traditional gift for a transgression of the kind that you describe in your electronic communiqué.

Gladstones' of Old Bromptom manufacture a tea set for precisely this situation. The number of cups will relate to the number of partners who were engaged in group sex. In your case that will be three. The teapot represents the intended recipient of the apology. A design that in some way some way reflects their moral character and beliefs should be carefully chosen.

The nature of the other items included in the tea set will very much depend upon the sex act or acts that were witnessed by your housekeeper. In the interests of maintaining decorum I will not provide a full list here. Gladstones' have a private room where you will be able to discuss the incident further. The staff there are very discrete, broad-minded, and well versed in the colourful vernacular of the boudoir, and the lengths to which men and women will go to avail themselves of sexual pleasure.

You will be asked detailed questions which will be used to refine your apology gift.

The tea sets are made individually to order and may take upwards of three months to finish. In the interim, Gladstones' will send a card of apology to your housekeeper describing the gift and explaining in detail the significance of each item. Based upon some of the graphic details in your letter, which I have omitted here for fear of offending those of more timid sensibilities, I most strongly advise that you order the larger of the two sugar bowls.

Yours in earnest

Lady Margaret Seacombe

As part of my community service I must polish the ghost of Jeremy Bentham

As part of my community service I must polish the ghost of Jeremy Bentham

As part of my community service I must polish the ghost of the social reformer Jeremy Bentham who died in 1832.

I am compelled to perform this court-appointed punishment for a period of 8 months. At the end of this time I will be considered rehabilitated, the act of polishing having in some way redeemed my character and righted my errant moral compass.

To aid me in this my task I am given special ghost polish. The polish is made from rendered lemur bones. It is manufactured at a factory in Basildon and is sold in 100 litre drums that I must wheel along the corridors of University College, London, on a metal porters trolley.

Occasionally one of the professors at the college will usher me to one side and quietly enquire as to whether I might be able to siphon off a little of the polish: They are expecting important dinner guests and there is a ghost at home who must be made to look presentable. I am duty-bound to for account every last drop of ghost polish on a paper form, copies of which must be submitted to three different departments. I give none of it away. There are charities that offer ghost polishing services, although these use inferior lemur-friendly polishes made from synthetic compounds.

My supervisor impresses upon me the importance of regularly polishing the ghost of Jeremy Bentham. The more tarnished a ghost becomes the harder they are to clean. Jeremy Bentham's ghost is prone to fidgeting and sometimes wanders off. I follow behind with my squeaky porters trolley and my bouquet of dusters. When I am finished Jeremy Bentham's ghost emits a lustrous golden glow that attracts magpies. He must remain indoors until his aura has sufficiently dimmed.

When Jeremy Bentham died his skeleton was dressed in simple clothing, padded with straw, and placed in a sitting position inside a glass cabinet. His head was mummified according the practices of the indigenous people of New Zealand. The end result was macabre and so a wax head was attached to the body instead.

The ghost of Jeremy Betham is unhappy with this arrangement. He continually petitions me to include the reattachment of his head to his body as an item on the agenda at University College board meetings.

I inform him that I am not an employee of University College and have no influence over the agenda in any of their meetings. I am one of criminal classes convicted by a jury of my peers of selling a counterfeit stegosaurus skeleton to the Royal Society of Junior Palaeontologists.

With the end of my sentence approaching the ghost of Jeremy Bentham becomes agitated. He asks me who will polish him after I am gone. It will probably another community service worker. If there is no-one suitable then maybe somebody who is claiming job seekers' allowance will be forced to polish the ghost of Jeremy Bentham in return for their unemployment benefit, or the job will be offered as an unpaid apprenticeship.

It is the final day of my sentence. Me and the ghost of Jeremy Bentham journey across the road to the park on Gordon Square where we both sit in reflective silence. I watch the ghost of Jeremy Bentham as he is slowly dulled by traffic fumes. Around us the dusk gathers erasing the fine details of London. The end of the day and our time together is sketched out in abstract in the sad evensong of a blackbird, perched in silhouette, high in bare, still branches.