Uncle Dysfunctional. AA Gill

the last codpiece of the English class system. Everything else – the Empire, the deference, the big house, the cosy snobbery and a gardener with only one name – has been taken away from them. All that’s left are tarts and vicars parties. And if you want to feel really out of place, turn up as a vicar. All posh English boys want to dress up as women. They can’t see a balloon without sticking it up their jumpers. If you want to separate the public schoolboys from the comprehensive ones, just put them in a room with a wig. The reasons for this are many, deep and distressing. Don’t go there. On a fundamental level, the class system was always about fancy dress. A hierarchy of funny hats, ribbons, chains, breeches, riding, shooting, Henley and judges. It’s been pointed out (by badly dressed Americans) that the English ruling class has clothes instead of character. Their whole lives are spent dressing up to be someone else. When they say clothes maketh the man, they mean it literally. They have kit to be brave in, kit to be clever in, kit to be romantic in and pyjamas with flies that don’t work for rudimentary sex. Your best bet is to play to the stereotype. Have a couple of default costumes: a Jarrow marcher; a coal miner; or Rodney Bewes from The Likely Lads. As for smart-casual, no one knows what it means. It’s the garment version of “How are you?” or “I’ll give you a ring.” An empty instruction, a request without emphasis or meaning. It’s just there to stop people phoning up all week asking, “How should I dress for your drinks party?” It means, not a dressing gown or the robes for the Order of the Garter. And in your case, I think the Rodney Bewes outfit will be fine.

       AA,

       I have a large penis. We’re not talking above average. I mean huge. Thick and long. And white. A really, really big white penis.

       Anonymous, by email

      On your shoulders?

       Hi,

      My name’s Gerald. I’ve been in analysis for seven years, but my shrink’s away on her summer holidays and I really need someone to talk to. You look a bit like her and you also look a bit like my dad. I’ve had a sort of OK week. I think I’m dealing with the passive-aggressive stuff, though I did have this moment, an encounter – not so much an encounter, just like a passing thing, not important really – with this woman in a car park at Tesco. She was old, well not old, older than me. But nice-looking in a sort of seen-better-days way. I helped her load the shopping into the back of her car. It was a VW. I still get these pangs of irrational fear around German cars. Then she offered me a probiotic yoghurt as a thank-you. Fucking hell! What’s that all about? I was filled with rage. What did she mean? I mean really mean? Did she see me as a child, a helpful boy with undescended testicles, not a real man? Do I need my bowels opened? It brought up issues about penis length, cleanliness and my terror of sphincters. I mean, she could have given me a banana. She had a bunch. So there was that, which I think I dealt with quite well. The yoghurt gave me wind. The bitch next door, with the cat, the one whose bedroom I can see into and had the minor obsession with, well, it’s been pissing in my garden. The cat, not Laura. I actually caught it spraying the Japanese Maple where I put my dad’s ashes and the posthumous letter I wrote him. This seems over-loaded with significance. Bitch. Pussy. Dad. Writing. Canadian national symbol . . . [The rest of this letter can be read on helpmyanalystisonholidayandihavenoonetotalkto.com]

      The thing with analysis, Gerald – I’m assuming Gerald isn’t your real name; Gerald hasn’t been anyone’s real name since the war – is that analysis is a good thing. Self-knowledge is a good thing. A karmic manicure is a good thing. Here’s the other thing: people who need analysis but haven’t had any can be really fun to be around, because they’re nuts. People who have had analysis can be really fun to be around because they’re not nuts. It’s the people in analysis that are fucking insufferable. They have half the understanding, which is like knowing half the rules of chess. You’re no fun to play with. So while you’re in analysis, that’s a decade when no one’s going to want to know you, particularly your mother. And by the way, she’s not on holiday, she’s moved.

       Uncle D,

       What’s your position on pornography?

       Ava, by email

      Complaining about pornography is like moaning about the weather, though more fun, with better graphics. We are just surrounded by it. It’s bottomless, topless and endless. It’s also very repetitive. Very, very, very repetitive. So I don’t have a position on porn. I’m assuming this is a sniggering pun and you’re not called Ava. You’re probably Gerald. And you’re 14 and your penis looks like the handlebar grips on a midwife’s Riley. What the nuanced social observer, the postmodern moral philosopher has in place of a position is more a voyeuristic, hand on chin, quizzically smiling anthropological interest in particular sorts of pornography. If you are in doubt of what that is, there is a helpful index to the left-hand side of most porn sites. You can choose which ones to take umbrage at. Racial stereotypes for instance. Black men, big cocks. Japanese girls, white socks. Fake lesbian exploitation. Unshaven German creampie Milf compilation. Porn is no longer either/or. It’s sometimes and somethings. But don’t let anyone tell you that what you need is to be more open to porn, Gerald. Don’t ever get lulled into sharing it or watching it with your girlfriend (when you get one) as some sort of foreplay. This is disgusting and unnatural. Porn has to be solitary, singular, secret and, above all, embarrassing. Nothing ruins pornography like someone else cranking one out saying, “Can’t we fast forward through this bit? Oh, and the midget’s got a willy just like yours.”

       Mr Gill,

      I’ve got this boyfriend, and on the face of it he ticks every box, some of them more than once. He’s good-looking, solvent, with an indoor, sitting-down job. He’s got a car that’s insured, which is as rare as morris dancers round here. My family love him, and so do I. It’s all lush, until he opens his bleeding mouth. He’s got this accent. He sounds posh. Like off Downton Abbey, or some black and white film. Normally I can handle it because he’s polite and funny. It’s just in bed, his voice does me in. You really can’t talk dirty and sound sexy with a posh accent. It’s like being rogered by a comedy butler or a magistrate. I can’t take it seriously. Every time he says, “Here I come ready or not.” Or, “Good Lord, brill top bollocks, Miss.” Or, “Steady the bus!” (he says that quite a lot), I go off the whole thing. I’m writing to you because I assume you’re posh. How do any of you actually breed? How can you get a throb-on for some bird who sounds like Princess Anne saying stuff like, “Do you have a reservation?”

       Cher, by instant message

      Ah, Tracy. Do you mind if I call you Tracy? I know it’s not your name, but you’re all Tracys to us. Of course, you’re completely right. Received pronunciation, BBC English, or “posh”, is good for many things: ordering thousands of oiks to almost certain death; governing an empire with not much more than five drunken Scotsmen and a cricket bat. It’s brilliant for memorial services, patronising foreigners, children and horses and, bizarrely, poetry. But God in His wisdom gives and He takes away. Even though He obviously has the same accent as your boyfriend, He has deemed it the most preposterous voice when naked. When all is said and done, or done then said, it is the accent of understatement. And if engaged in the beast with 20 toes and a single desire, you really don’t want understatement, or to sound phlegmatically sophisticated. No one wants to hear, “Whenever you’re ready old girl” as a soundtrack to the vinegar strokes. My suggestion is to shove a pillow in his mouth. It will remind him of school. Or wear earphones playing Get Carter. Of course, if you’re serious about the chap then work up some ruse to get him fired, get one of your mates to nick his car and insist he moves in with you. In a couple of