that people come up to me in the street about,” he once said. “They don’t come up and talk to me about food and television, or African politics. But they will ask me about Esquire. The thing that everybody says is, ‘Are the questions real?’ And they are real. The fact they’re written by me doesn’t make them unreal. I always say, ‘Yes, they are. Trust me: I’m Uncle Dysfunctional.’”
He was chuffed that we – me, the staff of the magazine, our readers – found the scatological gags and the flamboyant swearing funny. But Uncle Dysfunctional offered more than pungent puerility and phantasmagoric flights of fancy. There was profundity, too, and serious points were made – about sex and sexuality, men and women and other men and other women, parents and children, work and play, ethics and immorality. But, as you are about to discover, he never let more important concerns get in the way of a good knob joke.
I’m listed as the editor of these columns, and Adrian flattered me, from time to time, by describing me as that in conversation. But “editor” isn’t quite right, not in my case anyway. “Stenographer” would have been more accurate. Or perhaps just “audience”. That’s not false modesty. I took dictation over the phone (all of these columns were filed direct to me or to my colleague, Rachel Fellows) and then, at best, helped shape the astonishing screed into traditional prose, with punctuation and paragraphs and the rest of it. Hardly ever did we change a word. Certainly we didn’t rewrite him. There was no need. He spoke-wrote in perfect sentences, with the beats and the pauses all there. It took no great skill to see where one ought to place the commas and the full stops.
Adrian was collegiate, then. He often spoke of journalism as a team sport, and I am forever grateful to have had him on my team. But Uncle Dysfunctional was his alone. No one else could have done it, no one ever will.
I know he hoped these columns might make a book in the end (we talked about it more than once). All of us involved are thrilled that they have. We only wish he were here to see it published.
But enough of that. Time to pull up a chair and tell Adrian what the matter is. Girl trouble? Problem at work? Losing your hair? Bent penis? Angry vagina? Not sure whether to bump off your better half? Recurring dreams of giving your boss a blowjob? Worried about the ethics of fantasising about your wife’s younger sister? Irresistibly drawn to cravats/nudity? Wondering whether there’s a god? Want the final, definitive, no-arguments ruling on whether size matters?
Whatever it is, it won’t be something Uncle Dysfunctional hasn’t heard before and ruled on, firmly and fiercely. And if he doesn’t have the cure for what ails you, he’ll certainly have something to say about it. Something silly, something sage. Something that’ll put hairs on your chest, or make you want to cross your legs. On that, you can depend.
Alex Bilmes
London
February 2017
Sir,
I’m an American recently posted to England by my firm. Should I start saying sorry for things that are clearly not my fault, pretending to be more useless than I really am? I want to fit in.
Todd, London
Of course you should start fucking apologising. What is it you imagine isn’t your fault? It’s all your bleeding fault. If you didn’t start it you made it worse. And if you didn’t make it worse you didn’t sort it out. You want to know why you need to start apologising? Look at your letter. How did you start that? “I’m an American.” You could have said, “I’m a bald accountant.” “I’m a great shag.” “I’m a power-walker.” “I’m someone who cries at films, but only on my own.” There are an infinite number of ways we can identify ourselves, a whole wide emotional world of possible self-worth and introduction: father, son, husband, friend, colleague . . . But you chose “American”. You want to wear the national superpower hero suit? This is the first and most important thing you can think of saying about yourself? Well, fine. Then you can take on all the responsibility and accountability for all the fuck-ups and dumb shit that goes with it. They couldn’t get Hillary Clinton to do the job so we got you. If you want to fit in and have a good time perhaps you might consider rephrasing that. “Hi, I’m a visitor.” Or, “I’m new here.” Have a nice day.
Dear Sir,
Is there any way to choose paint with your wife without it descending into a row?
Simon, Kensington
I don’t have a wife. I don’t know who it is you’ve been arguing with. I did have a wife. If you’re rucking with her about paint, good luck mate. You’re in for a world of beige. With taupe accents. And don’t even start on tiles.
Mr Gill,
I’ve been pretending to like football for years because it seemed the thing to do. Can I stop now?
Anon.
No. Not while you’re still managing Chelsea.
Dear AA,
I haven’t read a book since I left university in 1994. Am I missing out?
Alex, Northampton
I don’t know. What else haven’t you done since you left university? Had a whipped cream fight? Jumped off a bridge? Talked about French films for five hours? Slept with a friend and remained just friends? Been so happy to see your mates on a Friday night you thought you’d burst? Spent a whole term in a wife-beater trying to flick cards into a bin and smoke Gitanes at the same time? Woken up under a tree? Broken up over politics? You see, Alex, when people write about things they’re not doing it’s usually a symptom of a greater malaise, a deeper depression. If you want to know if you’ve missed out on reading books, go to a fucking bookshop and try a few. They won’t mind, promise. If you left university in ’94, my guess is you’re just about hitting your 10,000-mile reality check. You’re doing an inventory of what you’ve achieved. And comparing it with the to-do list you had when you turned 20. And it’s a shock. There have been quite a lot of breakages. And pilfering. And it’s way past its sell-by date. You either feel trapped or let down. And you realise it’s not all still in front of you. It’s not all to play for. Half of it’s already been used up. And you’ll be lucky if you grab a draw. And the pattern for what the next 35 years is going to be like is already set. The horizon is closer, the panorama narrower, the goal smaller, the rewards prosaic. My guess is you didn’t read a lot of books at university. And the degree you took was not much more than a label to get you three years of brilliant fun. And the further from it you get the more brilliantly it shines, and by contrast how much dimmer and more predictable your current life seems. But don’t despair. There’s an answer – it’s not complicated. It’s: suck in your gut and get on with it. This is the human condition. Live with it. In particular, it’s the male human condition. When you were 20 you were a twat: insufferable, arrogant, thoughtless, boastful. You imagined all sorts of shit. You thought you’d be mates forever. You thought making money was about charm and being in the right place at the right time. You thought a plastic tube with a squeezy bulb would make your willy bigger and that being good in
