George Orwell is the Boogeyman!

Two stories my mom likes to tell: How I could fall asleep anywhere; and how when I was breastfeeding and she had company I would bite her nipples.

Luckily I’ve grown out of both breastfeeding and nipple-munching – which was the reaction to some kind of fearful anxiety about being stolen away from my mother, I suppose. When I'm afraid, I bite!

The falling asleep thing is still a trait I possess.

I’m notorious for dozing off in the cinema – usually when the movie’s a bit boring – and often I’m woken up by the person next to me when I start to snore.

Even though I fell asleep in Paranormal Activity, I still gave the sequel a look-in.

And it was good! Not like the first that, as my good friend Mark commented, wasn’t bad until they found the big chicken footprints all over the house – like Foghorn Leghorn broke in and made off with the stereo.

It’s so hard to find a decent scary movie these days – you’ve got to look for your jollies somewhere else. Personally, there’s not much that scares me more than a George Orwell novel.

Anyone who’s read 1984 will know just how terrifying the man’s mind was – makes the latest Stephen King read like a Hardy Boys.

The most recent that made me hug my teddy and check the front door was properly locked is Keep the Aspidistra Flying about a writer who falls into poverty when quits his ‘good’ job to pursue a career as a poet.

Go figure.

The protagonist “loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money” and consistently bangs on about the ‘money-god’ that is the only deity people seem to follow.

Makes sense; money has much in common with the mythical Master of the Universe – it’s eternal, omnipotent, and everyone loves it.

I think governments know this and that’s why they put the president’s face on bank notes. They’re feisty, governments.

The face-on-the-money bit is the way a despot tells the world, “I’ve arrived!”

That’s why in America the big man can get away with just about anything. They know that money = god = our beloved leaders. Maybe not the current guy, it’s more of a general respect of the Cheese.

Of course, in SA we’ve got the Big 5 on our cash; which made me wonder whether that showed the importance of certain species.

Cheetah and lion – good.

Elephant and rhino– eh.

But then I thought, hold on, we’ve got Madiba’s face on the five Rand coin! Surely Nelson Mandela is more important to our identity as South Africans than the wildlife?

So my theory, like a punctured party balloon, made a lot of noise but eventually lay pathetic and flat on the floor.

Or maybe it’s not the usual nonsense. Maybe it’s because we’ve got game on our notes that the militant left wing always complain that whites care more about endangered animals than poor people.

Wealth is still divided unfairly in the favour of us pale natives, and coins are mostly used not to buy anything of value, but to tip the car guard or donate towards a bergie’s booze fund.

Could this be sending us a subliminal understanding? Is it the reason rich people don’t care about other people, only themselves, their money, and getting to the Kruger national park for the holidays?

Or is it because of some traditional, African tribal worship of animals?

Did you know that if you fold a fifty Rand note a certain way it looks like Eugene Terreblanche’s face?

It’s interesting to note that the Vatican City issues its own Euro with the Pope’s mug on it, not the hippy profile of Jesus.

Putting the faces of lower-level gods (presidents, animals) on the body of our actual god (money) scares me because it hints at the possibility that Church and State aren’t as separate as I hoped!

The rationale is surely that being associated with that-which-is-most-holy makes one holy by association (Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department). Kind of like name-dropping in a way:

“I was hanging out with George Clooney the other night.”

“Big deal, my face is on the new eighteen Rand note.”

Although I like to believe differently, I know I’m not smart enough to dodge marketing manipulation and bureaucratic bullshit all the time. To think of how often my thought processes and ideas are steered by another’s agenda is terrifying.

It scares me so much I think I might bite the next nipple that passes by.