Cheetah's passing nothing to sneeze at (From Watford Observer)

Cheetah's passing nothing to sneeze at

11:48am Friday 6th January 2012

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I HAVE a couple of old friends – both of them former reporters on this very newspaper – who have a liking for monkeys that borders on obsession.

Call it a blind spot, if you will, but they seem to like monkeys, chimps and the rest of the simian bunch with a depth that troubles me.

I’m not against their hobby. Far from it.

I’ve seen Planet of the Apes, and been to a couple of safari parks and I like bananas as much as the next man.

But this week I have become emerged in the world of chimp-based subterfuge, and it’s not a pretty place.

I would say monkey business, but that would be a cliché too far.

For a few days back, the news was announced, with great solemnity, about the death of Cheetah the Chimp, Tarzan’s co-star, at the grand old age of 80.

Twitter went into overdrive.

Fans of chimps, apes, monkeys (and yes, I know they’re not all the same thing, but let’s not be too pedantic about our tree-swinging friends, shall we?) all shook their heads and raised a glass in memory of a silver-screen brown-haired hero.

Except, I suspect things are not quite as they seemed.

Less reported was the fact that there had been many chimps who had played the part of Cheetah, and there seem to have been plenty more who have been linked to the part on pretty flimsy grounds.

The story of who Cheetah really was immediately starts to look murky.

An American biographer, for instance, was once contracted to write the life story of another chimp – also called Cheetah, also nearing his 80th birthday – and his supposedly lengthy career in the movies.

Except that after a month of research, he worked out that the poor creature was 30 years younger than claimed and had never appeared in any films, let along been Johnny Weissmuller’s co-star in Tarzan.

The book, unsurprisingly, didn’t appear.

So I was, and am, dubious about this latest claim, this most recent chimp to have gone down amid a series of claims to do with his legendary past.

Away from the wailing and anguish, it seems there is no real evidence that this Cheetah was 80 years old either, nor that he starred in any blockbuster movies.

The story provided by the sanctuary runs that, before coming their way in the 1960s, he used to live with Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller in Ocala, Florida.

Great – except that, according to the papers in that area, Weissmuller never lived in Ocala, and didn’t keep a menagerie at his house in Bel Air, anyway.

In fact, as with so much in life, if you think about what we definitely, definitely know about this animal, it breaks down as this: (a) he was indeed a chimp; (b) he is now dead; (c) he was grumpy.

It’s not his alleged celebrity that his keeper remembered on the day Cheetah died but rather his habit of throwing, erm, waste products at people if provoked.

Not much of an epitaph, is it.

Which brings me to etiquette.

I have had a cold this past week and have struggled with knowing what to do.

Should I tell people at work, so they don’t moan if I am heard sniffing, or should I pretend it isn’t there and risk appearing as if I’m being secretive about my sniffle?

Are you allowed to blow a nose at your desk, or should you step into the corridor every time to avoid noise pollution?

Some might even say you shouldn’t be in work at all, that people with bugs should sit at home as both a cure and a penance.

I’m inclined to think this is rather harsh, that a cold is a lousy reason to take a day off.

If I had proper man-flu, which is, in truth, only a small step up from a cold, then maybe.

But even for a feeble bloke such as me, a cold is a meagre reason for a day off work.

You can try to bluff it out and pretend that nothing’s wrong, but you don’t normally get away with it and you’re guaranteed to be rumbled if you walk around with a hot Lemsip.

Don’t imagine for a moment that anyone’s fooled by your protestation that it’s just a warm drink – they all know you’re ill.

Drink Lemsip, and you might as well carry around a big sign saying “I’m ill, I’m infectious and I’m hoping you won’t notice”.

Honestly, you’ll just make it worse.

And the festive greetings.

At Christmas, every woman you meet seems to expect a kiss on the cheek – so do you tell them you’re ill and create an awkward moment, or provide a peck and hope they won’t start looking ill a couple of hours later?

It is a minefield, as if the early stages of devastating man-flu (I’m upgrading my conditions now) were not bad enough.

Like so many British people, I live in fear of making a social faux pas and hearing myself do that awful English nervous laugh in response.

But really what are you supposed to do?

And what cruelty is it that sniffles should spring out at Christmas, when social interaction is at its most prevalent?

Should you do one big cough, or try to cope with two or three little ones, and not disturb co-workers?

Is a big sneeze a cause for laughter, or a sackable offence?

And why does the Prime Minister never appear in front of the nation on television with a red nose and a husky voice, with a Beechams Powder sticking out of his pocket?

Is Number 10 some mysterious cold-free zone?

So many questions, so few answers.

Mystery envelopes us, other than one thing: If that Chimp really was a movie star, then I’m a Lemsip.