Agony aunting for a spon

You could be writing a column on football and some distressed reader would ask you about how to rear fantail pigeons with. You could be an agony aunt and you would get letters from readers wanting to know your opinion regarding the strife in Gaza. Columnists in the eyes of the reader are the Swiss Army knives of unsolicited wisdom. One week we’re solving sibling rivalries, the next we’re diagnosing your rash. My qualification though is merely a questionable flair for metaphors and the ability to type while sipping possibly expired fruit juice. One morning, I opened an email titled: “URGENT: I have paid tertiary tuition fees for my girlfriend and now she’s about to complete her course and she looks like she wants to dump me. I have had to take a loan from a loan shark and now the deputy sheriffs are constant visitors.

I have never even gone to tertiary myself and was trying to uplift my woman. What should I do?” The sender, “Pained in Palapye,” explained that he needed advice real quick before the Sbrana Psychiatric Hospital comes calling.