Helen Walne’s Human League

Dear Helen,

It’s so cool we have the same name. Do you find people often call you Heather?

I once stayed with a couple in Guildford for six months who thought my name was Heather. I didn’t tell them until the last day. They were very cross and embarrassed. Now I correct people as soon as they get it wrong.

It’s better that way.

Which brings me to why I’m writing to you. As you are well aware, tomorrow is election day.

I still haven’t decided who to vote for. Unfortunately Mark Ruffalo isn’t on the list.

During the first democratic election, I wasted my vote on the Soccer Party. I was a student. I wore beer cans for shoes. I was wasted.

Now I have a house, a basil plant, a car with fifth gear and nice linen that is not stained with Marmite.

In other words, I’m something of a grown-up. And, like other grown-ups, I’ve learnt to negotiate to get what I want.

So, Helly (does anyone call you that? I hate it), if you can deliver on the following demands – correct things that are wrong – I might consider voting for your party.

l Stop the ubiquitous serving of nachos. Unless a restaurant owner is Mexican and knows what lechuga con queso means, they should be banned from serving those soggy bits of samoosa pastry they pass off as the real thing.

l Stop being so cisternmatic. Okay, so enclosing toilets is apparently not your responsibility – Mr Sexwale (Senor Sexoballena in Spanish) has now taken it on – but surely you understand the necessity of privacy?

You wouldn’t enjoy perching on your plastic throne in the morning, perusing the latest issue of Middle-Class Weekly, while hordes of people pass through the bathroom and point at your bottom.

l Vapourise all drivers who can’t tell the difference between a solid white line and a broken one. Ditto double-parkers, pavement-parkers, drunk drivers, cellphone-talking drivers and those whiskered grannies in Ford Escorts who see no correlation between corners and steering wheels.

l Continue the cycle. Tony might believe the cycle paths peddle a bourgeois bias, but in reality, they’re as useful as those flippy-flippy bits of paper kids stick on their spokes. I live in Claremont. I work in town. I would like to cycle to work – it would make me thin, force me to shave my legs and make me look noble in front of my vegan friends. However, the cycle path through the southern suburbs ends at Observatory. So unless I want to go and look at a nice tree in Lower Main Road or visit a family of squirrels in Rondebosch, it’s totally useless.

l Plant cabbages on the mountain. This will stop the tiresome debate between the pompous indigenous brigade and the whining pine posse – and will deliver food for all.

l Change the city’s nickname. The Mother City has been overused by lazy travel writers and camp radio presenters. And besides having a historical bias, it has dubious connotations of nauseating Earth Mothers who fart in yoga and give carob rice cakes to street children.

l Make my husband wash the dishes, cook something other than puthu, pick up his underpants, clear up the wires in the study, hang out the laundry and wear his own socks. Good luck with that.

l Torture drug dealers. Tie them to lamp-posts and force them to ingest their wares while listening to Julio Iglesias remixes of James Blunt.

l Humiliate gangsters. Make them drive Corsa Lites, dress them in Woolworths chinos, replace their guns with Leathermans and buy them Wild Cards.

l Cut off the penises of rapists. This might be difficult to get past the courts, but if you hired a ghost penis-cutting squad, no one would get the willies.

l Turn the stadium into a job farm. So far, no one in the world – not even China – is farming jobs, so there’s a gap in the market. They apparently flourish in fertile soil, have high yields in winter and thrive on seal poo. Once mature, they are cuddly at night and are able to knit socks in the shape of owls.

So, Helonious Monk (I bet no one calls you that – my friends are all rubbish), there should be no problems here. After all, the posters say your party delivers for all. Well, I’m one of all.

PS: Does the delivery also include pizzas?

[email protected]; Twitter: @walnehelen