Jah, jah, this is a common problem, which is easily fixable. May I firstly recommended you open up your wardrobe and remove any item of clothing that isn’t an alpaca jumper, Beer Laos tank top and/or that shirt you bought from that charity shop in Santiago. Everything else must go. Except anything from Abercrombie or Hollister. Obviously. And also those salmon shorts you sometimes wear to the golf club back home. You are not a barbarian.
Secondly, it will certainly help if you can find a way to relate anything you hear your friends mention to something you saw while travelling. For example, if somebody mentions they had ‘a banging time in Crisis last night’, remind them about that ‘time you tried Peyote with an eighty-nine year old Ecuadorian Shaman named Marquis in the Amazon’. It may appear such stories have no obvious connection but just end your tale with the fact that both their evening in Crisis and your mind bending cactus-induced trip, where you thought you were playing Twister with a Panther named Craig, both occurred at night. This skill, which can and must be practised, will allow you to tell as many gap yah stories as you please.
Pre-drinks are an excellent place to reassert the inner-rah. Make sure you hold your drink, which must always be port from now on, with your pinkie pointed outward. They need to know whom they are dealing with. You are rah, remember? If they ask why you are doing it just say ‘it’s how my Butler taught me to’ and appear flabbergasted when they tell you they don’t have a butler.
When the atmosphere at the pres gets buzzing and your mates are getting tipsy, walk over to the nearest window and stare absently into the distance. When somebody asks what you are doing just say ‘The world is just such a mad place, man’. Ensure you shake your head slowly and dramatically when you say this. Your friends will put this down to the extreme personality change you underwent from jumping through that hoop of fire on a beach in Thailand.
The music you listen to is highly important. Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj are all out. So are Alt-J and any other ‘alternative’ bands. You are not alternative. You are rah and you had a gap yah. You must only listen to music nobody has ever heard of on the £4,000 stereo your Dad didn’t want anymore – like the album that Peruvian man gave you on that mountain, which turned out to just be three hours of him making grunting noises which sounded like a bear fornicating. Your friends won’t think this is odd but will acknowledge you matured significantly when you were away and are now on another level of development.
Follow these steps and your rah will return, and you will find yourself all over again.
You’re welcome, by the way.
Uncle Sam
If you have a problem you want Uncle Sam to solve send an email to features@impactnottingham.com
Samuel Deaner
