Heavenly status, my foot

I wonder how many of you are aware that the Axe television - advert depicting angels falling from the sky to seek an unattractive geek wearing the deodorant - has been pulled off air.

An offended viewer complained to South Africa's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that the advertisement was some kind of affront to the dearly beloved who believe in the heavenliness of angels.

I may have deviated somewhat from the righteous path in recent times, but I understand the gripe.

I find the idea of my favourite angel, Gabriel, having desires of a carnal nature rather disturbing. Where does it end? An ad portraying Gabriel lusting after a steak-clad Lady Gaga?

But fear not. The clear-thinking sages at the ASA must have been on a recent omega-3 loading diet, because when they applied their fish-oil-saturated, sober minds to the complaint, they agreed with the complainant.

In their words: "The problem is not so much that angels are used in the commercial, but rather that the angels are seen to forfeit, or perhaps forego, their heavenly status for mortal desires."

Just so we're all clear, this matter is not about the Big Guy in the sky. I doubt that the Alpha and the Omega would take His eye off critical matters such as global-warming-inspired tsunamis, the Iberian economic meltdown and SA Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula's zipper problems long enough to stress about an Axe ad.

For the record, this column is not about Axe's brilliantly mischievous adverts, nor is it about mocking the indignantly righteous among us. My point is that I have never found any advert, radio/TV programme or story sufficiently offensive to warrant an angry e-mail, let alone banning. Yes, that includes Generations' Connie Ferguson insulting our intelligence, claiming she buys her furniture from Lewis. Or rapper Pro-Kid insisting he drinks Fish Eagle brandy.

As much of an imbecile as I am, I get the line between literal and figurative. And I harbour the absurd idea that what offends me says more about me than it does about the source of my offence.

I'll tell you what crawls up my boxers, though. It has been my theory for a while now that there is a statistically significant portion of our population that comprises individuals whose first thought every morning is: "What can I find today that will annoy and offend me?"

I'm convinced that such people exist in substantial numbers and that they walk among us on a daily basis.

You see them in Joburg morning traffic between, say, London Road and Marlboro on the N3 north, at an ungodly hour like 6.45am, already at it. They're actively seeking someone to offend them in some way.

By a show of hands: does any rational person reading this not expect a minibus taxi to cut into your lane and then stop to offload passengers in morning traffic?

Anyone? So what kind of individual gets out of his silver BMW in a striped shirt and red tie brandishing a wheel spanner on Bompas Road in Rosebank to confront a taxi driver?

I'll tell you: a fundamentally and deeply unhappy person actively seeking things to be offended about.

I was born with many character flaws and have shared most of them on this page. To quote the long-suffering Mrs N: "You're not okay in the head but now, thanks to this column, everyone else knows it".

One of these defects is that when I hear things that offend me on radio, I press a button and it disappears. If I'm in a mood for music and no station is playing what I like, I put on less annoying music. Radical idea, I know. If I'm reading an article and find it irritating, I stop reading, shrug and go: "I don't think this was written with me in mind."

I apply the same principle to fantasy movies and politicians' speeches. Same difference.

I have sadly experienced the same phenomenon on social networking site Twitter recently. For the benefit of the uninitiated, the idea behind Twitter is that you only see posts from people you have deemed worthy. It's called "following" those people.

No, silly, not like the fishermen from Galilee, but close.

So imagine my surprise when sone of my "followers" declared that my tweets offended them. I pointed out that the website has an "Unfollow" button. They replied that my attempt to shake them off was "intellectually disingenuous".

I felt like a man riding a Harley Davidson with a madman running after me complaining about me emitting flatulence. So I finally did the rude thing and blocked them. Blocking someone on Twitter is like Julius (ANC youth's Malema) climbing into a Kombi to shake off a marcher singing too loudly into his ear.

However, back to the sexually-repressed angels in our Axe ad. As a result of the ASA ban, it has become a hit on that devil's website, YouTube.

And I find the ad so offensive I have bookmarked it on my PC and phone. I watch it twice a day, just to remind myself of the evil out there. Or not.