An appointment with the dentist is right up there with final exams, the headmaster’s office and plane crashes. Maybe I’m being too harsh there. I shouldn’t compare my dentist to a cunt like a headmaster.

Visiting the dentist as a child in South Africa was viewed as a death sentence. The appointment would consume my thoughts for weeks. Nothing existed after that date. Everything leading up to D-day was just slow, torturous preparation for the afterlife.

Dentists were highly educated, old, grumpy white men with pubic hair sprouting from their eye sockets. They had made their fortunes, overcharging for their services, and realised money brought them no joy. Acceptance of a wasted youth, staring into people’s mouths, holidaying five times a year in Mauritius with hookers and cocaine, driving the latest BMW, sent them into crises and insanity. Should have gone with the Porsche. Having failed to find meaning in their lives or a cure for herpes, they vowed to torment every little shit that sat in their chair.

Meanwhile, on the dark side of this planet, Swedes also require dental care. One would expect a Swedish dentist to be suicidal. Working without sunlight, examining people’s pie-holes is bad enough. But a nation which considers rotten fish a delicacy must be a nightmare. Unless your toothpaste contains hydrochloric acid, nothing removes the smell of decaying, tinned herring.

However, my Swedish dentist seems to be a regular homo sapien with nerve endings, human emotions and comprehension of pain. The kind of guy I’d invite over for a barbecue. That’s if he wasn’t so horribly good-looking. My guy friends would dream up ways to dump my corpse in the Baltic for inviting Orlando Bloom, while their wives sweat, nowhere near the fire. In his contract with Satan, Orlando definitely swapped the hookers and narcotics for a granite jaw-line and panty-dissolving smile.

Choosing a dentist is one of the most important decisions we make in our lives. It’s worth waiting for the right dentist. A man with his tool in your mouth is not to be taken lightly. If you’d prefer a woman’s tool poking your gums, I hear Thailand is the place to be.