So you’ve put your namby-pamby liberal Stop The War! conscience where your overactive mouth is. You’ve volunteered to take-in an ex-Guantanamo detainee – hey, everybody’s got to do their bit, right? But things aren’t as simple as they seemed when you clipped out that coupon on the heart-rending newspaper ad. Now, a guy who hasn’t seen sunlight in six years is prowling your living room, smearing excrement up the walls in yet another habitual ‘dirty protest’. He’s been shell-shocked and culture shocked and electric shocked, but all you want to do is curl up with a hangover and watch that Friends boxset. Thank Allah we’ve got the Dr Spock equivalent for you right here – a guide to keeping, maintaining, and caring for your very own ex-dangerous-terrorist/former-CIA-punchbag.

Routine
As with all people who have been heavily insitutionalised, a regular routine is vital. Over the past few years, your new roomie’s constant schedule probably looked something like this:

Mon, Wed, Fri: Physical Torture.
Tues: Psychological torture.
Thu: General beatings.
Saturday: Volleyball.
Sunday: World Of Warcraft/Dungeons & Dragons party (bring your own chips & dips).

It’s important to maintain this rota for a few weeks to aid gradual acclimatisation. ‘Torture topup’ is easily achieved with items found in the home – a few cigarettes, some piano wire and a modest amount of carbolic acid.

The Language Barrier
Your detainee has been tortured almost exclusively by Americans and is used to their linguistic conventions. So avoid Anglicisms like ‘aluminium’ instead of ‘aluminum’, ‘trousers’ instead of ‘pants’, or ‘petrol’ instead of ‘gas’.

Alternatively, you could try communicating with them in their mother tongue. Here are a few stock phrases of Arabic you can use:

“It’s your turn to do the dishes.” _ “___ ____ ______ _______”.

“God is great.” _ “____ ____.”

“Season 4 of Seinfeld is great.” _ “4 __ ______ _______ _____.”

“Yankee imperialist pigdog.” _ “_____ __________ _____ ___.”

“Okay, I specifically left a note on that cottage cheese because I didn’t want anyone to eat it…” _
“____ _ ___ ____ _______ ___ ___ _______ ___ __ _____ ________ _____ __ ____ __ ___ ______..”

Universal Guide To Deprogramming
Latent CIA mind control can be a barrier to securing normal 9-5 jobs. Cold-blooded killing machines don’t tend to last long in the modern office environment, and while they may agree with the sentiment, employers take a dim view of junior workers who are constantly attempting to assassinate Bin Laden. Before rehabilitation is complete, you’re probably going to need to fully deprogram your ex-detainee. Don’t worry – this is actually as simple as ‘deprogramming’ an old-fashioned VCR.

Step One: Set ‘Time On’ to 0:00
Step Two: Press ‘Prog A’ and ‘SysSetup’ Buttons simultaneously.
Step Three: While holding down Key A, reverse Time function using < and > arrows.
Step Four: Unplug, and set Time On to 0:00.
Step Five: Make a setup selection from the on-screen menu.
Step Six: Reboot and continue setup.

Of course old habits die hard. It’s perfectly possible your detainee might yet attempt an act of mindless terror, so keep your household plutonium out of easy reach.

Further Deprograming
Remember: the CIA have probably used the classic ‘play one terrible song on loop’ method of grinding down morale, possibly for years at a time. Through heroic human adaptation, he may have even learnt to enjoy this. In fact, a constant one minute repeat of Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’ is odds-on his favourite record. It is important, therefore, that you are able to explain why Animal Collective have rewritten the rules of music as we know it, how M83 offers a knowing, rich, but never pastichey composite of an idealised 80s, and can mark the vital distinction between why it’s cool when Lil Wayne uses autotune but not cool when Kanye does it.

The Past: A Blank Slate
Having been locked away from reality for as many as eight years, most of these people have no idea what’s happened in the outside world. To spice up your new communal life, why not tell some amusing outsized lies?

Pretend that society has developed animal ESP. Attach antennae to your cat, and put an LED board in your kitchen, on which you occasionally flash up ‘cat thought’ messages like ‘I like milk’, ‘I like sleeping’, and ‘I resent you profoundly’.

Also worth a shot:

The Stig is Adam Ant.
Terrorism is less of a global focus since The War Against The Replicants.

GAVIN HAYNES