Grills & Boys

Originally published in U Magazine, June 2008

It’s that time of year again. Any day now, they’ll be flooding in through the front door, and nothing can keep them at bay. No, not a load of crisp packets, bits of old fridges and plimsolls seeping in with excess rainwater because the council still haven’t unblocked the drains of last autumn’s leaves – I’m talking about invitations to friends’ barbecues.

No one invites you to dinner now, no one says they’re having a few nibbles and cocktails in their garden, or in their 4’ X 3’ yard, in summer, you only ever get invites to barbecues.  And because there’s usually about a fortnight of sunshine at the beginning of summer, they’ve been out in force early this year.  You’re not allowed to burn garden rubbish anymore, but boy are you permitted to turn a small corner of your rear end into a smoking pyre for chunks of indeterminable animal offcuts.  I’m sure many of you are now wearing tops that were out on the washing line when one of your neighbours threw one of these acts of wilful fire-raising; smells yummy, your jumper, doesn’t it? I bet you were delighted when you first noticed what was happening. First you catch the scent of hot charcoal, then your throat and eyes begin to sting and choke, and finally you see the black plume snaking over the fence, the universally understood smoke signal meaning, “Man. Cooking. Now.”

Mamma Mia

U Magazine, March 2008

Dear Mum,

As it’s soon to be Mothering Sunday, the day in which all us kids stop what we’re doing to honour the woman who brought us into the world and made us the treasures we are today, I thought it was a good time to write a little appreciation of the mother and son relationship. I don’t want to over-analyse things – I know how you’re prone to concentrate harder on Ready, Steady Cook when I get all philosophical – but our special bond deserves a review and an overview. Yes, it’s not what you had in mind for Mother’s Day, you’d probably prefer a tepid breakfast in bed and a box of Terry’s All Gold, but if it really is the thought that counts, you might want to read this. Your little boy has (sort of) grown up, and there are some things he’d like to say.

The Valentine’s Massacre

Originally published in U Magazine, February 2008

If there’s one thing most women desire of their men, to show them just how loving, caring, sensitive and thoughtful they are, it’s a spontaneous display of romance. Presumably that’s why St Valentine’s Day was invented – it’s the most heralded, advertised, hyped and commercial piece of romantic spontaneity most men can muster.

On this special day, we are wont to spoil our entirely suspecting ladies with lavish gifts, like silk heart-shaped cushions, genetically modified flowers, handmade child-labour-intensive chocolates or fluffy cashmere Dyson cosies. Instead of the usual takeaway, we’re prepared to go the extra yard and find an inviting chipper with seating. Nothing but nothing brings out a man’s romantic ineptitude quite like Valentine’s Day.

If love is, as Plato suggested, a grave mental disease, then Valentine’s Day is organized, commercial Bedlam where men are concerned. While women’s hearts are a-flutter with sugar and spice and all things fattening, men’s hearts are heavy and in grave danger of seizing in fright.

In many ways, Valentine’s Day is more fraught with worries than Christmas, largely because it’s not a public holiday. Time away from work means that the disappointment brought on by ill-chosen Christmas presents can be smoothed over and eradicated by the time you go back. But with Valentine’s Day gifts, there’s that horrible, panicky feeling that women will be comparing notes with their colleagues, possibly whilst awaiting a sizeable delivery of flowers – and men who don’t come up to scratch will be forced to face the consequences of their shortcomings later.

After all, what does Valentine’s Day really mean to men? As anyone who’s familiar with top-selling loo-read The Incredible Book of Vatican Facts and Papal Curiosities will tell you, the Vatican dropped St Valentine from their official liturgical calendar in 1969 – so even that society of men don’t know what to do with it. It has long since been left for well-known charitable organisations Hallmark and Interflora to pick up the celebration – and for us to pick up the tab.

So what exactly can the hopeless non-romantic do that will make a difference on a day which demands more sincerity of our hearts than any other day of the year? Well, convention dictates he firstly buys a card.

Sadly, this is a minefield. Faced with an infinite selection of soppy-looking pink cards, a man can easily panic and end up purchasing an unpostable, barn-door-sized cardboard effigy of a teddy bear or loveheart, bearing some toe-curling, stomach-lurching verse, written, in all optimism, by some friendless, lonely, bifocal-wearing sap in Kansas. Only when he gets it home does it dawn on him that no one in their right mind would want to receive such a thing.

Perhaps, he may think, it’s a better idea to make his own card? Well, only if you’re reasonably artistic. I once received a spine-chilling homemade Valentine’s card from some lovelorn nutcase, a tatty, soggy piece of folded A4 paper that reeked of Tramp and Copydex, and bore more resemblance to a kidnap ransom note than any token of romance. Beside a few lines of syntax-free verse, pledging undying lust and an overdue requirement for a thesaurus, there was a stuck-on, cut-out heart that would have looked more at home on a butcher’s shop counter. In no way was it going anywhere near my mantelpiece.

“Say it with flowers”, the advert used to say. Say what, exactly? “I haven’t the beginnings of an idea”, perhaps? The difficulty here is that men are the ultimate last-minute buyers and last-minute flowers always look, and make the recipient feel, like an afterthought. It’s good for Spar and Esso, whose floral buckets do brisk business around the 6pm mark, but it’s not good for the hapless male who then has to present them to his beloved. Or ex, as she might start calling herself from then on. Either you make an early call to Interflora or it could later result in a call to Interpol.

The same thing applies to restaurants, although the rules change here to put you at a disadvantage. Many have Valentine’s Specials, a crude way of upping margins, shooing in more punters elbow-to-elbow, and spoiling any hope of an intimate candlelit dinner because you have to raise your voice above other couples’ barf-inducing smooch-talk. But a carefully-chosen restaurant booking will at least show you care; leaving it until Valentine’s night means, at best, a dank tourist hovel that, under normal circumstances, you’d only take a woman to if you were planning to dump her.

As with everything, men are often hopelessly unprepared for this day, mainly because romance doesn’t come naturally to them anymore. They’re no longer thinking outside the chocolate box. Gone are the mythological days of naturally romantic poets, gallant knights and eligible Princes Charming who knew how to sweep a woman off her dainty feet with a chivalrous flourish – unless you spend your days watching Barbie DVDs, that is. Instead, cynicism has produced selfish, self-styled chancers, cads and boors, men too easily distracted by themselves, who think that making a huge token gesture is what’s required and who don’t just focus on the person rather than the day.

Valentine’s Day may simply have become another victim of our times; prices and people’s expectations both rising with perceptions of increased cash and decreased taste. It needn’t be the case. A successful Valentine isn’t about affordability, it’s one where the thought really counts, where time spent in preparation pays off in the most rewarding way; and very often, that means less is more.

Tokens of affection shouldn’t be dictated by anyone advertising gifts, dinner specials or weekends away, lovely though these may be. Who can actually put a value on someone making the effort to have the person closest to their heart feel utterly loved, worshipped and desired on a special celebratory day, by doing something unique to them? A home-cooked meal, a good bottle of wine, a nostalgic conversation about their own love story, a little surprise gift and some selfless sharing – it’s a day for time spent and a little imagination applied, more than any of the clichéd trinkets associated with the biggest retail opportunity between Christmas and Easter.

And please, please, no matter how tempting or easy it seem to be, steer clear of those appalling Love Songs CDs that get dusted off year in year out – how on earth could anyone feel in the least bit romantic, let alone sexy, with Celine Dion or Jennifer Rush screeching away in the background? A couple of glasses of full-bodied and your heart will go on with the power of love. No, honestly.

The Road To Hell…

Originally published in U Magazine, December 2007

Like your first love, your first cigar and your first electric shock, you never forget your first New Year’s Resolution.

When I was six, I resolved to get to the moon. I’d seen it done on telly and we even sang a song about it in school, I thought it’d be a piece of cake. My friends, Cameron and Steven, volunteered to help me gather the bits and bobs together to build our rocket: three castors, a lawnmower engine and a metal bin. Having successfully procured the castors from a three-legged table in Cameron’s living room, we then hit a couple of unforseen snags. Firstly, neither of my mates had a lawn, never mind a mower, and, in any case, all our dads were fiercely protective of their sheds. Secondly, the standard-issue bins in town were made of plastic; I knew Mrs Davidson next door had a metal one around the back for her garden rubbish – but we couldn’t steal it because she also had a big dog.

It was downhill from then on. There were rumblings of recrimination, threatened reprisals and accusations of selfishness pointed in my direction when it dawned on the boys that there wouldn’t have been any room for them in the rocket. Well, I protested, it was my idea.

And that was that, my first New Year’s Resolution went up in smoke. Or rather, it didn’t. From a tender age, from my lowly position on terra firma, I discovered how inherently pointless it is to make ambitious, potentially life-changing promises to yourself on the basis that you’re starting a new calendar.

As grounds for making promises you can stick to go, the festive season is particularly treacherous. As any woman knows, men are full of promises when there’s drink involved. “Yes, I’ll be home early,” is one; “thanks for your number, I’ll phone you tomorrow,” is another. Worse than any regular Saturday night, New Year’s Eve is traditionally seen as an alcoholic Halloween, a frightening, mind-warping night where we raise glasses and down bottles to the ghosts and ghouls of an old year before the white-satin gown of a saintly, virginal new year tiptoes in around the prostrate bodies of drunken revellers, promising goodness and forgiveness for all. And the first empty promise made every year is? “Oooh, I’m never going to drink again…”

Why can’t people just be honest and enjoy the party season without feeling that they need to put themselves under self-flagellating pressure to stop doing things they like? Of course, everyone you meet will still ask, “are you making any resolutions this year?” I somehow find myself giving out the same answer every time: yes, I’m going to take up smoking, put on weight and write a Scottish recipe book – 365 Days Of Deep Fried Anything.

Women seem particularly obsessed with the idea that a New Year means a new start; that somehow you can wilfully purge your soul of the most sleepless, credit card-maxing and debauched of Decembers by turning January into a frugal, monastic cleansing experience.

Thousands of Euro are thrown at the annual, deluded self-promise to shed pounds, tone flabby bits and fill in the perforations on livers. January is a boom-month for gym staff and slimming gurus who don’t have to even think about going out into the cold with their clipboards to annoy people at tea-time into signing up for something they don’t want; the over-indulgent, corpulent and tragically vulnerable will come to find them. “Forgive me Weight Watchers for I have sinned,” you say; “that’s OK,” they say, “if it wasn’t for you lot indulging in all Seven Deadly Sins over a supposedly religious holiday, we wouldn’t even be here.”

If the statistics are true, 39% of resolutions are jettisoned by the end of January, thereby making liars out of millions around the world. People who have difficulty giving up a few simple pleasures for Lent shouldn’t even entertain the notion of resolutions. What exactly is the problem with them?

It can be summed up in four words: hard work and change. Not only is the festive season indulgent, it’s also bone-lazy. Most men are realistic enough to know that change isn’t something that happens to you, it’s something you have to effect. You may be seduced by the TV ad for those little belt things that supposedly electrocute your jelly belly into a six-pack while you watch Star Trek marathons but even that delusion requires that you make a phone call.

If you really want to change, it has to be done soberly and involve calculation. For example, if you want to lose weight, it’s not about ‘giving up’ food and drink, it’s about eating the right things and exercising – crucially, spending more calories than you consume. It’s a notion that starts out sounding do-able and gets less and less exciting as January wears on. Winter is a dreadful time to consider this anyway; the weather is generally adverse, which discourages exercise, you want to spend more time snug on the sofa watching telly anyway and who wants to eat anything other than comforting stodge when it’s so cold out?

If anything, sensible people should resolve to enjoy January more than they enjoyed December; it’s a long month for salaried people who’ve overspent at Christmas, and the short days and unremitting frost make for an atmosphere of utter bleakness if these 31 days are not handled positively. By simply doing the things you enjoy, things that don’t necessarily cost much money, then, without the horrific pressure of the previous month’s present-buying crush, you could reach February more refreshed than you would if you had a list of half-a-dozen broken promises to your name. A little bit of what you fancy, and all that.

Therefore, I propose that the inherently negative New Year Resolution is scrapped and replaced by positive Spring Resolutions. The weather is getting kinder, the days are getting longer and men’s thoughts are getting slightly filthier. We should resolve to get up earlier at weekends to elongate our time off, not switch on the telly first thing, eat more seasonal fruit and veg, drink more water, have more sex, ring people’s doorbells and pretend to be someone from the overpriced local gym with a special introductory offer, then leg it back home to get some more sensual exercise. It’s not about preachy regimes, giving things up, self denial and martyring ourselves at the burning stake of evil indulgence; it’s just about adding positive things to enliven our lives and to avoid dragging us into the perilous pit of self-pity – that’s what Damien Rice records are for, after all.

This January, tear up and recycle that list of optimistic fibs you wrote; New Year’s Resolutions are simply the alcohol-induced good intentions that crazy pave our road to hell. And, God knows, we’ve seen enough Big Brother to know that there are plenty of other pointless pursuits out there without bothering with those.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Originally published in U MAGAZINE, December 2007

Dear Johnnie

Did you know that girls spend at least 6 weeks before Christmas hinting at
what they want you to buy them? Men say they never know what to get. Is it because:

A They’re deaf
B They’re stupid; or
C They don’t care enough to listen to what we’re hinting for?

Discuss

Jennifer Stevens, Editor, U Magazine

Hinting; women are great at this. The undisputed champions. I’m not sure if any scientific study has been carried out to determine what percentage of female words and actions are made up of insinuation but it would doubtless be very high. Whether it’s leaving things strategically around the house ‘to be done’, hiding our favourite gadgets or leaving magazines open at specifically random pages, life is a barrage of strict female orders delivered through the medium of subtle implication. And woe betide the man who systematically fails to pick up on these hints; before long, a couple of empty suitcases may just happen to appear adjacent to his belongings.

Hinting about Christmas presents is so fraught with danger, it’s a wonder women still do it. Women are life’s shoppers; the notion of going to an appropriate shop to buy the appropriate gift is second nature, like breathing, weight-watching and clogging the bath with hair. Sending a man to buy women’s things is like getting a Rottweiler to choose a kitten; he’s not looking at the merchandise the same way you do and it’s likely to end up in a terrible, terrible mess.

If we’re looking for a reason why men don’t know what to buy a woman for Christmas, the multiple choices above are slightly unfair; and yet, they’re all perfectly true at the same time. The catalyst, however, is fear. The fear of getting it all horribly, horribly wrong.

Take clothing. For 9-12 months of the year, women complain of having ‘nothing to wear’. Let’s say blokey resolves to fill her supposedly ‘empty’ wardrobes, he takes his lunch break to zoom around what he thinks are her favourite clothes shops. It’s then that the fear takes hold. Crap, what does she like? What size is she? Does this really look good? Are these my hands I see trembling before me?

If I hadn’t seen such a man with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe this happened. Said gentleman arrives in the shop slightly out of breath, perspiring profusely at his temples and a glamorous assistant greets him with a smile. “I’m looking for a present for my wife,” he says. “Certainly, what size is she?” “Oh… er… about your size.” It was a maternity clothing shop and the assistant wasn’t pregnant.

Actually, assistants are another issue. Those geared towards selling things to women tend to be overtly, intimidatingly glamorous women themselves. They also view male shoppers with a high degree of suspicion. If you try to buy underwear, they may say, “can I help you” but they still give you that look that says, “are they for your wife? Sure they’re not for your mistress you lecherous, fornicating pig?” Or maybe that’s just my paranoia.

“Yes, what type are you looking for?” Well, nice underwear. “OK, what about the briefs? High leg?” They’re pretty high, yes. All the way up to her waist, I think. “Bra size?” About… out to here.

There’s a whole language we have to learn about buying these items, a language that women have been speaking since they first noticed bits of themselves were changing shape – what hope have we got in a cold, December lunch break with queues going out the door in every shop?

Jewellery? That’s a laugh. Never mind the fact that buying a nice, affordable rock from the Argos catalogue would result in GBH, the alternatives are a matter of taste – and salary. How do those romantic heroes in the movies who present the girl with a ring always pick exactly the right size? How do I choose something that doesn’t look inexpensively delicate or so chunky that Fiddy Cent would consider it ostentatious? No, I’ll leave it.

Now, what was it she was saying during No Frontiers the other night? The one where Kathryn Thomas was swanning around on a beach in Barbados – there was something the Mrs was hinting at. Was it the swimsuit or the hammock? I know, it was the snorkelling gear. And a spa treatment, that was the other thing she mentioned. I saw those in Boots, I’m sure. Are they only for feet or can you treat your head in it with that avocado sludge as well?

A few years ago in my previous job, the boss called me into his office one December afternoon. He offered me a chair and shifted around uncomfortably in his own. He sighed heavily. “Can I ask you something? I’m not trying to steal your idea but… what are you getting your Mrs for Christmas?” Quite a few things, actually. A watch, some DVDs, books, smelly stuff, things I know she’d like but not necessarily want. “Right,” he sighed again, having glazed over. “I really don’t know what to get for mine.” What did you get her last year? “A nose hair trimmer.” So you’re the romantic type, sensitive to her needs. I’m sure if you listen carefully, she’ll be dropping hints. Get her something to stimulate her senses – again. “OK, I’ll have a think, cheers.”

After work on Christmas Eve, we all piled into a local pub. The gaffer walked in with a large, oblong piece of first-form woodwork wedged under his arm. What’s that? I asked. “A spice rack.” Is that what you got her for Christmas? And only today? “It’s what she wanted.” There aren’t any spices in it. “She’s got loads at home, just nothing to put them in. You don’t happen to know if Centra still have any wrapping paper, do you?” A couple of our colleagues began tittering and he became defensive. “She only had two things she wanted, a spice rack or,” his voice trailed off slightly, “a wine rack.” Hang on, she wanted a wine rack? “Yeah.” Which you could have filled with loads of really nice wine to, you know, stimulate her senses, like we discussed. “Sigh.” But you got her a spice rack. With no spices in it. “F***! F***!”

He’s now married to someone else. “S’pose, on reflection,” he says now, “it’s easier to see why we didn’t last. Plus, she kept farting.”

Hold on, if I was able to give him advice on buying presents all those years ago, why can’t I advise myself the same way? Take it calmly and, more importantly, try to start shopping earlier than the last-possible day before Christmas.

OK, I’m going to hand this essay in now. I doubt my editor will give it any more than a C+, it may even warrant a big red, festive “SEE ME!” across it, who knows? But I’m also posting a copy to Santa – hopefully he’s been listening to all women’s frequent bouts of subtlety and is ready to help us deaf, stupid, uncaring and terrified men make this Christmas a pleasantly surprising one.

U Beauties!

The ever-wonderful U Magazine just got even more wonderful.  Last night, it won the PPA Consumer Magazine of the Year 2008 award.  Congratulations to all the lassies in the office, especially my ed Jennifer Stevens, and deputy eds Shauna O’Halloran and Martha Connolly (and of course my long-time colleague Nathalie Marquez Courtney who is now at Kiss magazine), all of whom do their best to put up with me on a fortnightly basis, even though they don’t have to. Mind you, they don’t let me visit them either; hardly surprising, really, why on earth would they let a bloke in who wasn’t Mr December from the Dublin Fire Brigade charity calendar?  I trust there will be one or two girlie cocktails consumed this evening in celebration; meanwhile, I will sup a celebratory Limoncello from the comfort of my Father Jack armchair…

Make Up The Break Up

From U Magazine, May 2008

We’ve been rumbled – again. Word has seemingly leaked out on a subject that men conspiratorially assumed to be a trade secret. Tracing the source of the leak will be a tough job but my guess is it was some kind of honey trap – a drunken buffoon blabbing all to some girl’s cleavage in a club one night – and now all of womankind seems to know. So, I suppose there’s no point in pretending any longer – I admit it, men who believe their relationship has come to an end would rather come up with a devious way to get dumped themselves than to be the ones to do the breaking up. Whether they give their intended ex the silent treatment, start blatantly chatting up other women in every conceivable location, or lose all sense of personal hygiene, some men will try anything to get dumped to save themselves the grief of saying, “we need to talk”.

Now, before I try to explain why, I just want to make it clear I disagree fundamentally with this ‘strategy’; and not just because, like open heart surgery or flower arranging, it requires a skilled hand to pull off otherwise things just get horribly messy. It’s simply the most toe-curlingly, cringingly embarrassing thing to even think about attempting; such an idea can only seem plausible in the midst of a Jaeger Bomb haze. And, sadly for all concerned, men really are more likely to completely balls things up if they dare employ this plan.

A friend of mine told me recently that I should compile a book on things that men are crap at, a sort of user’s manual of potential relationship pitfalls. Before I could reply to his suggestion, his girlfriend cut in: “That’s impossible,” she said, “it’s the unfinishable book, you could write it until you fall off your stool with old age, you wouldn’t come close to all they do badly.” No, I told her, that was very unfair, we’re not that crap, we’re just a little under-rehearsed at certain things, and perhaps a smidgen tactless – but that’s why you become ‘a gentleman’ at a certain time of your life, because you’ve had your faults so drummed into you by the woman in your life that, by the time you’re in your late 50s, you’re a divorcee with plenty of time on your hands to be thoughtful, tactful and considerate.  She took umbrage.  Look, I continued, the vast majority of men’s faults come down to one thing: cowardice. That throat-seizing, heart-freezing terror of doing ‘the wrong thing’ which stops us from doing anything which, on paper, would seem absolutely right. “That’s just a wimp’s excuse,” she said, waving her hand dismissively.

Which is fair comment but, like it or not, cowardice is a huge reason why men attempt to pull off the ultimate, guilt-free break up.

It’s the guilt that’s a huge issue; if you know in your heart that it’s over for you but it clearly isn’t for her, breaking up is bound to really hurt her. You can do all you can to set the scene for breaking the news but watching her crumble and cry in front of you might completely sway you into some kind of guilty submission, resulting in you never being free of the relationship. Or, you could be responsible for her having an entire emotional breakdown; and men don’t ordinarily enjoy the feeling of responsibility for anything, never mind breaking a girl’s heart.

Experience plays a hand here, and not necessarily in a positive way. I’ve met women who, for perfectly good reasons, have a variety of hang-ups about men and relationships and have even, in some cases, been prescribed drugs for post relationship trauma; and I’ve lost count of the amount of times a so-called friend of theirs has confided, “you know, she’s never been the same since [bloke] broke up with her.”

Furthermore, there’s the (quite serious) issue of the notorious ‘bunny boiler’. Sometimes such women are impossible to spot until it comes to the end of the relationship – at which point she suddenly morphs from being the sweet, kind, loving girl you for some reason want to dump, into the most terrifyingly neurotic, unpredictable, clingy, snot-ridden, machete-wielding stalker you hoped never to meet outside of Xtra-vison’s bargain bucket.

With these things in mind, such a bloke thinks to himself, ‘why would I put this burden on myself to split up with her, break her heart, then spend the next few months feeling guilty about it? Why not simply let her think she’s doing the dirty work?’ And even then, that’s only if he’s applying any thought

The truth is, of course, that men are but amateurs when it comes to deviousness (women obviously being the professionals, but we’ll leave that for another day). Only the very cleverest could engineer a set of circumstances in which he moves seamlessly from being the beloved to the detested – and it’s all such an effort too. OK, the idea of acting single or being boisterous may have a flicker of appeal to the most dunderheaded but even then, feigning a personality transplant it’s not exactly a risk-free strategy.

The likely response from a girl who really likes you is to say, “Do we want to make this work, should we go for counselling, should we…” basically prolong the whole agony because this muppet here is just too much of a wimp to let her know, gently or otherwise, that it simply isn’t working for him anymore.  Girls are so much sweeter than we are, they so often see the good in us rather than the unsavoury – our misbehaviour becomes a challenge and women relish challenges. I mean, why else would they spend Saturdays rearranging, redecorating, basically rebuilding the house from scratch?

But there are the cynical men who, although they may hold a mirror up to themselves on occasion, will say that the sure-fire way to get dumped by a woman is actually to be the perfect gentleman: be punctual, considerate, polite, buy her flowers, tell her you love her every day… odds on she’ll get bored within a fortnight and find herself the complete bastard she really wanted.

I’m not such a cynic. If the ‘get dumped’ strategy was universally successful for us men, sooner or later we’d meet our match – and if she’s the girl of our dreams, how much is that going to hurt when she suddenly morphs into something we don’t recognise? Employing ludicrous deviousness is hardly the way to earn respect and, unless you live in a particularly sprawling metropolis, this is how your future reputation will precede you. However much hurt a relationship split causes, and, no matter how painful it may be for both of you, telling her the truth and putting a full stop at the end of your relationship is the only solution. It’s so easy to get into a relationship, but the fact that it isn’t so easy to get out of one should make people think a little deeper about the whole issue to begin with.

But then, there’s a truth that transcends the gender divisions: people are strange, love just makes them stranger.

Honestly, I’m Fine With It…

Originally published in U Magazine, August 2007

My good friend, the self-elected font of all knowledge on the subject of women, has surpassed himself again.  You can tell what an expert he is by how sweet he seems when he and his beloved are together – followed by how vitriolic he is about her as soon as they’re apart.  He knows only too well that if he let slip to her any of the subjects he whinges and rants to me about, it might lead to the disintegration of what he freely admits is a rather cushy life.  He reasons that if he didn’t just pretend to be cool with all these things, she’d join the dots and reach the unnecessarily drastic conclusion that they were over.  In spite of his blotto bravado, he’s never left me in any doubt that he completely adores her.

So it’s perhaps as well they don’t have such discussions.  On another of our ‘quick pint’ nights, the ones that tend to last until the next morning, The Expert and I started discussing those things men ‘put up with’ for the sake of peace; we actually had an astonishing number of them in common.  Unfortunately, by the time last orders came around, the sozzled Expert had started going off on one.  Trying to draw a line under our evening’s work, I asked him:  “So, if there was just one thing that you pretend to be OK with that drives you privately mad about her, what would it be?”  He swayed slightly, composed himself as best he could, pointed his finger into infinity and answered, with an expression of arseholed defiance: “The fact that she won’t just GO.”  I decided he’d better stay at mine than night.

The next morning, I fished a wilted beer mat from my jacket pocket and could just about read the list we’d compiled between us…

Your mate and her “issues”…
Now, your friend really is a lovely girl and it’s always nice to see her… but could she maybe arrange to see you when she doesn’t have some raging problem going on in her life?  You don’t see her for weeks on end, when she’s obviously in good form and things are going well – so just exactly what ‘friends’ of hers are seeing the best of her?  As soon as she’s in the midst of one of her ‘issues’ (whether it be with men or work or men or health or men or her flatmate), she suddenly needs you to sort her life out for her.  Stop being so bloody nice to her, for God’s sake – tell her the truth! Naturally, it’s not my place to say anything…

When you wear our clothes…
I wouldn’t complain about this because it started out as a kind of tribute – all that, ‘ooh it smells of you, it’s like hugging you when you’re not there’, etc.  But after a while, when it comes to wearing a shirt I rather fancied wearing tomorrow, it’s almost like you’re saying, “you wouldn’t go outside wearing this, would you?”  Plus, you start to change the shape of our beloved clothes too – what was the point of me getting that slimfit t-shirt when now there are permanent lumps and bumps in it where I don’t actually have any lumps or bumps?  Anyway, the actual issue is – what happened to those sexy things you used to wear to bed?  Are you trying to look and smell like me simply to repel me?

Your hairy legs…
Making an effort all the time is hard work, we know.  It’s perfectly understandable that you might like some time away from your beauty routine, that’s fine.  It’s just that we still hold dear those memories of when we started – the days when you were a baby-soft, satin-smooth love goddess who would envelope us in permanently silken limbs of an evening.  Now that you’re ‘comfortable’ with us, your leg seems to ambush us in the night like an uprooted, animated cactus, sending us flying towards the ceiling in fright.  Obviously we wouldn’t make an issue out of this either…

Your giggly, girlie chats on the phone…
Why did men pay extortionate rates to listen to a woman talking titillating rubbish on the phone in those frustrating days before the internet?  Beats me.  There’s very little more excruciating than listening to a woman natter on the dog.  Inconsequential clap-trap, scurrilous, sanctimonious scandal-mongering, gasps of ghastly gossip-gathering; you’re the modern, living room versions of the old, garden-fence busy-bodies.  And since the proliferation of crap American TV programmes, the language, intonation and exaggerated use of superlatives are all more irritating than ever.  We have to leave the room to let you get on with it.  And to bite our lips.

Your Ex(es)…
Oh, he’s sent you another text, has he?  What does he need your advice on this time?  Why he can’t  sleep, still can’t cook, some new girl on the scene (who probably looks like you anyway) – or maybe a new paint job for his bedroom?  Yes, I know you’ll think I’m being paranoid or just plain jealous for getting irritated by this, that’s why I’m not saying this out loud – but I know boys better than you do and you shouldn’t think there’s anything remotely innocent about him getting in touch at 3am.

Waking us up when you come in drunk…
We know we can’t make an issue out of this either – mainly because we do it too, and probably more often.  But really, why is it that you always have some revelation or epiphany while waiting at the taxi rank, which then requires you to wake us up and force us to listen to every slurred detail of your new slant on life?  In three hours’ time, it’ll be replaced by a brain-warping hangover anyway and honestly, we’ll be far more receptive when it’s not being blown at us on a fragrant breeze of second-hand Corona.

Your makeup…
Another point I’m going to keep entirely to myself -  I’ve seen you first thing in the morning, I know you already have a face, why do you insist on then painting a new one on from scratch?  And who exactly is supposed to clean up this mound of powder and other assorted debris you keep leaving behind?  And you call me a nerd for my DVD collection? What about your arsenal of makeup brushes?  Isn’t this little one for archeologists to painstakingly flick pieces of Sahara off ancient Egyptian artifacts?  And what’s this one for – Artexing a ceiling?

Your cat…
What is it about this evil, dusty, smug, idle, volatile, utterly repellent sofa-hogger that you love so much?  And why does he always stare at me like that?  Wait… he knows what I’m thinking, doesn’t he?

Your list-mania…
You are organiser-in-chief and everything is about lists.  Your day is listed for you.  My day is listed for me.  Daily timetable.  Morning checklist.  Grocery list.  Cleaning list.  To do list.  Done list.  Books to read list.  GI index list.  GM index list.  Current danger foods list.  Christmas card list (in September).  Must-watch TV programme list.  Bedtime checklist.  When are you going to stop writing lists and enjoy some form of life?  But obviously I’d never, ever actually say that…

The Second Flush Of Youth

Originally published in U MAGAZINE in December 2007

Internet shopping is great, isn’t it? Why would anyone bother to go out to actual shops, where you run the risk of frostbite, turning the balls of your feet to puree, getting your face elbowed in queues or being forced to have lunch in Starbucks, when you could sit at home in your underwear and buy anything you want on the computer?  Books, CDs, groceries, surf boards (“the best surfing gear in the midlands – guaranteed!”), reptile eggs, anything can be delivered to your door these days, all without the inconvenience of leaving the house or lifting the telephone.  Or even chatting people up, it seems.

More than a few times lately, I seem to have spotted some middle-aged, approaching elderly, old fart with his arm ostentatiously hooked around a very young, cute, shapely, exotic and, sadly, lost-looking woman. Upon spotting this type of couple, it’s entirely normal and expected that most people will look away in embarrassment and speculate on: A) how much he might have bid for her on www.ForeignTotty.com; and B) does she look as nice as she did in the catalogue?

On a night out with The Expert, relationships advisor to the bottoms of pint glasses everywhere, we witnessed one such couple giggling playfully in a city-centre pub. While a grizzled assembly of the man’s peers sat gawping at her in envious disbelief, we looked upon the whole spectacle with amusement, trying to work out what it was about him that first attracted her. The acres of spare face? The wispy fluff sprouting from his ears? The wiry, copper-tinted comb over? The whiskey-ravaged nose that protruded from his face like a giant, bursting, scarlet raspberry? Or was there something large, bulging and enticing concealed in his pocket that he was only too happy to whip out at a second’s notice if she so desired?  Yes, his wallet.

Unable to stomach the sight of them any longer, we averted our gazes from the unfolding tragedy and began to speculate on the wider implications of older people making fools of themselves with partners from an entirely different generation. I trusted that The Expert would be experienced in these matters and, bang on cue, he related a little tale of his teenage self and a mate being propositioned by a couple of doughnut-midriffed mums in a club. “One of them was actually quite hot,” he claimed. “But we couldn’t work out what to do about the other one, so we legged it.”

Cougars, women 35 years plus who prefer the ‘company’ of younger men, seem to be on the increase these days – or perhaps they’re just putting themselves out more. There’s been a persistent hoo-ha in the press over Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s beautiful relationship, and those of past age-gap couples like Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake – but the non-celebrity versions, the fabled “modern-day Mrs Robinsons”, seem to be filling the pages of magazines and tabloids with their ‘true-life’ revelations every other day.

“And why shouldn’t they?” mused The Expert. “It was always acceptable the other way around.” True, I said; old movie idols like Ronald Colman, Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant were generally seen canoodling with much younger women, all of whom seemed to be swept up in a fit of dramatic sighs by these men’s ‘distinguished’ features, general maturity, life-experience and rather sinister protective instincts.

Of course, these were the days of beautiful black and white movies where even ageing film stars had a photogenic flawlessness about them; and manners of the day dictated that there was no gritty, sweaty, close-up on-screen rumpy-pumpy, thus preserving everyone’s dignity and Brylcreem. By contrast, anyone who witnessed the clearly crumbling Sean Connery getting it on with Catherine Zeta Jones in glorious, gaudy colour during Entrapment only put people in gruesome mind of Ms Zeta Jones’s actual husband, Michael Douglas; a man she has to help up hills, up stairs, up ladders – up everywhere, no doubt.

So, what, I asked my learned friend, were the advantages of the older woman? As usual, The Expert paused to consider his answer with the look of a toothless judge sucking a lemon.  ”Well,” he declared, “older women are going to die sooner leaving you free to hit on younger chicks. But while they’re still here, they know plenty of tricks they want to try out on energetic younger men.”

However crude his latter point is, it actually makes perfect sense. As every schoolboy knows (or thinks he knows), a man’s sexual peak is already behind him before he’s out of his teens; a woman’s, meanwhile, doesn’t ‘climax’ until she’s in her mid-30s. It’s little wonder that there are reported increases in the numbers of older women reinventing themselves as sexual predators and preying on men half their age – who seem only too happy to oblige. It’s everywhere you look at the moment. A new Sharon Stone film, entitled Cougars, depicts just such a predator (can’t think why they chose Stone for this role, she’s like America’s answer to Penelope Keith), while even that nice Agnetha “I’m not just a sexy bottom” Fältskog from Abba, the 57-year-old blonde one who used to be married to Bjorn, is asserting her mature sexiness by stepping out with a chap 20 years her junior.

Relationship-wise, though – what do these age-gap couples talk about? What do they do? Women always seem to know what to talk about and their younger men are astonishingly malleable for the duration of their relationship – although the briefer the better, perhaps. But what of those men who go all out to woo a younger woman? While there are many young women who are so frustrated by the relative immaturity of their male contemporaries that only an older man will do, the male ego soon finds the initially attractive energy, flightiness, and flirtatiousness of the younger woman hugely threatening.

The girl’s male friends are a constant worry, their own friends’ sanctimonious approval of the relationship is irritating and there’s often a gulf in what they find fun socially; dinner parties turn her off, clubbing for him is something they do to seals – and renditions of The Oldest Swinger In Town will only prickle him like a Hessian vest.

So, quietly between ourselves, The Expert and I wished our whiskey-nosed friend with the imported girlfriend the best of luck; he’s going to need it, with the best will in the world, and all the ginseng and Viagra money can buy.

The thing is, neither of us could seriously be smug about it; if what all of us ultimately wants from life is someone to cuddle us warm on cold nights, someone to share intimate little moments with and someone who’ll look after us selflessly when we lose control of our bladders and forget who we are, maybe his is the best path to happiness. We can’t all be Rod Stewart, can we?

A Fruity One..?

Originally published in U Magazine, April 2008

There’s nothing wrong with a man drinking a fruity cocktail, is there?  Actually, don’t answer that yet.

I don’t know why I feel like I’m in confession here, because I haven’t exactly sinned.  But then, if you’re transgressing unwritten North-European boozing laws, which were malletted into stone before Moses first grew a beard, you have to be prepared to explain yourself.

You see, I’m not, by nature, a pint-drinker.  It might not look bad in print but in reality it’s the drinking equivalent of being a vegan; if you tell people, they take a small step backwards, look vaguely distressed and start to talk to you as if you’re an illegal immigrant.  “Well, what do you drink, then?”

I knew I wasn’t going to be a habitual pint-drinker from an early age; specifically, the New Year’s Eve party that someone spilled beer all over my baby sister – I can still smell that Thovaline/McEwan’s Export combination and even the memory makes me gag.  But that one mishap sowed the seeds of my difficult relationship with beer.

My first ‘problem’ in dealing with it was growing up in the west of Scotland, a place where even blood transfusions take place in a brewery.  Trying to worm your way out of pint-drinking in favour of something tasteful is more humiliating than arriving at a pub wearing an England football shirt; a terrible silence descends, followed by the type of raucous laughter an RTE sitcom can only dream of.  The first thing I remember drinking in a pub was an Appletiser; it went down much better with me than it did with the beer-supping lads I went with.  The next thing I ordered was a Baileys – and that, naturally, led to my excommunication from the group.

“So you don’t drink beer,” they say, “what about whiskey?”  I don’t like whiskey.  “What, you’re from Scotland and you don’t like whiskey?”  No, and I don’t like golf either, before you ask.  My one and only experience with whiskey led me to sail the River Thames while slumped unconscious inside a locked toilet, and I’m not going there again – mainly because I’m afraid they’ll remember me.

My second ‘problem’ was that I was brought up by an Italian mother.  Now, for someone with tastebuds, this is pretty much like winning the lottery of life.  Not only did it mean I grew up eating the best food in the world, I was, in time, introduced to some of the best drinks in the world; full-bodied red wine, Martini Bianco, Campari, sambuca, amaro, limoncello… no shortage of alcohol or, more pertinently, flavour in any of those tipples.  It’s just that none of them are seen here as being particularly ‘manly’ – unless you throw several flaming sambucas down your neck in a juvenile attempt to prove your virilty, or, indeed, how far you can projectile vomit.

Let me share another problem: imagine being an indigenous, full-grown adult male anywhere in Britain or Ireland and ordering a Campari and soda in your local pub – it’s a truly piano-stopping moment, where the regulars suddenly morph into a grizzled mob, replete with burning torches with which to chase you from their midst.  But the plain, honest fact of the matter is, Campari is a really, truly, table-thumpingly delicious drink, which mixes divinely well with soda water, with orange juice and even with gin; the latter of which has the potency of miserablist paintstripper and is the only cure for those appalling dinner parties which are soundtracked by David Gray records.

I’m with Scrubs’ Appletini-loving John Dorian on this one.  For a man, the joy of a ‘fruity cocktail’ is not that it makes you in any way ‘fruity’, it’s that you don’t need to imbibe pint after pint of something utterly tasteless to be merry or manly.  You don’t end up feeling massively bloated either and, best of all, you fail to develop one of those gigantic bellies that always seem to shout a flabby ‘hello’, usually from under a GAA fan’s over-stretched, eye-offendingly gaudy jersey.  It’s a win-win in the taste stakes.

We’ve had Al Murray’s widely misunderstood comedy character, Pub Landlord, to thank for keeping that stereotype firmly in place; ‘pint for the fella, fruit-based drink for the lady’ – like the Landlord’s ironic xenophobia, many just assume that this is what keeps the world on an even keel.  However, when even my dad (a curmudgeonly Scot who used to keep his ‘back to the wall’ because he wrongly suspected that our washing machine repair man was gay) orders a G&T as his tipple of choice, there’s no natural reason why I should think that my drinking habits in any way detract from my masculinity.

Oddly, I’ve even noticed that some men get to a certain age and start to admit to each other that they never really liked beer, or at least not that tasteless, watered-down horse-piss they serve on draught in pubs.  No wonder Germans actually laugh amongst themselves at Britain’s mock-superiority where beer is concerned – and no wonder people from Ireland and Britain flock to Oktoberfest every year, for the relief of a tipple they can actually taste.

But what of women?  How do these stereotypes sit with you?  Do girls, who feel they may have an equal chance with either, plump for the guy drinking copious pints or the guy sipping cocktails?  Would James Bond (pick your favourite) be every bit as alluring or heroic if he was guzzling down pints of Smithwicks in front of his croupier?  Answers to the usual address because, personally, I’ve never found that it mattered.

My first girlfriend was very much a fruit-based drink woman; spritzers, perries, Cinzano, that sort of thing.  My next girlfriend drank sundry, anonymous pints – usually about four, then she’d start to wobble and get argumentative.  Neither presented a particular problem to me – although the latter’s gassy farts were particularly offensive in the night.  Still, the last thing I would ever be is judgmental over a woman’s chosen intoxicant.

However hypocritical, though, I have to admit there is something a little more naggingly attractive about a woman drinking something, well, womanly.  And I don’t mean those expensive beers that require a wedge of citrus fruit to give them a tang, I’m talking about wine or, yes, fruity cocktails.  I’ll happily order a G&T for myself and a Malibu and pineapple for her – although, truthfully, I’d be pretty desperate to try hers and I’d maybe even get her to order one for me next time.  Plus, let’s face it, she’s going to taste a whole lot nicer with a fruity tongue rather than a lagery one.

The thing is, I can enjoy a cool, refreshing, quality bottled lager with a pizza or a curry along with the best of them, and… oh, it’s no good pretending.  When it comes right down to it, I’m a wine quaffer, a gentlemanly G&T guzzler, a fruity cocktail fanatic, I don’t care who knows it.  It wasn’t me who put the ‘camp’ in Campari and if people think drinking that makes me gay… I’ll just have to ask my mum to get me an Italian passport.