2 is not the magic number

We live in a society obsessed by health, so much so that we have numbers attached to every aspect of our health - how much we should weigh, our blood pressure, how much water we should drink, how many pieces of fruit we should eat and so on. It's the last numbers that interest me the most, the ones about the water and the fruit - how on earth are you supposed to do this?

I tried drinking 2 litres of water a day and spent most of my time in the toilet. And the fruit - I only have three meals a day, when am I supposed to squeeze all this fruit in. This focus on water and fruit is a massive departure from the standard bloke diet of beer and meat, with a few fries thrown in - making it practically impossible for us to adopt. In comparison to the average girls diet of nothing and rice cakes, water and fruit probably seems quite appealing.

My thoughts - beer is wet so it obviously contains water and we drink plenty of that and there's no substitute for a good old lump of meat, as our mate Sam Neill quite rightly points out- "red meat, we were meant to eat it." Genius Sam, just genius.

The Principle

At the weekend, I found myself defending a decision I had made with the answer "yes, but it's the principle". It got me to thinking, what does "it's the principle" mean to us blokes? Is it a deep held belief that we harbour, an ethos or a set of values held as firmly as a bodybuilders butt? It's something that we say all the time and we often use it to defend a variety of decisions ranging from how many beers we're going to drink through to a major career decision. In reality, it's just an excuse for us to be stubborn and pig headed, if we actually stopped an thought about it for a second, "it's the principle" actually translates to "it's my ball and I'm going home!" So, next time you catch yourself saying "it's the principle" you'd better be talking about Mrs Krabappel's on/off again boyfriend, Seymour.

Man Bags - Just a figment of her imagination

Like most blokes, I have a shoulder bag, or satchel if you will, that I have all my necessities in such as my wallet, keys, work folders... you get the picture. Anyway, I was rather shocked at repetitive references to the said satchel as a "Man Bag".

Do people really think that men are as obsessed with their bags as women are? Do they think we go out in search of the ultimate shoulder bag, wrestling with each other at the sales for the "cutest" satchel? The answer is no. Yes, we're a bit more obsessed with our looks than generations gone, but it's all about practicality - just like the briefcase of yesteryear - only not as stupid looking.

So no next time someone refers to your bag as a "Man Bag", politely tell them that you don't dance round it, it took one minute to pick out, you got it from the first shop you went to, it contains no more than five items at one time and it is possible for you to leave the house without it if so required.

DVDs are bad for your balls

As we head towards the weekend and thoughts of getting up late and siting around in your underwear start to creep in, the question pops up - what am I going to do tonight, or in the case of many couples - what are WE going to do tonight? As parents the choice is fairly limited to nothing, or a DVD. DVDs are the staple form of entertainment for most parents, providing a welcome escape from watching adverts and crap TV - the problem is, the compromise.

Most blokes look for guns, war, fast cars or a bit of childish comedy, in fact there are probably a fair few blokes that secretly love the Fast and the Furious trilogy, not me though, not enough depth for me....However, our better halves are looking for a bit of romance or some lighthearted comedy - both of which a bloke would probably give up a ball for if it meant that they didn't have to watch them. So, I ask this, is it not a conspiracy against blokes that they went and combined them??? I mean come on! You don't see us mixing genres, that would just be stupid, we'd end up with War Comedy or something...wait a minute we could get Martin Sheen to play George Bush and....

But seriously, blokes beware the Romantic Comedy section, your balls are far to valuable.

Is Green the new Black?

As a kid, I remember getting dragged out to the yard to help Mum and dad with gardening and I hated it, I couldn't think of anything worse. To the young me, it was some twisted form of torture designed to separate me from the pinnacle of modern entertainment - the almighty Commodore 64. Fast forward 20 years and I found myself facing the prospect of "tending" to my garden and the childhood memories came flooding back, only this time it wasn't my beloved Commodore 64 that I was being separated from, but my long-time love, the cricket. After the first hour or so, I found myself really enjoying it and before long, I'd spent the whole afternoon working in the garden and I hadn't missed the Cricket once...Blasphemy you say, and I hear you, I really do - but the fact is, it really is quite enjoyable. There's something about working with your hands that makes a bloke feel good and it's really addictive. After that first episode, I've been out in the garden almost every weekend, doing this and that, and I'm even going to lay 16 square metres of new turf this weekend. So is gardening the new thing for blokes, should we all get out there and get a bit muddy? Put it this way, it's a great excuse for a few sneaky cold ones in the afternoon.

The (Con)fusion

We all want our faces to be nice and smooth don't we? We'll, if you're REALLY serious about it, you'll have to get the new Fusion razor from Gillette. After seeing the over-stylized, extremely American advert on TV I had to go and have a look at the website. Once on the site I got a virtual tour from a "scientist" called Cassandra, who clearly knows what she's talking about because she has both of the instruments vital to any scientist - a clipboard and white coat. Cassandra reliably informed me that the Fusion labs (yes, they have labs) have created this razor with the "comfort" of five blades on one side and the "precision" of one on the other. Hmmmm, I never knew that dragging 5 blades across your face could be comfortable - goes to show how much I know! The structure of the razor also raises two questions for me: Is the side with 5 blades not "precise" and the side with 1 blade not "comfortable"??? Why not come to a happy medium and say have 3 or 4 blades - now that's just crazy talk! I'll leave you with this gem for the TV advert, the side of the razor with one blade is for "those hard to reach spots" - Now, I'm not an expert, but I don't have any problems reaching any part of my face, do you?? Anyway, check it out, Cassandra's not bad looking for a "scientist" http://www.gillettefusion.com/us/

Is it OK to give blokes flowers for their birthdays?

We have a birthday in our office today and the girl in question was given a bunch of flowers, which looked pretty nice...I guess. It got me to thinking, what do Men get for their birthdays, can you give a man a bunch of flowers? In a world where equality is all and men are more in touch with their feelings that ever before, I can't help thinking...no. Despite our "evolution" I really don't think men care about flowers and are in fact actually rather baffled as to why women like them. If you think about it, what you are essentially doing is removing vegetation from its rightful place, wrapping it in a bit of paper and presenting it to someone. I mean, it's a bit useless isn't it, you can't eat it (unless you're a bit strange) so what's the point? Because they look pretty?? Pah! Give me a cold beer any day and take your flowers to the hospital.

WhoManYouMan

I was in a training session at work about Digital Influence and the question was asked, do you blog? Nope, I thought..... but why not? I'm not an idiot, I have a few interesting things to say, why don't I give it a go?

Fine, I thought...I will. But rather than talk about doing the laundry, I thought I'd talk about something I know - being a bloke. So this blog is going to be a blog by a bloke, for blokes, about things for blokes.