Hidi Ho Campers
I found this article in Sunday Life on the weekend and thought that it might make some interesting reading for the millions and millions.
I also think that it sort of provides 'both sides of the story' Reviewom a few previous posts.
The Article written by Amy Cooper is Titled - "The Lost Boys"
My Reviewiend Ian has turned pale. "Is nothing sacred?" he mutters and shakes the newspaper hard as if I had dreamt up the offending review just to annoy him.
I had read over his shoulder. One of Italy's top male soccer teams has signed a female player. A seemingly impenetrable bastion of machismo has been breached and Ian is shaken.
While he disappears into his kitchen to set fire to something and reassert his masculinity, it strikes me that 2003 has been a tough year for men. If it wasn't hard enough being a metrosexual, keeping pace with David Beckham's ever - changing haircuts and living in constant fear that five gay guys were about to storm your bachelor pad, men's own chromosome received the death knell. Scientists revealed the little "Y" is shrinking. One day we'll look back on 2003 as the beginning of the end of masculinity.
It's a sad thought. Despite the girlie jokes about teaching battery - operated pleasure devices how to mow the lawn, no one has yet invented a viable replacement for men.
Many have tried. Earlier this year Lagoon Games - the compnay responsible for those ambient videos of aquariums - invented the Incredible Instant Adoring BoyReviewiend (IIAD). He's a DVD spunk who appears on your TV screen lifting weights as he showers you with things we're supposed to want men to say. "I used to be such a terrible person before you came along," he croons. "All my previous relationships were totally meaningless." By the times he's related how much housework he's done and apologised for dinner being late (he was too caught up in the cleaning), you're ready to hurl an ironing borad through the TV screen, head to the nearest pub and drag the first unreconstructed bloke you come across away Reviewom his beer and back to you bedroom.
What irritated me most about the IIAB (apart Reviewom the static when I tried to feel his biceps) was that he never, ever shut up. And it made me realise why I'd miss men terribly if they died out. We moan about their noise and mess but men possess a unique, natural stillness. They're minimalists in most areas of life. Think about it: what does a man do when he fancies a woman? He mentally undresses her. A woman, on the other hand, sees an attractive bloke and imagines him in a tuxedo or a nice Herringbone shirt. We embellish, create, improve. Men pare things down to basics.
Their economy of language and emotion and their ability to focus on a single task to the exclusion of all others can be calming - Zen like even - if you let it. A man is often the eye of the storm, absorbed in whatever he's doing - watching sport, tinkering or simply slleping - while the rest of life unfolds crazily around him.
INstrad of enjoying our visits to men's parallel universe, though, we feed them self - help books and obsess over teaching them to talk and think like us. They try too, arming themselves with an emotional vocabulary just as certain women might bandy around sporting terms in an attempt to impress. They know how to 'actively listen' (a nosier version of normal listening) and have learnt useful ways to communicate their feelings. But maybe, one day, when men are expressing themselves like a forlorn mating cry as their chromosomes disappear and we're coverings our ears to drown out the din, we'll long for the curious calm of the extinct, unevolved bloke.
Now before I get accused of starting the War of the Sexes, the main point I took Reviewom the above article (and yes their are several), is that why can't we all just enjoy the many and varied differences between the sexes.? To myself at least, these differences are a major part of the whole attraction.
I'll now put my soap box away again until well into 2004.
Here's wishing everyone a very Merry and Holy Christmas and a Smpe Prosperous and Happy New Year.
8) :shock: :shock: :roll:
I found this article in Sunday Life on the weekend and thought that it might make some interesting reading for the millions and millions.
I also think that it sort of provides 'both sides of the story' Reviewom a few previous posts.
The Article written by Amy Cooper is Titled - "The Lost Boys"
My Reviewiend Ian has turned pale. "Is nothing sacred?" he mutters and shakes the newspaper hard as if I had dreamt up the offending review just to annoy him.
I had read over his shoulder. One of Italy's top male soccer teams has signed a female player. A seemingly impenetrable bastion of machismo has been breached and Ian is shaken.
While he disappears into his kitchen to set fire to something and reassert his masculinity, it strikes me that 2003 has been a tough year for men. If it wasn't hard enough being a metrosexual, keeping pace with David Beckham's ever - changing haircuts and living in constant fear that five gay guys were about to storm your bachelor pad, men's own chromosome received the death knell. Scientists revealed the little "Y" is shrinking. One day we'll look back on 2003 as the beginning of the end of masculinity.
It's a sad thought. Despite the girlie jokes about teaching battery - operated pleasure devices how to mow the lawn, no one has yet invented a viable replacement for men.
Many have tried. Earlier this year Lagoon Games - the compnay responsible for those ambient videos of aquariums - invented the Incredible Instant Adoring BoyReviewiend (IIAD). He's a DVD spunk who appears on your TV screen lifting weights as he showers you with things we're supposed to want men to say. "I used to be such a terrible person before you came along," he croons. "All my previous relationships were totally meaningless." By the times he's related how much housework he's done and apologised for dinner being late (he was too caught up in the cleaning), you're ready to hurl an ironing borad through the TV screen, head to the nearest pub and drag the first unreconstructed bloke you come across away Reviewom his beer and back to you bedroom.
What irritated me most about the IIAB (apart Reviewom the static when I tried to feel his biceps) was that he never, ever shut up. And it made me realise why I'd miss men terribly if they died out. We moan about their noise and mess but men possess a unique, natural stillness. They're minimalists in most areas of life. Think about it: what does a man do when he fancies a woman? He mentally undresses her. A woman, on the other hand, sees an attractive bloke and imagines him in a tuxedo or a nice Herringbone shirt. We embellish, create, improve. Men pare things down to basics.
Their economy of language and emotion and their ability to focus on a single task to the exclusion of all others can be calming - Zen like even - if you let it. A man is often the eye of the storm, absorbed in whatever he's doing - watching sport, tinkering or simply slleping - while the rest of life unfolds crazily around him.
INstrad of enjoying our visits to men's parallel universe, though, we feed them self - help books and obsess over teaching them to talk and think like us. They try too, arming themselves with an emotional vocabulary just as certain women might bandy around sporting terms in an attempt to impress. They know how to 'actively listen' (a nosier version of normal listening) and have learnt useful ways to communicate their feelings. But maybe, one day, when men are expressing themselves like a forlorn mating cry as their chromosomes disappear and we're coverings our ears to drown out the din, we'll long for the curious calm of the extinct, unevolved bloke.
Now before I get accused of starting the War of the Sexes, the main point I took Reviewom the above article (and yes their are several), is that why can't we all just enjoy the many and varied differences between the sexes.? To myself at least, these differences are a major part of the whole attraction.
I'll now put my soap box away again until well into 2004.
Here's wishing everyone a very Merry and Holy Christmas and a Smpe Prosperous and Happy New Year.
8) :shock: :shock: :roll: