Music

A fractured thought, this, but stick with us. Music with no edge, no soul, no reason to exist but as background filler – what’s the point? Why are men listening to Coldplay? Why are men listening to Keane? Why are so many young men entering and watching the stale turd that is X Factor? Seriously. It’s all wrong. The only reason we can come up with is that it is all safe, like the bands themselves. It’s music for men who don’t like music. Music for men who don’t want to give anything away when they play a tune. For men who are happy to like what women like. To have that ‘connection.’ Listening to something clean and safe and made by grads calms them. Insecurity music. For thumb-sucking mummy’s boys. Not music to make you jump up and down or dance or shout along or feel your heart beat loudly in your chest. Christ. Man the fuck up.

Being nice

There isn’t anything wrong with being nice. Nice is good, nice is fine, nice is fucking lovely. We’re talking here about woman-nice. Sensitive nice. Praising other men about the way they look, or reassuring them when they have an ‘insecure’ moment, instead of taking the piss. There is a very simple reason why men shouldn’t be nice to each other: women are nice. Let women be nice to men, and men can carry on being piss-taking, superficial, fact-obsessed, rhino-skinned eejits to each other. Niceness towards another man is always fake. Superficial and slightly mean is honest. ‘Your hair looks nice’, is a ridiculous thing to say to another man. Who cares what another man’s hair looks like? Who cares what another man feels like? Who cares what another man is thinking? Women, that’s who. And that’s how it should stay. Man the fuck up.

Magazines

Men’s magazines used to be fun. They used to reflect the eclectic interests of men, with wit and originality. They were full of interesting people: musicians and actors, writers, sexy women – an orgy of war, animals, fashion, genius and cool, as Jack Magazine pointed out. They had spirit. Men were pretty good, and the magazines reflected that. Now they are women’s magazines in disguise. They seem to be made by insecure bores that spread their insecurity through their formulaic, worried little pages. In ten years they have swapped Keith Floyd for Jamie Oliver, Loaded for Men’s Health and the Hacienda for Facebook. They’re sucking the life out of life until nothing is left but a well-toned carcass weeping into a skinny latte, masturbating frantically because no woman wants him. Men’s magazines are a lie: they think all men are a bit shit, a bit insecure, a bit scared of women and life and booze and drugs and laughter and spontaneity. They suck balls. Man the fuck up.

Diet

Man food and woman food are different, and here’s why: men don’t worry about what they put in their bodies. And if they do worry they are living in denial, and we refuse to live in denial, because we have been told denial is unhealthy. Women are constantly being fed new diets and new health concerns, all of which usually turn out to be a load of pony. Just more things to worry about. And now they want men to be similarly afflicted. Well fuck that. You get your 70-odd years, fill them with pleasure. Fill your mouth and body with whatever takes your fancy. If you want meat and chips, eat them. Don’t eat them because you’ve been told to, eat them because you want to. Don’t drink sweet alcopops because you ‘don’t like the taste of alcohol’ Persevere, and learn to like the taste of alcohol. This is called ‘personal development’. If you get fat and don’t like it, eat less and move more. It’s simple. Enjoy everything. Man the fuck up.

Fashion

To each their own, and all that, but we are talking here about men turning into women. Coloured belts, male snoods, tights for men (we’re not joking). All ridiculous, all not needed, all to be resisted. The clear differences in male and female looks, to the heterosexual, are the attraction. We don’t want them blurred. We like looking at women. It’s the first thing we do when we meet one. We imagine it’s the same for women. Blurring men and women together in some kind of hideous sexually ambiguous Hoxton bore is rotten. The only people who like this convergence are the sexually frigid and the timid who want us all to look the same so that they don’t get noticed, like some awful pre-adolescent playground. We don’t want to dress like women, and we don’t want men and women to look the same like they did in Mao’s China. Man the fuck up.

Emotions

The best emotions come bottled up and rarely see the light of day. They certainly don’t get an airing in public unless forced out through extreme circumstance – death, say. Or a goal. Crying at the drop of a hat is not on, and should only happen a couple of times in a man’s life, or in the dark when you are watching a hard-hitting documentary or a good film. You don’t cry when you get knocked out of X Factor (if you’re a man you shouldn’t actually have anything to do with X Factor, but that’s another story). You don’t cry if you get sacked. You don’t cry if you hear someone is getting married. Women cry and men comfort them. And you don’t talk about your emotions, for God’s sake. Nobody cares. Emotions, and talking about them, are for people who can’t think. Women do emotions because they wrongly think it’ll make things better. It doesn’t. Keep it bottled. Man the fuck up.

Grooming

It’s 2009. We’re not going to resist the male grooming ‘revolution’. That would be futile - men have always liked a bit of grooming. Male grooming didn’t start in 1993. Look at mods and their special haircuts, or Regency dandies and their perfumes and lipstick. Look at the New Romantics and their gender-bending. Grooming aficionados all. No, what is hideous is the marketing and take up of new forms of excessive, pointless grooming. The fake tans and ludicrously lacquered hairstyles; the dyed pubic hair and chest waxing; the paranoid concern with looking ‘well-groomed.’ Look: grooming is not going to make you any less boring, ugly or geeky: you’ll just be a sweet smelling boring, ugly geek. Women will not like you more because you have tinted eyelashes. And if they do – fuck ‘em. They are shallow and not worthy of respect. And most women really like a bit of rough anyway, not a reflection of themselves with meat and two veg. What is happening is simple: all the insecurities about ‘grooming’ that have been force fed to women for 100 years are now being sucked up by a new breed of weak man. Man the fuck up.

Cosmetic surgery

Where superficial ‘self-improvement’ like grooming leads, hideous, intrusive mutilation that is cosmetic surgery follows. The number one cosmetic ‘procedure’ for men is botox. Fucking botox. Men going and having needles stuck in their boats because they are worried about crow’s feet? Do we really want a nation of freakishly smooth-skinned surprised looking men with glow-in-the-dark teeth? It’s not self-improvement. It’s self-abuse. It’s self-loathing. Want a flat stomach? Eat less and do some sit-ups, or better still, don’t give a shit. The type of woman who would actually go for a re-modelled man isn’t worth diddly. Women have been tragically falling for this shit for years. Cosmetic surgery does not work. It makes people look like an aliens. Californians no longer look human. Do not follow their lead. Live with your imperfections. Celebrate them. If people don’t like them don’t sweat it. Do you think a big nose is a failing? Do wrinkles worry you? Improve your mind not your pecs. Man the fuck up.

Luggage

No, not the manbag. That’s passé and inoffensive, and didn’t signal much any way, save ‘here’s where I keep my phone, wallet and cocaine.’ What we are talking about is the small wheelie suitcase. We’ve even seen, in our own building, a grown man using a tiny version of this as his briefcase. No lie. What the fuck is that all about? Women, who tend to travel much heavier than men anyway, obviously need a wheelie suitcase. They can fill it with several hundred kilos of clothes and shoes, and still just about drag it behind them at the airport while sipping a cardboard cup of coffee and pretending they are in a Rom Com. It’s OK. Men with little wheelie suitcases? Why? Next thing you know men will be reading the Daily Mail . . . oh, they already do? Jesus. Anyway, can these wet blankets not lift their own bags any more, so fey have they become? It’s embarrassing to other men. It’s weak. It looks like they are pulling a little metal poodle along behind them. Man the fuck up.

Shopping

Shopping is easy. As men, let’s not allow it to become complicated. You work out what you want, you go to the shop, pick out your purchase, pay for it, and leave. Have a clear idea ahead of the trip. It saves time, time which can then be spent doing things you actually like doing. And shopping should not be one of those things. Some men, we hear, now voluntarily go shopping with their girlfriends. On a Saturday. Trying stuff on endlessly. Giving feedback. Or worse, telling their friends ‘I can’t make it – I’m going shopping.’ Really, with the Internet there is no need to ever go shopping again, and to men this should be a blessing, not a reason to cry (see Emotions). There is something disturbing about women and the obsessive way they bang on about ‘retail therapy’ as a pick-me-up. Let’s not follow their Obsessive Compulsive lead. Shopping is time wasted, time when you should have been doing stuff. Man the fuck up.