Step Across the Gender Divide - But Tread Carefully

I stopped worrying about gender roles years ago. I'm quite happy to be going to watch Mamma Mia tomorrow night which, I am told is as "...camp as a boy scout jamboree". I'll happily sing along to the songs that blighted my childhood, and I shan't worry about growing lady parts.

But sometimes I do worry whether this 'being in touch with my femininity' has gone a bit far. Take this week for example: watching Ten Years Younger I was discomfited to hear myself say, when top hairstylist Andrew Barton had performed his almost alchemical contradiction to the saw that you cannot make a silk purse from a sows ear, "Oooh that's a nice cut isn't it" and it was. But I do feel that perhaps it should have been Mrs C that said it whilst my role was confined to a glance over the top of my newspaper and non committal grunt that signified that whilst I was prepared to be a partner in watching these predominantly female targeted programmes, I wasn't set on it being an equal partnership.

Similarly, watching Gok Wan's Fashion Fix (again in another moment of marital mateyness) I was surprised to find myself astounded by the apparent preference, of an audience of 'normal women' for Gok's economical fashion fixes rather than clothes costing many thousands of pounds and designed by from some of the worlds best. I mean, even a brute like me could tell that the cloth in the frocks alone cost as much as my car.

But then there was light at the end of the tunnel and I stopped worrying about my masculinity. It seemed that I had missed the point entirely (huge sigh of relief); it was all about empowering women to reject the style stereotypes thrust on them by the fashion fascists and rather be influenced by them to do their own thing.

Gosh.

I think in future, I'll make sure there's a copy of The Grauniad to hide behind, just in case.

Extreme Aural Depillation

Your attitude to adventure in the name of progress will, in all likelihood, colour your view of what I am about to share. I am often up for a dare, even if I have to dare myself to do something, as was the case today.

I am not a vain man but everyone has limits; and my particular line in the sand is drawn around the issue of ear hair. As I mature my ears sprout white hair from within and without, left to its own devices it is, in my view, a particularly unattractive feature. Shaving ones ears is a hazardous business and provides imperfect - and occasionally barbarous - results.

I remembered hearing an account of a visit to a Turkish barbers' shop that involved the singeing of ear hair using Surgical Spirit to moisten the ear before flambé-ing the hairs away. This seemed a perfectly logical approach when coupled with memories of a pub trick whereby the prankster would douse his (it was always a man) finger with lighter fluid and set it alight; the finger emerged uncharred the rationale being that only the fuel burned away.

With hindsight I think that both memories were of events where alcohol was a significant contributor to the occasion; that is the only way I can think of explaining the abject failure of something that was clearly so promising in theory.

Stood before the bathroom mirror I doused my ear with a generous helping of surgical spirit, struck a match and applied it gingerly to my right earlobe. There followed the anticipated flash; however, what I did not anticipate was that Sugical Spirit would be rather more slow burning than one might imagine and so the hair and my ear required a thorough batting with my hand to extinguish the merry blaze. It is a good job I was alone in the house, it took the opening of all of the upstairs windows to rid the house of the acrid smell of burning hair.

So now I have, on one ear, a bushy untreated growth of white ear hair and on the other singed remains that resemble a heather moorland after a peat fire. I shall shave my left ear tonight; my right ear is rather too tender to shave at present and I could not stand to lose any more skin from its surface.



Chastened but not discouraged I offer you, the cyber world, the gauntlet of aural depilation; what is your favourite technique? Or should I just get over it and consider myself gorgeous as seems to be the gospel according to Gok Wan on Channel 4's How to Look Good Naked.

I have chosen another one of Lisa's excellent pictures (click on her name to see more) to illustrate this post: the naked iron statue is one of a number of Antony Gormley's at Crosby beach in Lancashire. I think the picture captures the steely resolve with which I approached my depilatory disaster.