Month: November 2019

The dangerous minefield that is male grooming

Midlife

After my experience in the Turkish barbers, it got me thinking about midlife male grooming. How much should I bother about my appearance? Isn’t midlife the time to sink into comfortable apathy rather than struggle to be trimmed, toned and trendy?

A friend of mine grew a beard. Nothing wrong with that particularly. I just thought he’d moved to shaving apathy, especially as it didn’t stop growing. At one point Santa would have been pleased to have had his bushy face hair. People in the street complimented him on it. He could have been out with a cute puppy instead of a beard, the behaviour and comments were the same.

“Oooh, that’s a gorgeous,” said one man . “Does it take much looking after?”

Beard
It may look a mess but takes a lot of work

“Can I stroke it?” asked a woman at the bar.

My friend fields all these questions with the good grace of a bloke not used to being spoken to in public. Occasionally he puts bells or lights in it, especially during the festive season, when he could be placed in the corner as some sort of novelty Christmas toy.

What did surprise me when we went away together was that what I had thought was comfortable apathy, was actually a tough regimen of care. Beard wax, beard oil, beard brush. Before emerging to face the public, that beard had had more loving attention than I had over the last twenty years at home. I was wrong. This was a man a beard grooming masterclass.

So what about me? As I’ve mentioned before, my Turkish barber has branched out into sorting my eyebrows, nasal and ear hair. My dentist is insisting on replacing old silver fillings with white ones (in case someone stares in my open mouth at some point). Bit by bit I’m being pulled into male grooming without even noticing.

I still ask for a haircut that is zero maintenance, and decline all hair products as a matter of course. That used to be because I was always about to play sport and have a shower, now it’s just an aversion reflex before I hit Costa for a cake.

Exclusive male grooming research reveals shocking truths…

I decided to do some research. Admittedly this was using my limited selection of friends, but it threw up some interesting results.

Most were supportive of their men taking more care of themselves, but straying too far from the core areas (nails, hair) suggested a wandering eye and lustful mind. Moisturiser was ranked as a key red flag, due to its connections with a desire to look younger (and hence attractive to younger models). Hair dyeing was for divorcees or soon to be divorcees only. Gym work was fine, as long as it still left a suitably tubby outline and you did it when the pensioners were in.

Not the grooming look you're after
Not the look you want

Anything suggested by a man’s other half was fine. Anything suggested by anyone not their other half – big red flag. One friend described how he bought himself a new floral shirt on the recommendation of a female friend. Each time he wore it he was virtually accused of sleeping with the woman. Suffice to say it doesn’t get many outings.

Midlife male grooming is a minefield. Too little and you end up like Campo from Last of the Summer Wine with people offering you their seat on the train. Too much and you terrify young girls with your bizarre teen-dad look, whilst making your wife think you’re playing away with the woman next door.

Seems like the Turkish barbers might have it right after all. Excess hair trimmed all round. Job done.

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Writing exciting erotic stories a surefire way to get followers. Just don’t tell your other half.

Tea & Cake
Erotic stories

I’ve read lots on how to drive views onto blog posts. None mention erotic stories, but I believe they could show the way to increase visitor numbers.

I’ve always struggled with followers. I’m no Jesus. My kids have more followers than me on every form of social media and all they do is post photos of pouting and feet. I’ve tried hard to gather friends, followers or stalkers, but have been left languishing in the grey nether regions of the web.

It was nether regions that got me thinking. I always remember when I worked for BT most network traffic came from porn sites. We pretended it didn’t for the good of the company image, but supporting and supplying IT to porn sites was lucrative.

Porn, or erotic stories, whatever people may think, generate a following that far outstrips any business site . I remember at work how excited I got when my first corporate video got past 1,000 hits. The porn-site equivalent would have generate a hundred times that without drawing breath. Or an erotic gasp. Admittedly, not with me in it. No one would want to see that.

In the interests of science, and researching blogs and site visitors, I decided to investigate further.

Obviously this wasn’t about videos or pictures. That would just be smutty. I ruled those out after a cursory glance (or two) What interested me however was erotic fiction. Look at ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ and the interest that generated. There was no great plot apparently, but it fed an audience hungry for sex; as long as it was done in a less seedy way than your average porn site. You have to wonder, had E.L. James written a book on any other topic, would she have got the same level of interest or publicity? And also, if people around the country rejoiced in reading an erotic story without being worried about work checking up their search history.

Erotic stories with tens of thousands of views

Literotica gets more than 50m hits each month for erotic stories
Literotica – more than 50m hits each month

Erotic literature it turns out is also big business. Averagely good stories on many websites frequently get tens of thousands of views. Just visit Literotica if you don’t believe me (or want a break from this). Apparently 53m other people are doing just that each month!

Imagine that. For this post I’d be pleased with ten. Maybe if I introduced some sex or innuendo there may be more interest. That could be a big one for me (ooo-er). Possibly if I wrote this the same post from a different perspective, but managed to get it posted on a porn site I’d actually have some social media influence.

I could do that. A blog about being redundant midlife, with interview stories and midlife issues brimming with sex scenes. My tale of role playing would genuinely involve uniforms, whips and well-toned recruiters. Would I get more visitors? Yes, without a doubt. Would it be frowned upon? Of course. I’m sure I’d be castigated for peddling porn under the guise of a serious blog. A bit like this post in fact. I’ll be interested to see if I get more visitors due to the words sex, porn and erotic literature featuring heavily.

Happy household or hundreds of followers?

So if you want tens of thousands of hits, erotic stories are the way to go. Just don’t tell your other half you’re writing them. You’ll either be accused of exposing your intimate bedroom secrets, or more likely voicing a unspoken fantasy with your neighbour. Neither are conducive to a happy household. Maybe I’ll just stay happy, and hopeful that the ten or so people who read this will be of a better quality than the tens of thousands I good have got writing porn.

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Secretly daydreaming in meetings part of evolutionary make-up

Midlife

Humans have always had meetings. Often dull meetings, but meetings nonetheless. Since cavemen sat around fires discussing wall paintings, people have loved to gather, talk and daydream. In large corporations it is part of the culture. More than that, it’s part of our evolutionary instinct, like over-eating and binge drinking.

We’re told that humans need to conserve energy by minimising effort, a hangover from our calorie-scarce past. It is so much easier to have a meeting than to think of a new idea, write a document or make something useful. Think of the calories actually doing something might burn, and the fatigue that might set in! Today people gather in offices in the hope that one of the group will make the kill (or sensible decision), so all attendees can agree it was a good use of time without having to expend any effort.

Vital attendees at the meeting

Have a speaker who can lead the daydreamers and messagers to a decision in a dull meeting
Always good to have a Speaker

The key to any good meeting is to have at least one Speaker. Speakers claim to hate meetings as nothing gets decided and other people don’t participate. Speakers are vocal. They can deliver monologues that monopolise the time, getting their decisions agreed through apathy rather than excitement. In the end, it is the fact that Speakers exist that makes businesses move forward. Without them the group would have to expend too much energy, debate too long and conclude without direction. Brexit anyone?

Frequently I have sat in meetings with ten or more people squashed into a room. If the time was divided equally each attendee would get about six minutes air time in your average meeting hour. Only it didn’t work like that. A couple of Speakers would dominate the hour. So what was everyone else doing? Listening? Taking notes? It turns out none of these.

Before I was made redundant, I spoke to a few managers about what they did in a meeting.

“I daydream,” said one honest individual. “I spend my time thinking about my life outside work, sometimes straying on to some fantasy about someone else if the meeting is really dull. It’s surprising who becomes attractive at the end of a long day. As long as I nod occasionally or offer my agreement to a point, no one realises I’ve not been listening at all.”

Another was equally blunt. “Messaging. Sometimes messaging people in the room, sometimes not. Obviously if it was just a phone meeting I’d be on tetris or something, but in the room you have to look busy.”

The technology people bring to meetings is partly to blame. When I started out I used to create beautiful doodles that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Tate Modern. Nowadays laptops and phones mean people can do those low brain-power tasks like typing emojis, without looking as if they’re completely disengaged.

Interestingly it’s in our genes to zone out…

Office bingo
Office bingo

However engaging the disengaged goes against all our genetic make up. Those ice-breakers, post-it sessions, votes which are all part of making people involved, only serve to make them desperate to sit by the window so they can watch the weather pass by. Why do you think buzz-word bingo was invented? Not to add billions to the value of the company that’s for sure.

In nature, hunting pack animals like ourselves often live in groups dominated by one or two individuals (the Speakers). We’re going against that instinct, but it requires energy and effort which many people don’t want to expend. Meetings serve to reinforce the importance and decision making power of the Speaker. They feel encouraged, empowered and energised to drive things forward.

So the question is, when you attend a meeting, what are you actually doing? Speaking? Or simply imagining yourself with a cold beer in a sunspot while someone else makes the decision for you. It’s not your fault though, it’s evolution. Ways to break that cycle require effort and energy. Cake anyone?

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Amazing new skills you can develop midlife, including dishwasher stacking

Midlife

Apparently I need to learn some new skills.

Since I was made redundant I spend more time at home. Now that I have completed the “projects” list I compiled, I am into the day to day running of the house. In the mornings when my wife and kids head out the door, I am left tidying up their mess. I’m not sure who did it before I was home alone, but now it seems to fall into my remit.

I used to have other skills. Socialising, technical guru, handyman and sex god (well, you can but dream). These skills however have fallen into disuse, and apparently I have to learn new ones (or at least improve on the things I have spent the past twenty years developing).

New skills for an old dog

How sharp knives should be stacked in the dishwasher. A new skill.
Which way does a knife go…

First up is dishwashers and loading (or unloading). As I am at home, to be fair, I do it more often than I did. It turns out though that I don’t do it right. Over twenty years of practise and I’m getting it wrong. Plates not pre-rinsed (despite reading somewhere they shouldn’t be), bowls stacked too closely together, and knives point downwards, are among my faults.

I had thought I was saving lives with the knife thing, as I’d read of someone impaling their hand on a knife pointy side up. In our house though it seems as if cleanliness wins out over health and safety. A perfect contradiction to a work environment. I hadn’t realised there are places you can learn these skills – https://www.wikihow.life/Load-a-Dishwasher – see point 5 for the knife answer if you’re interested…but my other half knows best.

Another lesson I am being taught is to not use the tumble dryer to dry clothes. This is a cardinal sin. It goes against the environment, our electricity bill and clothes in general. Far better to spend ages putting it onto a strange folding device where it can languish for days as a mess. Obviously it begs the question why we have a tumble dryer if we’re not allowed to use it, but just like the spirits in my drinks cupboard we’re saving it for a special occasion.

Tumble dryer and clothes airer -new skills to be learnt

Folding washing in a way that doesn’t crease it follows on from the drying. How do you crease socks? Anyway ignore the fact I am at least depositing clothes into the correct bedrooms, let’s focus on the re-folding, ironing or in extreme re-washing that goes on. Oh, and if you are doing the washing, woe betide you if you miss the tissue in the pocket. That’s a complete re-wash and twenty minutes in the corner.

Finally (well for a few examples, there are others) I’m left with table wiping. You could argue that people should use their plates to catch the crumbs, but that doesn’t happen in my house. That leaves me with the job of clearing the mess. Crumbs left on the table scores -10 marks, those falling onto the chairs – 5, and the not sweeping the floor effectively is -3.

What’s the reward?

I don’t mind particularly. Actually that’s a lie. I do mind. I mind the fact that once my slapdash approach was endearing not endangering, my poor household skills were compensated elsewhere and I was forgiven for everything (that last bit isn’t strictly true). What is strange is that how being off work means I should now wipe better, fold better, stack better and dry clothes in the optimum way despite many years of practise. Yes I did do these things before, I wasn’t a complete numpty.

So the question is, how to respond when you see the dishwasher restacked, clothes refolded or table re-wiped? I tend to sigh loudly and retreat to somewhere quiet. It’s not great communication I know, but over the years that skill has probably gone the same way as the others.

Perhaps that’s the one that would be worth re-learning…

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Camping or canal boat holiday?

Tea & Cake
canal boat holiday

Decisions you need to make in middle-age: Is a canal boat holiday a more comfortable alternative to camping ?

I used to camp. In the end I stopped as my bladder gave out. I couldn’t face the lonely night trek to the toilet block with damp shoes, the cold, and the sonorous snoring coming from other tents. Also, I couldn’t face the unzipping: sleeping bag, compartment (it was a posh tent), outside door. My family weren’t best pleased as they liked the great outdoors, as long as there was a wifi signal. They could also go for hours without unscheduled toilet visits. Bloody camels.

In the end they persuaded me a canal boat was a good compromise. Outside and adventurous, and yet warm and with home comforts such as a toilet, shower and bed, plus no zips.

I duly signed up to one canal boat company. I wasn’t wholly convinced, but part of me thought I should for the kids sake. Much as I wanted a nice hotel bedroom, I also needed to pretend I was still young and energetic, especially as I was unemployed.

The boat was booked, a 12 berth to be shared between two families of four. Two bathrooms, a kitchen and radiators. A cruise on the canals of Birmingham. What could be better? I was convinced it had to be better than being in a tent.

Sleeping together

Actually, what they don’t tell you is that a canal boat is a bit like a floating tent. The walls are no thicker than canvas, it’s still chilly at night and there’s not much you don’t share with your travelling companions. Snoring can be heard from one end to the other. As I walked to the kitchen in the morning I could see the various sleep poses of the others on the boat. No need for dressing up here.

Despite sleeping 12, the beds had to me made up each night. The kitchen lounge area transformed into a double bed which meant if someone wanted to go to sleep, everyone else had to go to bed. The alternative was one person lying trying to sleep while others lounged across the bed chatting. In any other world it could have been a precursor to wife-swapping, but in the limited space there was no rocking of boats going on.

Driving the monster

In the morning first up wakes everyone else up. The engine needs to be on for heat, so you battle past the snorers to then wake them with the engine noise. And then there’s the driving. Several times I was stood alone outside on the back if the 70 foot monster while others lounged inside enjoying the warmth I was promised.

The kids at least enjoyed doing the locks. Well they did until someone told us we were draining the entire canal by not shutting the gates properly.

The final straw for me was running out of water. I inadvertently sailed past the water point. Of course when you do that there’s no going back. I couldn’t turn the 70 foot boat around in a 30 foot wide canal as my wife suggested. So for our last morning as we cruised to the next water point, the toilets weren’t flushed, the dirty crockery grew into a pile, and the kids could for the first time in their lives moan about not being able to clean their teeth.

And the canal boat answer is…

My advice is this. Look for pubs. Drink in the pub until closing and then crash out and hope someone else wakes you turning the engine on and driving. I won’t be camping again, but I’ll also be looking more closely at camp-a-like activities. Spa hotel anyone?

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