I’m a Mystery Wrapped in a Riddle Inside an Enigma

In many respects I’m an old fashioned guy. I think that when I organize a ‘boy’s lunch’, J should not turn up unannounced, simply because she knows I’m there with my mates and she fancies a Kir.

I believe that there are certain household duties which the man should do, whilst the woman should have her responsibilities and don’t think by that I mean the kitchen because ….. I have just prepared and cooked a roast lunch. I do my own ironing and hang out the washing regularly, much to Tan’s disgust. I clean the house and put the washing on, but of course, I only do this so that J has plenty of time for her girlie lunches and doesn’t feel the need to gatecrash mine! So, in many respects the traditional role of women with me is a blurred boundary.

But I do draw the line when I see women writing football articles. I mean what do they know about football? The offside law for a start is completely foreign to them – they haven’t got a clue. And what does a female football physio do when the guy has been kicked in the ‘unmentionables’ – how can she possibly ease the pain by putting a cold sponge on the affected parts without the crowd going into a frenzy?

The Delicious Viki Butler-Henderson

I would hate to see a woman presenter on ‘Top Gear’ and yet I get all hot and bothered (in the nicest possible way) when I see Vicki Butler-Henderson on 5^th Gear, a rival programme. I hate men presenting the weather – give me a shapely female any day, despite the fact that it’s probably a guy who has interpreted all the graphs and statistics and written the script.

Women are technophobes and yet I adore Suzi Perry on The Gadget Show. The fact that she was also a successful motor cycle racer and model just adds to the allure which confuses me and those that know me. If J was single and bought a new telly, it would lie unused for ages until man came into the house to show her how to program it, and I guess that’s the case for most women.

And yet, those that do know me are astounded to find out that at one stage I had four women working on my technical sales team out of a complement of six, and they were all recruited by me – not inherited! So nobody can cast asparagus at me on that score. I knew my clients were a bunch of randy old sods and I just reckoned that the girls would sell more and so it proved.

Suzi Perry

Yet when a crowd of us go out for a meal, I reckon it’s the boy’s duty to organize things and pay the bill. I always open doors for women whether I know them or not and I would never pass a woman in distress. I once stopped a cab I was in because a guy was giving this woman a severe slapping in the street and when I’d dragged him off, I was astonished when the woman started laying into me saying I shouldn’t be so rough with her husband!  Has that put me off? No way, I would do the same again.

So where did all this come from? From a football article in Saturday’s Gurdian newspaper which was something I really wanted to read but which I didn’t because it was written by a  ……. woman! What do they know about football?

Assistant Referee - Sian Massey

And if to prove my point, one of the top football games on Saturday had a female assistant (she’s pictured above) and unfortunately, two Sky presenters were making disparaging remarks about her and her understanding of the offside law when they thought their microphones were switched off!

But to her credit, she got an absolutely crucial offside decision spot on – she would have been crucified if she hadn’t!

What do I know?