billythefish.com

Ok, so I've stolen the idea for this page from Mil Millington (www.milmillington.com), but as he has long since disappeared up his own hoop in order to pursue a career as a proper writer, it's down to me to pick up the torch. This page is devoted to the fairer sex, not least of which being the wonderful creature opposite; my lovely wife and mother of my child - Herself. Some of the entries here are slightly exaggerated; some are not. However, all will, I hope, serve to illustrate the fundamental difference between women and men. Namely, that we're all sane and well-adjusted and they're all howling mentalists...

One thing I've noticed with the fairer sex is that it's far easier to gain forgiveness than permission. Nowhere is this more easily demonstrated than when it comes to buying toys. You see, women, bless 'em, don't really understand the importance of nice, shiny gadgets to the male psyche. We need to have the very latest hi-tech gizmo so that we can examine it, play with it and fully understand it. This allows us to impart our new-found knowledge to other males during our day-to-day social interactions and therefore assert our masculine superiority.
You may argue that we don't need another mobile phone or a second camera, but I disagree. It's a status symbol; a badge of honour - like cattle to a Masai warrior.
Me big chief. Have two iPods
Sadly, this tends to cause much argument when they find out that you've gone and bought another expensive electronic gadget when you could've spent the money on something far more useful, like shoes.
Over the years, I have come to rely on what I call the 'Seventy-Two Hour Law of Acquisition'. Basically, this states that a man can generally get away with the purchase of any new piece of electronic wizardry, no matter how expensive or superfluous, provided it has been smuggled into the house and remained in plain sight for three whole days without attracting comment. After that, its history can safely disappear into the haziness of myth: "That thing? I've had it yonks, love. It's been sat there for ages."
For once, this is where the inbuilt suspicion of the female mind works in our favour, since a woman will ALWAYS notice everything, even if it's just subconsciously. Her brain will then reflect and tell her that, yes, she is fairly sure that she has seen whatever-it-is in that position previously, and *plop*, the seed of doubt is planted. From that moment on, your new toy is safe and you can start to plan your next purchase.
Of course, you could try and be open and honest right from the start, but let's face it, why would you want to? You will ask her sweetly if you can buy the shiny new toy, she will say no, you will argue about it and the end result is that you'll be in the doghouse and have no toy. Alternatively, you could try being honest after the event. Buy it and then tell her, but it's pretty much the same result, only at least you'll have a shiny new toy to cheer yourself up with, though it will now be tainted with the combined stains of guilt and regret and ever so slightly diminished in its shininess.
No, trust me boys, my way's better. Buy it, sneak it in, put it somewhere within general line of sight, but not where she'll pay it too much attention. Computer desks are good for this and anywhere near existing gadgets is even better, as women cannot differentiate between small, electronic items. To them, a cheap TV remote control and a £600 Nikon digital light meter are utterly indistinguishable. It's just how their brains are wired.
Don't feel in the least bit bad about engaging in this kind of subterfuge either, as they are using the exact same trick on us, only they do it with expensive leather-ware.
Gentlemen, how many handbags do you think your other half has? Really? Go and count them.

The Fishwife has developed a worrying new compunction in the time we've been married and it involves shopping. When she first moved in, it used to be standard practice for us to go out shopping together in Croydon on Saturdays. I would take her to Forbidden Planet to look at the toys and she would take me to every other shop to look at everything else. After much sulking and stamping of feet (and she was just as bad), this eventually evolved into us driving down together, splitting up for an hour to do our own thing, meeting up for a ridiculously expensive coffee and coming home.
Amazingly, this cosy little arrangement managed to not only survive the birth of our daughter, but to positively flourish, since the Mini Fish has about the same level of patience as I do and drags Mummy around from one shop to the next in a timely manner. At least, she did until recently, when they both discovered the joys of charity shops. Imagine a shop where the contents changed every time you visit. Imagine a shop full of wondrous bargains you never knew you wanted. Imagine half a dozen of these bastard places in the same town. Now, they're both addicted. Hour after hour they'll spend; happily sifting through other people's tat. Toys, clothes, bags, DVDs...doesn't matter. They'll happily rummage through the lot. We've even reached the stage where both of them are actively clearing out drawer-fulls of their own crap the night before a visit so that they can replace it with somebody else's the following day.
Obviously, this has had a knock-on effect to my own shopping experience. I no longer go to Croydon on a Saturday. Instead, I have a nice lie-in, get up when I want, surf the net for a bit and generally enjoy the peace and quiet. If I bung them a fiver, they will have a drink and a cake in Starbuck's, which means I get to listen to the match in peace, too. Frankly, it's a winner all round and everyone's happy. Until they come back and I've got to lug bag after bag of their latest 'bargains' up two flights of stairs, that is...

We don't have a dishwasher in our house, we have 'Marigold' and her twin sister. Grandma, however, does have a dishwasher and spending a few days there earlier this month really opened my eyes to the whole dishwashing phenomenon. It began to be brought home to me when, in a fit of magnanimity, I decided to make everyone a cuppa and couldn't find any clean cups. 'They're in the dishwasher', I was told. Ah, the fabled dishwasher! The miracle of modern appliances. I opened the door and found...nine dirty unwashed cups. This troubled me somewhat. 'They're not clean', I pointed out. 'No', said Grandma, 'I don't turn it on until it's full as it's uneconomical.' Hmm...ok, so what you actually have is not so much a dish 'washer' per se as a 'dirty dish storage facility', right? A bit like, ooh, the sink used to be before the dishwasher was invented. You know, somewhere to leave dirty cups until some idiot came along and washed them.
This was not a great start to my relationship with Mister Zanussi, and alas, things were only going to get worse. 'What are you doing?' screeched The Fishwife a bit later. 'I'm putting my plate in the dishwasher', I replied, somewhat puzzled. 'You can't do that, you haven't swilled it', she said. So let me get this straight. You want me to wash my plate before it goes into the appliance known as the 'dishwasher', correct? I'm rapidly losing interest in the whole endeavour at this point, but the clincher was to come later that evening when I came back from the pub with a generous surprise portion of fish and chips for everyone. I could hear a quiet, mechanical 'slooshing' sound, but it didn't really register as I happily deposited a large bag of delicious-smelling hot food on the kitchen table. 'I''m home!', I said, cheerfully, 'And I've brought supper!' I then looked in the cupboard. 'Erm...where are all the plates?'' You'll never guess...

IMPORTANT UPDATE! - Henceforth and forthwith, I shall no longer be referring to my good lady as 'Herself' on this, her very own page. From now on, given our newly married and respectable status, all future entries will refer to 'The Fishwife'. I thank you.

Aftershave? No ta. I'm a bit of a snob where the old smellys are concerned. I only wear fragrances by one specific fashion house, ponce that I am. I swear by the products of a French place called 'Creed', who have been around since the Revolution. My favourite scents are 'Green Irish Tweed' (created specifically for Cary Grant in the late 50's), 'Vetiver' (originally created for the Russian Royal Family) and the sublime 'Bois Du Portugal' which is basically sex in a bottle and astronomically expensive. (Unless, of course, you bought it in the early Nineties when it came out, like wot I did.) Does all this make me a bit of a jessie? Quite possibly, but as I understand things, all colognes and aftershaves on the market are obviously put together by us males. They must be. Think about it - the fact that 'musk' and 'sandalwood' feature so highly in the general mix of ingredients provide the key to things. If women designed the sort of fragrances they were actually attracted to, us blokes would have to spend our time walking around wearing the smell of 'Cadbury's Dairy Milk', wouldn't we? Well, that or 'money', obviously...

A bit of a conflict of interest in the Fish household this evening. It was a Saturday night, so I thought it was safe to assume that suggesting we watch one of the movies from our huge rainy-day DVD library was an ok bet. I reckoned that it might be a treat for Herself to immerse her female psyche in the homo-erotic gore-fest of '300', which I hugely enjoyed in IMAX 3D last year. Herself, however, was of a different opinion. "Strictly Come Ice Dance Factor" is on tonight, she opined. Ah, right. So a load of ripped-to-the-tits young men in skin-tight leather posing pouches whacking hell out of each other with huge swords is somehow less appealing than a bunch of z-list homosexual nonebrities pirouetting on ice-skates is it? Hmm...no wonder we only have the one child.

I bought Herself a box of those cloyingly sweet 'Guylian' chocolate sea-shell things the other day, as I know they're her favourite. As they contain almonds, Arya is not allowed to have them, which means that Herself gets to eat the whole box. Printed on the underside is a 'Best Before' date some seven months into the future. Yeah, right. Like they'll last to the end of the week...

A muffled crashing sound eminates from the kitchen as Herself further reduces our collection of glass tumbers. 'It's because they clank together in the bowl with all the other glasses', is her reasoning as to this latest breakage. Now, me being a bloke, I find myself wondering where 'all the other glasses' have come from. I mean, I had a glass of water when I came in, and since then I've had a smoothie, some more water, and two bottles of Becks. Herself has had the water, and the smoothies and a lime-cordial, but unlike me, or indeed any sane person, she didn't simply rinse her glass out and use it again. Oh no. She dropped it into the washing-up bowl and reached for a clean one and then came over all confused when the fifth 'dirty' glass collided with the third one and cracked. Still, all is not lost. She's just pointed out that our sudden dearth of glassware means we can now justify another fun-filled excursion to Ikea. Oh joy.

How Women Think: Lesson 14 - So I'm sitting in the pub this lunchtime with a very dear female friend of mine whom I've known for the last decade or so and I'm trying to sell her on the idea of coming along to the Great British Beer Festival next month. 'Go on', I say, 'There's literally thousands of different beers and a fantastic atmos; you'll love it!' 'Oh no', she replies, jokingly, 'I'd have to stay sober in case you had a few too many and tried it on!' I think about this for all of a second before coming back with 'Are you kidding me? This is a once-a-year event; I'm gonna be far too engrossed in beer-tasting to make a dick of myself by throwing myself at you!' To which this wonderful woman replies, completely and genuinely crestfallen; 'Why? What's wrong with me?' How can you deal with synapses that fire like this, people? Somebody tell me!

Here we are on Easter Sunday and another illustration of how Herself's brain is firing through a differently-wired set of synapses to mine. This year, I spent ages searching for a nice Easter egg for the lady of my life, and, knowing that she likes proper chocolate and is a bit of a hippy, I finally found a hideously expensive one made from organic chocolate with lots of milk, white and plain organic chocolate squares inside. What did I get in return? A 99p 'Spiderman' egg from Woolworths. Now I don't mean to sound ungrateful and I know it's the thought that counts, but come on. All that trouble I went to to find a delicious organic bloody chocolate egg and I end up with one made from that cheap, nasty Christmas-tree-ornament mockolate stuff. There wasn't even a toy inside, either. Life's so unfair...

I really wish Herself wouldn't keep throwing used dental-floss down the toilet. I was convinced I'd passed a six inch tapeworm for several worrying minutes this morning. Not the best start to the day...

Picture the scene. I’m driving along Victoria Embankment. It’s a glorious winter afternoon and Herself is gazing out of the window enjoying the view when all of a sudden, she’s nose against the glass. I ask what the matter is. ‘Oh nothing’, she replies, ‘I thought I saw the moon’. Puzzled by this, I ask her what she’s on about. ‘It can’t be the moon because the sun’s out and the moon can’t come out when the sun’s out, can it?’ Blank look from yours truly. She carries on. Something about the moon following the sun around the sky and the stars not coming out until it gets dark. I start to point out that the stars and moon are there all the time and that it’s just the fact that daylight is too bright for them to be seen, but I can tell she’s not having it. I briefly try telling her about a couple of fellows named Gallileo and Copernicus, though by this point she’s switched off. Herself, bless her, has a fourteenth century cosmic map in her head and nothing I can come out with is going to change this. All I can say is that it’s a good job we weren’t actually back in the fourteenth century as this conversation played out, because from the looks I was getting, she’d have happily burned me as a heretic before we’d even reached Earls Court.

A report in 'Vogue' magazine states that over half of all women aged in the twenty to twenty-four age bracket own at least twenty pairs of shoes, at least three pairs of which were still in their box at the back of a cupboard somewhere having never been worn. The reason for this is down to them needing appropriate footwear to match that new outfit which will probably only be worn just the once as well. All that expense for an age group that doesn't have a great deal of disposable income and all so that they can draw the attention of all the men in the room. I was at a Christmas Ball a few years back and there were at least thirty young women in the room all wearing their slinky little black numbers and matching shoes and made up to the nines, but all it took was one freshly scrubbed Australian girl walking in wearing her shabby old trainers, shorts and a t-shirt with no bra and every bloke in the place was hypnotised like a rabbit caught in headlights. 'Shoes? You mean she had feet as well?'

Well, the kettle dilemma mentioned below has finally been resolved as Herself this week took delivery of a new, state-of-the-art 'quick-boil' unit that sits on it's base quietly glowing with a malevolent blue LED light. The moment you hit the 'on' switch, the blue light turns red and it makes a noise similar to the Space Shuttle clearing the tower. Add this to the eye-watering green lights on the microwave and the soft, pulsating red-and-white glow that the broadband box gives out and our kitchen could pretty much double for the set of 'Blade Runner' at night. Every time I wander into the kitchen at 3 a.m. for a glass of water nowadays, I keep expecting Rutger Hauer to jump out and start talking bollocks at me. Freaky!

A comprehensive study by the University of Groningen in Holland has found that women are more likely to achieve orgasm if they completely empty their minds during sex. No fantasising, no role play, they just have to lie there and be totally vacant. Shouldn't be too hard for one or two I've known over the years...

Pamela Anderson is in London this week to launch her exclusive new range of cosmetics. Now these are obviously going to be horrendously expensive items, so I have a solution for all you cash-strapped girls out there wishing to have the look without the outlay. If, as I suspect, this range is designed to make the wearer look like Pammy herself, then I reckon that simply by creosoting your face and touching up your eyelashes with a marker pen, you could save yourselves a fortune. Then, it's just a simple matter of shoving two halves of a rugby ball up your blouse and kissing a nettle and the transformation will be complete. For added realism, get your boyfriend to shakily video you giving him a half-hearted blow-job and post it on the internet, then you too will be Pamela Anderson! Wow. Think of all the money I've just saved you! Oh wise and clever Fish!

Am I being totally unreasonable, or does it really not matter one bleeding iota if all the kitchen accessories aren't colour-matched? I only ask because we need a new kettle and Herself can't find a green one for love nor money. Actually, that's not true. There are plenty of green ones, just not any that are the right shade of green. Now I would've thought that the most attractive feature of a kettle would be its ability to boil some water rather that its innate greenness, but apparently I'm wrong. It has to be a green one to match the toaster, do you see? That green toaster over there - the Fisher-Price sized one that is incapable of toasting anything bigger that a slice of sodding Nimble. Crusts? Don't be silly! Crusts are there to 'stop the bread drying out', you're not supposed to actually eat them. So here I stand, finger on the kettle switch, utterly toastless, wondering how long it'll be until the new Argos catalogue comes out and all the time praying to the God of Small Appliances that there's a suitably abundant stock of hideously-coloured kitchenware. And she's never understood why the question 'Why do you have breakfast at work instead of before you leave?' always results in a wry little smile...

All those adverts for skin-cleansers, creams and moisturisers that bombard any woman unfortunate enough to be stuck in front the television could lead one to believe that every single woman in the western world has crap skin. Apart from the fact that they never show that smug, horse-faced Andie MacDowell wiping a greasy black rag around her aged mug in soft-focus, no-one ever questions the actual necessity to go through this whole make-up palaver on a daily basis, it's just taken for granted that this is what a woman does. Personally, I reckon it's because of all these potions that their epidermises are so knackered. Look at the facts. They spend half an hour every morning in front of a mirror plastering all sorts of shite on their faces and another half an hour at night taking it all off with an alcohol-based cleanser. Bottles and tubes all over the bloody place and have you seen the muck that comes off them? It's like dipping a cotton-wool ball in your car's sump. It can't be doing their fizzogs any good, can it? Perhaps if they did away with all that exfoliating nonsense and just left the gunk off their faces for a few days, drank a few pints of water each evening, left the chocolate alone and had a bloody wash with some soap and water for a change, they might be pleasantly surprised at the results.

Herself's favourite programme at the moment is 'What Not To Wear', in which Trinny Pot and Susannah Kettle get hold of some poor shabby Doris and rifle through her wardrobe slagging off everything she owns before sending her on a shopping spree and turning the unfortunate woman into one of them; a scarily-dressed menopausal horror. In last night's show, both of these harpies turned up wearing the same coat. The same pink and purple coat. To my poor, uneducated male eyes they looked like a couple of schizophrenics who'd forgotten to take their Thorazine, but Herself worships them as fashion gurus and hung on their every word as they discussed colours and body shapes and fabrics and magic pants. It lost me completely. I mean, can you imagine the same programme made for blokes? It'd last three minutes, tops. 'That jacket's a bit shabby, mate.' 'You reckon?' 'Yeah, try that black one.' 'Sorted. Cheers, fella!' The programme did get interesting at one point, though, when they started fiddling with each other's breasts. A bit more of this sort of thing and they could have every bloke in the country watching...

I've come to the conclusion that all women suffer from a complete breakdown when it comes to judging spatial dynamics. Think about it. How many times have you sat in your car watching a woman in an oncoming Micra edging millimetre by millimetre through a gap that you could easily drive a Hummer through? They honestly have no idea of the width of whatever it is they're driving. Their same lack of understanding of basic measuremant can also be seen in any public house on a Friday night, when us blokes are greeted with wave after wave of humongous heifers ludicrously squeezed into clothing two sizes too small for them. At least when men have a beer-gut, we have the good grace to cover it with a baggy T-shirt. Only a woman would think to add a pierced naval to the ensemble. Bleurgh!

Contrary to popular belief, blondes do not actually have more fun. It's just the fact that they tend to giggle more than normal women that gives other people that impression...

Us blokes are constantly being told that the thing a woman looks for most in a man is 'a good sense of humour'. It's either that or 'a nice personality'. Looks, so we are led to believe, are fairly low down on a woman's list of priorites, along with money. What a load of bollocks. David Beckham has got to be the most boring personality vacuum on the planet, yet there he is on the front of every women's magazine week-in, week-out. As for the 'good sense of humour' line - well, if that's the case, how come you never see Ken Dodd fighting off an army of groupies after every show? Personally, I couldn't care less whether Kelly Brook is a sparkling wit or not. She's rich and she's crumpet, which pretty much rings the cherries for me. Face it, girls, you're into beauty and cash. The only difference between you and us men is that we're honest enough to admit to our shallowness!

Would you like a cup of tea?' Now, what do you read into that question? Me, being a bloke and therefore sane and reasonable; I tend to interpret it as meaning that someone is putting the kettle on, waiting for it to boil and pouring the water onto the leaves in the teapot before handing me a nice refreshing cuppa in about five minutes time. Unfortunately, when the someone asking the question is of the female persuasion, experience has proven that I'm in for a long wait. To a woman, the appropriate couse of action after uttering those seven words is to go and flick the switch on the kettle...the next time she's in the vicinity of the kitchen. Could be in five minutes time, could be an hour, but one way or another, the kettle will be put on. That's it. Job done. If, by some miracle, she actually gets round to pouring the water on the tea (probably about an hour after the offer was made), woe betide the foolish fellow who asks how long it'll be unti his poor, parched throat receives a refreshing baptism of lovely tea. 'It's standing, alright? You don't want a cup of hot water, do you?', will usually be the snap that comes back. And yet, whenever I come back from a hard day's work with a takeaway from the noodle bar because I'm knackered and it's too late to cook, I barely have time to get my coat off before Herself comes out with something along the lines of 'Hurry up and plate it up before it gets cold!' Priceless.

A movie magazine surveyed 14,000 men and women to find out the differences in their favourite films. Among the top choices for the boys were such thought-provoking heavyweights as 'The Godfather', 'The Shawshank Redemption' and 'Apocalypse Now'. The girls, however, preferred 'Grease', 'Ghost' and 'Bridget Jones's Diary'. Do I really need to add anything else here?

Have you ever noticed that different women respond in different ways when opening a box of chocolates? Some women leisurely scan the chocolates before picking one they like the look of, whereas others will open the little booklet and look through it while they decide which chocolate is for them. It was Herself's birthday this week, and she was given the obligatory box of chocs by a friend, so naturally I was eager to observe what could be interpreted by the way she approached the choices available to her. Without hesitation, she opened the box and systematically started at the top left and gradually worked her way clockwise through the tray. Unpredictability; that's what we love about them, right lads?

I've long known that certain wavelengths and frequencies of light can induce epilepsy in certain people, but I never realised that the flourescent striplighting in 'Superdrug' was capable of shutting down the female brain. It's truly fascinating to watch Herself stroll purposefully throught the sliding doors with a shopping list in her hand; only to become transfixed by the lighting and stand there with a vacant expression on her face and absolutely no idea of what to do next. I swear you can almost see the synapses shutting down. Looking round, it became apparent that she wasn't the only one, either. Various zoned-out females blinking at haircare products and gazing emptily at tampon packets. I'm wondering if this isn't some sort of fiendishly clever marketing tactic based on that old James Bond film. Perhaps there's some subliminal tape of Telly Savalas' voice that only women can hear urging them to buy more cosmetics or something. Frightening!

Herself has taken to wearing a ridiculous pair of pink 'Piglet' mules around the flat. Apart from the fact that she now runs the very real risk of breaking her neck wearing mules in a split-level dwelling; it has also caused her to adopt a curious, shuffling gait. This, combined with her long straight dark-red hair, has given me the unnerving impression that I'm now sharing my home with Ozzy Osbourne.

Anthropological studies have proven that the reason women are genetically conditioned to find babies so appealing is that their brains are wired to find the sight of a small, bald, pot-bellied creature burbling away helplessly utterly irresistible. This apparently triggers a woman's brain to want to pick it up and cuddle it. Bollocks! This has never once worked for me at throwing out time...

It's Valentine's Day tomorrow, and I'd ordered a nice big arrangement of roses for Herself and arranged that they be delivered first thing in the morning. The only problem was, they came today. Not too much of a problem, you might think, 'It's the thought that counts, Bill' and all that. Well, yes, were it not for the fact that the florist delivered them addressed in my name this morning while I was at work. This obviously meant that I had a 'secret admirer' and gave Herself a whole eight hours to fester over who the mystery woman could be. Personally, I'd have thought that an envelope containing a billing address rather than a card might've provided a bit of a clue, but what do I know?

Girls, you know when you do that thing where you tie your jumpers around your waists by the sleeves? Well, the first thing us blokes think when we see this is 'there's another one trying to conceal her fat arse', so if that's the reason you're doing it, it ain't working.

So I'm sitting on the bed bemoaning the state of the tartan bondage-trousers that I wore out to the pub last night when Herself wanders in carrying the baby. 'Just look at these pockets', I say, proffering the said garment for a closer look, 'Forty quid and the bloody stitching's coming undone!' Herself doesn't even miss a beat - 'That's because they're designed for stick-thin Punks and you're far too old and fat for them', she replies, sweetly. At which point they both turn their faces toward me and smile. Game Over, man...

I don't know why women make such a fuss about their 'time of the month'. Ok, so they get a little back-ache and have to be a bit more frequent in the pant-changing department for a few days, but so what? We blokes have to shave every day but you don't hear us going on about it. Hell, I even do my whole head but I've never used that as an excuse to sit on my arse working my way through a whole box of Maltesers. A little perspective if you please, ladies, our sympathy's wearing thin!

Anyone still subscribing to the theory that women are the weaker sex should have a go at getting a duvet off one at three in the morning. No chance. You could tow an oil-rig with that sort of strength.

Conventional wisdom has it that the stupidest of all mammals is the goat, which will happily stand for hours on end watching a barn door swing back and forth in the wind. Yet not even a goat would be so strapped for entertainment that it would park itself in front of 'Emmerdale' every sodding night. What is it with women and soaps? They sit there every evening watching an endless procession of badly-acted characatures in implausible situations and then discuss them earnestly with the girls at work next day as if they were solving the problems of a life-long friend. For God's sake, ladies, they're NOT REAL. Surely you'd think they'd have twigged by now that every soap has run the exact same storyline at some point or other in the last five years. The Murder, The Lesbian Snog, The Rape, The Teenage Pregnancy - they all get trotted out of the 'Lazy Scriptwriter's A-Z of Cynical Ratings Boosters' as and when required. Doesn't matter though, does it? The fairer sex, bless 'em, will watch it anyway and still come back for more tomorrow. Still, I suppose we should be grateful that 'Brookside' has finally bitten the dust. One down, twenty-odd to go. In the meantime, ladies, your next fix is never more than a channel hop away. Stay tuned now! Baa!

I've spent many hours pondering why it is that women feel an irresistible urge to dye their hair either blue or purple when they turn sixty. Maybe they're making some sort of geriatric fashion statement, I thought. Or maybe their colour vision goes as they get older. I've since abandoned these theories for a more simplistic one. Maybe they're all just mad. Yes, that's it.

How is it that Herself can spend hours doing really intricate stuff like filing and painting her nails or threading a needle and sewing one of those really vile miniature Winnie the Pooh embroideries, yet when it comes to opening a box of clingfilm or tin foil, the state of the box afterwards always looks like a Rottweiler has been worrying it?

Here's how to open a tub of butter. Lift off the lid, peel back and remove the foil, replace the lid and put the tub in the fridge. No, remove the foil. Don't just peel it back, remove it. We don't need to keep it, put it in the bin. What? Keeps it fresh? No, it doesn't - the tub has an airtight seal, see? Airtight. The foil is totally redundant once its been opened, so throw it away. What? Go off quicker? Of course it won't bloody go off quicker! It's got salt in it, for God's sake. Salt is a preservative and anyway, the bloody stuff wasn't fresh in the first place, haven't you heard of the E.U. butter mountain? Everything is stockpiled in cold storage until muppets like us go shopping. What do you mean, calm down? I'm calm, I'm calm. What are you doing with that pot of cream?

Nothing illustrates the fundamental disparity in thinking between Herself and me as a shopping trip for clothing. Me: "I like this jacket, I like the colour and it's the right size. It's exactly what I'm looking for. I'll buy it." Herself: "I like this jacket, I like the colour and it's the right size. It's exactly what I'm looking for. Let's go and look in a few more shops." Vive la difference...

A survey has just found that British women in the 18-24 age bracket are the world's biggest demographic of female drinkers. Apparently, their predilection for those revolting alcopop things leads them to imbibe the equivalent of up to six bottles of wine in one go!. The report went on to state that a 'significant' number of women drinking in city centre establishments get so intoxicated that they can 'barely stand' by the end of the night. Well, what can I say, except 'Well done girls, keep up the good work!'

Why is Joanna Lumley advertising 'Astral', a cheap moisturiser for old ladies? Ah! Right...

What is it with women and catalogue shopping? They sit there for hours on end nursing a Kay's book the size of bungalow before ordering the same thing in three different sizes. Why? Because catalogue sizings are 'funny' and ordering different ones means that one of them will fit. And fit it does, except that by the time it arrives, she's decided she doesn't want it after all and so all three get parcelled up and sent back. Ever wondered why there are so many of those blue 'White Arrow' vans on the road? Women with catalogues.

A product called 'Tena-Lady' was being advertised on the box tonight for ladies who have 'slight bladder problems'. It appears that there are some women who would rather spend money on pant-liners than do a few minutes of pelvic-floor exercises each day. Vile, pissy creatures.

Geri Halliwell has always been a couple of fries short of a Happy Meal, (look at that rodent she drags around and insists on calling a 'dog', for Christ's sake) but her latest decision to follow Mariah Carey into Siliconland in order to revive her flagging 'career' really clinches it. In the last six months, Geri has gone from anorexic ladyboy to wannabe Jordan, with both incarnations looking equally hideous. Whatever happened to that babe in the Union Jack dress from half a decade ago? Come back Ginger, all is forgiven! Still, at least we should be grateful she hasn't decided to go for the 'trout-pout' a la Meg Ryan. Quite what we're supposed to find attactive about a woman who looks like she's been removing her lipstick with a Black & Decker sander is way beyond me...

Apparently, some women are so desperate to wear ultra trendy designer shoes by the likes of 'Jimmy Choo' and 'Manolo Blahnik', that they are undergoing cosmetic surgery to reshape their feet, even resorting to having their little toes amputated in extreme cases. Right, so the radical option of simply buying a bigger size just wasn't up for consideration then, huh?

What is it that possesses a certain type of woman to shave off her eyebrows and replace them with a pencil-thin line of make-up? Does she honestly think that this makes her more attractive? Chances are, she'll be blonde, wearing too much jewellery, too little clothing and have an orange face. Oh yeah, and she'll spell her name 'Nikki' or 'Sammi' in a pathetic attempt to make herself appear more interesting. Next time you encounter one of these creatures, you owe it to yourself and her to look her in the eye and tell her how cheap she looks. Gotta be cruel to be kind...

The Potato Crisp Incident: Every relationship goes through this one at some point. It starts humbly enough when you're both out and you turn to her and say 'I fancy a bag of crisps, do you want some?' 'No, thanks', comes the reply. 'Now are you sure?', you ask, 'Only I know you, and as soon as I open mine, you're going to want some.' 'No I'm not!' she replies, affronted. 'Ok', you reply and go into the shop to buy them. You come out, start walking along and calmly open the bag. It's at this precise moment that she'll turn to you and say 'Can I have a few?' Aargh! No, you can't have a few! These are MY crisps. I bought a packet because I want to eat a packet. A WHOLE packet, not just the the broken ones left that'll be after you've stuffed your thieving great trotter in and nicked all the big ones. I offered to buy you your very own bag all to yourself, but you didn't want that, did you? No, you'd much rather steal half of mine and leave me suffering a 'not-quite-had-enough-crisps' crisis, wouldn't you? And yet, when you try to explain this logical and entirely justified line of reasoning, she'll sulk and accuse you of being selfish. You can't win!

Natalie Imbruglia has just been on the telly extolling the virtues of some make-up that gives women longer, fuller eyelashes. Apparently, this is supposed be more attractive. To a camel, maybe.

I keep my mobile phone in my pocket, that way when it rings or vibrates, I can answer it quickly. Herself keeps hers in her handbag. In a leather case. In a zipped compartment. Consequently, when she gets home and I tell her I've been trying to call her for ages, I get the reply 'I didn't hear it ringing.' Really? How strange...

Check this one out: we're on holiday in Cornwall, and one morning the plan was that we'd be going on a boat-trip as soon as Herself was ready(!). After the usual hour-long bath, hairwash and make-up mirror marathon, I catch her drying her hair and fixing it into place. One ozone-destroying spray session later and she looks lovely, like a flame red Andie MacDowell, and yet I can't help but point out to her a couple of salient points; namely that it's very windy outside and also that we're going on a boat. 'Oh, that's alright', comes the reply, 'I'll tie it back!' She then proceeds to scrape all those perfectly coiffured tresses into a scrunchy and turns them into a pony-tail! Can anyone else spot anything wrong with this picture? It's not me, is it?

Ignorance is bliss said...erm...some bloke. Anyway, ever since Herself moved in, I have purposely turned a blind eye to the fact that another pair of shoes turn up in the hallway every sodding week. Quite why anybody needs sixteen pairs of footwear when they only possess one pair of feet is beyond my comprehension. Now, I own four pairs of shoes, ok? I have workboots, trainers, trainer-boots and some posh shoes to go with the suit. That's it. I don't have two pairs of slippers. I don't have mules. I don't have three pairs of identically ridiculous square-toed flat soles. Neither do I have a pair of thigh boots that I nagged my partner for a fucking age to buy me, before wearing them once and sticking them in the wardrobe. But that's me, the 'impractical' one.

Proof, if you need it, that women's brains are wired differently to men's. Take a look at what happens when we all go shopping for clothes. Me, I'm a 40'' chest, a 32'' waist and a 'short' leg (keep your comments to yourselves, alright?) From that, anyone could buy me a complete wardrobe in a matter of minutes, as all men's shops are geared up to follow these simple guidelines. Easy. Women, though, choose to listen to the beat of a different drummer. Now, Herself is a size 10 according to my tape-measure, and if she shops in 'Marks & Spencer', everything's ok. The fun starts if she sees something she likes in 'New Look' or 'Dorothy Perkins', because then she suddenly morphs into a size 12. If, God forbid, she sees something nice in 'Top Shop' or worse, 'Miss Selfridge', my life becomes hell because according to their sizings, she's a 14, and therefore a fat, hormonal and deeply unattractive cow. How in God's name are women supposed to buy clothes if every shop they go into rates them differently? Now obviously, women love to think they're thinner than they actually are so it isn't hard to deduce from all this that the shrewd person in charge of female clothing at 'M&S' is a man. Observe..."Oi, Ron! Change all the labels on all them size 14's to size 10's, will you?" "Why's that, Guv?" "'Cos the fat birds'll lap 'em up!"

However, when it comes to bras...Ladies, this one is all your own doing. Only a woman could've come up with a sizing system that goes 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D' and then for no apparent reason, 'DD', 'E', 'EE' and so on all the way up to 'Dawn French'. Just picture how much easier your lives would be if a only a man had sorted all this out for you: 'Titless', 'Not Bad', Nice Handful' and 'Wa-Hey!'. Much simpler.

Darwin was wrong. While it may be true that Man was descended from the Ape, Woman was definitely descended from the budgie judging by the amount of time they spend in front of the sodding mirror. It is reckoned that 40% of one's life is spent asleep. 40% of my life is spent trying to get into the bathroom. There are certain things you are never told about what happens to your bathroom when a woman moves in with you. Firstly, I had no idea that every single inch of shelving and cupboard space becomes hers by default, and that it is her mission to fill this space with the entire contents of 'Boots' and 'Body Shop'. Secondly, I was equally unaware that it is contractual law to have a sackful of cotton wool in there so large that Santa would have trouble lifting it and lastly, I was completely amazed to discover that women eat bog-roll. This is the only way I can explain the sheer amount of toilet paper we seem to get through. Whole rainforests of the stuff. She's either eating it or suffering from acute amoebic dysentry.

...and while we're on the subject of women and their lavatorial habits, does anyone know why they insist on going to the toilet in pairs everytime they're out? I used to have this theory that women's toilets were mounted three feet up on the wall, and they went in pairs to give each other a leg-up but I abandoned this in favour of a more rational one. They go together simply because they are utterly incapable of pausing a conversation and resuming it at the same point a few minutes later because by then, some new thought will have flitted across their synapses and they'll be off on a completely different topic. Still, at least when she's out I'm not paying for the bog-roll...

I've noticed that the vast majority of young women between the ages of 16 and 25 are all of the 'pierced naval, crop-top and tattoo' school of fashion. Girls, what better way to express your individuality than by looking exactly the same as everyone else?

So she's listening to the radio when one of her favourites comes on - Bowie or Gabriel or some other yawn-powered dullard who should've knocked it on the head years ago, but I digress - 'Ooh', she says, 'I love this song!' and then proceeds to sing loudly along with it, thereby completely drowning out the sound of the radio. I try to point this out to her. 'Shush', she says, 'I'm listening!'

In our kitchen we have a cupboard; the sole contents of which are 'speciality teas' and believe me when I tell you that Herself has the full set. All of them. She has Camomile. She has Rosehip. She has Cranberry, Raspberry, Elderflower, Jasmine and Peppermint. Boxes and boxes of the stuff, a myriad of different 'flavours', and each one tasting exactly like hot water.

Candles, too. The flat seems to have aquired enough candles to illuminate Westminster Abbey despite the fact that no-one can recall a powercut in Streatham since the Blitz. There is enough wax in this flat for Madame Tussard to knock out half a dozen Meat Loaf clones. Bees knock the window asking to borrow some and yet, when the bathroom bulb blew (after months of continual service, as I'm sure you can appreciate) was there a spare one in the house? What do you think?

Memo to all professional models - pouting is not attractive. It takes away the glamour and makes you like like the spoilt, petulant mare you undoubtedly are. Kate Moss, especially should take note. When you look like your hobby is hiding under bridges and waiting for billy-goats, it would really be in your best interest to smile a bit more, dear.

Anti-ageing creams and wrinkle-reducing moisturisers. They actually fall for this crap, can you believe it?

If you had to spend an hour on a job, the end result of which would look like you hadn't actually done the said job, would you bother? I only ask because I simply cannot grasp the idea of this 'natural-looking make-up' that she uses. Now, if I wore make-up - as I did on one memorable occasion in the 80's at a 'Tigertailz' gig (I'd rather not go into details) - if I wore make-up, then I would at least like it to look like l'd put some effort into it. I'd want to be noticed, surely that's the idea? (Although a bald guy wearing the full Max Factor is hardly going to be a low-key affair, but you get the point.) So, come on girls, less of this 'natural' crap. Give us Siouxsie Sioux or forget it!

Oestrogen - the chemical miracle that turns demure damsels into screamy witches once a month seems to have an extra, hidden property - the ability to alter time. How else do you explain the famous 'I'll be ready in half an hour' line? Unless women really are all aliens, as I have long suspected. I mean, they could be from Jupiter, couldn't they? The Jovian hour equates to five Earth ones, which would explain womankind's complete inability to gauge time. Also, Jupiter consists of a dense core and lots of hot air in which violent storms spring up from nowhere and disappear as quickly as they came. Sound familiar, guys?

Traditionally, a woman's place is in the kitchen, right? Wrong. Look at the number of famous cooks on telly and you'll see what I mean. Ok, so there's Delia and Nigella for the girls, but that's about it. The boy's have got Gary Rhodes, Jamie Oliver, Ainsley Harriot, Phil Vickery, that little ginger git who looks like a gnome - the list is endless. Even I have yet to meet a woman who can cook better than me. In the early days of my current relationship, Herself made me a 'green' curry. (You probably think that's impressive, huh? Unfortunately, it wasn't 'Thai', It was 'sprout'.) I quickly took over kitchen duties in the relationship and I'm not alone in doing this. Many guys have realised that thanks to the Equal Opportunites upbringing that the Eighties' girls had (taking woodwork instead of Home Economics, for example) a lot of them are hard pushed to knock up anything more demanding than a cheese omelette. Womankind has been ousted from the kitchen by the lads! (Oh yeah, and all the top gynaecologists are men, too. Your domains and we rule 'em!)

Looking around Waterstones book shop the other day, I came across a little gem of a paperback entitled 'How To Stop Smoking And Stay Stopped For Good' by Gillian Riley. A whole host of advice, tips, plans, diagrams and step-by-step instructions to help you give up. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but surely 'Throw Away Your Fags And Don't Buy Anymore, Ever', would seem to be all the advice you need. Only a woman could stretch that out for one hundred and sixty pages. There, I've just saved you all £6.99. Aren't I a star?

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On reflection, it was probably not the wisest move to stick the avatar parking space on this page, as women are extremely nosey. Oh well, never mind. This is where I keep all the avatars I use on other sites...