Читать книгу The Men Commandments - Christian O’Connell - Страница 36

It wasn’t all bad, though: the last 50 years have seen men invent some amazing things. As previously mentioned, the microwave oven thanks to Professor Spencer – one of the greatest man inventions. Also consider the internet. Never mind the fact that you can scour the world’s greatest works of literature online or get all your weekly shopping without ever leaving the house, the main pull of the internet for men is porn. No more do they have to skulk in the shadows of a newsagent’s waiting for a lack of customers at a till. No longer do they have to pull up a creaky floorboard to get out the stash. Now it’s all at our fingertips. Tim Berners-Lee is referred to as the ‘father of the internet’. He is in fact the godfather of porn.

Technology has moved at an incredible pace. Televisions have got better and bigger and bigger again. Soon your entire living room wall will just be a TV, and you will still be mumbling, ‘Should have got a bigger one.’

But not all technological advances have been to the benefit of men. Witness our enslavement by the mobile phone. Fifteen years ago, we could go where we wanted and no one would bother us. We could head off down the pub for a few misspent hours and no one would ever know. Now we can be tracked down and worse, contacted, EVERYWHERE. Phones are evil. Just look at poor Jack Bauer. If he threw the damn phone away, he could chill out for a day.

We have made some incredible advancements but in the last few years our evolution has reversed at times. I’m not just talking about Big Brother contestants. I blame much of this on two things. One: man bags. It was pleasing to see in The Bourne Ultimatum that the Guardian journalist sporting a man bag was assassinated very early in the movie. Two: low-slung denim. You know what I’m talking about – the fools that wear jeans hanging around their knees, with no belt. If you’re 14, fine. Not if you’re a man. Martin Freeman, best known as Tim from The Office and now a movie star, was on my radio show and made a very fair point on this man wrong. ‘Is that the Dunkirk spirit? I don’t think so. We couldn’t have won the war in baggy denim.’

So we come to the year 2008 in my totally unreliable history of men and the news that men all over the world are talking about… a man is pregnant. That’s right. One of us is up the duff. A woman has had something called ‘gender realignment’ surgery, which I think is what Andrew Lloyd Webber has had on his face. Maybe it’s my TV but I’m sure that’s a bollock where his head should normally be.

KEY MOMENTS IN MAN HISTORY

Monkeys or mice?

Choose monkey

Find fire. Love it

Egyptians invent booze. Cheers

Greeks give men sport

Caesar gets a comb-over

Two men outdo each other for a woman. With spuds and fags

1769: Car invented. Let’s ignore the fact it came from France

A short-arse Frenchie called Napoleon turns down a shag

1925: TV. Pass the remote, please

1945: Germany defeated by port-swigging cigar-chomping Brit

1950s: Rock and roll

1951: Steven Seagal born

1953: A man called Norm invents WD-40

1968: Columbo aired for first time

1972: The Godfather is released

1975: Charlize Theron is born

1977: Pot Noodles

2001: Sky Plus arrives