Manly stock.

I occasionally worry about the fact that I carry a chap stick not being awfully manly, but then I pause for thought and realise that it has the word chap in it, so it must be manly. I also carry my chap’s stick around in my man bag, which also has a definitively manly word in its name.

It’s a tremulous thing, a guy’s manliness. In my head it seems to go up and down like the stock market – nice shirt, up 10 points, pink laces on my women’s-shoes-which-I-bought-without-realising-they-were-women’s-shoes...down 20 points. If that was a real manliness stock market I would slick on a bit of brylcreem of a morning, undo a button on my shirt and short sell.

Those women’s shoes are a funny thing – one of the perils of shopping at TK Maxx. I think women hide shoes in the men’s section so they can come back later and grab them without another lady noticing them in the meantime. Only the danger is that I could come along and take a shine to them. Minus 50 man points.