RICHARD ORD: Let's hear it for the boys! Oh, wait ...
Our Bradley does a lot of storming and demanding these days.
There isn’t a topic he won’t wind himself up into a rage about: global warming, terrorism, polite requests for him to stop stuffing his dirty underpants down the back of the radiator and put them in the washing basket instead ... all are greeted with varying levels of indignation and rage.
But he has an answer to everything.
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Hide AdHis answers invariably start “If I was Prime Minister …” and end in “carpet bomb the lot of them.”
How carpet bombing will solve the underpants issue I don’t know, but may be worth a try.
On this latest storm and demand occasion, he barged into our bedroom bristling with ill-disguised fury.
“It’s International Women’s Day,” he fumed. “That’s not fair. How come there’s no International Men’s Day. I blame the feminists.”
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Hide AdMy wife was quick on the draw. “There’s no one International Men’s Day because it’s men’s day for the other 364 days of the year,” she told him. Though I couldn’t help thinking her response was directed at me.
He did, however, have a point. Why should women have their own hugely successful international day, globally recognised and celebrated throughout the world while us men have nowt?
To paraphrase Rik Mayall, in The Young Ones, “was Pythagoras a woman? No, I don’t think he was, was he?”
Surely it’s only fair that the sex who include among its number Winston Churchill, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Heine Allemagne should warrant its own day of celebration.
Turns out they do. I checked it out online.
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Hide AdAnd in the mode of a typical man, our hormonal teenage son had ranted and raged about the injustice of it all, before checking out his facts.
International Men’s Day is on November 19. The reason it’s not particularly well known, I suspect, is because it’s organised by men.
It’s up there with World Giraffe Day and National Lobster Day when it comes to global interest.
And yes, those two days do exist. Giraffes get June 21, lobsters June 15. Put them in your diary.
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Hide AdInternational Men’s Day, of course, should be celebrated with some sort of drinking session, ideally in a brewery.
And that’s the kind of event my wife knows only too well that I couldn’t’ organise … she’s told me often enough, though not so politely.
I look forward to mentioning International Men’s Day to our Bradley. Perhaps it’s time for an International Hormonal Teenager Day, now that really is a 364 days a year celebration.
l Heine Allemagne invented the vanishing referee’s spray used to mark out the 10 yards for free kicks in football matches. A true man of ingenuity, but I bet you knew that already.