Christian O’Connell - The Men Commandments

6 You are asked ‘What are you thinking?’ by your partner. Do you:Tell her exactly what you are thinking – you were imagining what the girl who just walked past would look like naked with you on herReply shiftily, ‘Nothing’

7 The best place to relax and unwind at home is:In the front room with some lovely throws and scented candlesIn the loo under the stairs which smells but has a lock

8 A 42-inch TV is:Way too bigNot big enough but will have to do

9 A man’s position on a dance floor is: On it with his partner using some steps they learnt together at a salsa classDrinking at the bar, laughing at all the other men trying to dance

10 Saturday night TV is:Great fun! So many exciting programmes to choose from like Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing On Ice Utter shit

11 You are at a pet shop and have to choose between buying a cat or a dog. Do you:Pick a cat as they are just so cutePick a dog cos they kill cats

12 You are arguing with your wife or girlfriend. Do you:Work out a positive outcome, having fully understood the various issues raisedApologise despite having no idea what you are sorry about

13 You notice that the loo roll is empty. Do you:Replace itIgnore it, not really understanding what needs to happen to replace it

14 You are lost in a car. Do you:Ask for directions from a cheery localCarry on driving around, insisting you are not lost and that it’s somewhere round here

15 Have you ever watched more than one hour of a period drama/America’s Next Top Model?YesSorry, I don’t recognise the shows you talk of

1 You meet up with your mates in the pub. Do you talk about:Your feelingsWho would win in a fight between James Bond and Jack Bauer

2 Do you have a pair of lucky underpants that smell and have holes?Good God, noYes

3 It’s your best friend’s birthday. Do you:Send him a birthday card and buy him a giftIgnore it

4 Do you know what duck-egg blue is?Sure, it’s a light blue great for rooms with plenty of natural daylightColour of Man City’s home kit?

5 What do you fear more?Knife attack from a group of deadly ninjasMan flu

6 At a barbecue, how do you know when the chicken is done?When it’s white throughout When you say it is (despite guests throwing up and ambulances arriving)

7 What do you think of musicals?Great entertainment – have seen Les Mis and Cats several times, always a blastPure evil

8 Are you over the age of 30 and wear low-slung denim around your knees? If so, please put this book down and fuck off.

If you answered ‘a’ to any of the above, you’re not a man. Thank you for your time and interest and please place this book back on the shelf for a real man.

If you answered ‘b’ to any of the above, this book is for you.

I bet some of the questions made you think, even hesitate, before answering. We are confused, aren’t we? We don’t know what we are supposed to be any more. I don’t know how to change the wheel on my car. My dad does, though. I’d just get the AA out. We use moisturisers and eat sandwiches with rocket in. What’s happening to us?

I guess it would make sense to start this book at the beginning. Our rites of passage.

II

On the journey through life we pass through various experiences that shape who we are. The boy becomes the man. Or more likely the boy stays the boy but buys a house, gets married and has kids, all the time wondering when is he going to grow up and stop laughing when people fall over.

But what are the key moments in a young man’s life and development?

Whether it’s informing you that eating apple core will make trees grow out of your ears or that playing with yourself will turn you blind, these people shape us into what we become. Be it a serial killer or an MP – it’s all their fault.

Actually, it’s our dad who gives us the first impression of what a man is and does. My dad was very loving and he instilled a great sense of ‘you can do anything in life if you work hard enough’ in me. He was and still is nuts.

The best story to illustrate this is how we dealt with the death of my younger sister’s cat. Well, actually, it was the second cat death in our family. The first died after my dad accidentally left it out one night. In the snow. Sadly this was before Ray Mears and Bear Grylls so poor Henry didn’t know how to construct a rudimentary bivouac for shelter.

The second one, a beloved tabby cat called Pepper, passed away in less extreme circumstances. My sister was understandably upset but my dad assured her that he would be on his way to Cat Heaven and he would take care of his burial. What I’m about to tell you is beyond belief – but please don’t judge my dad as he is made from the same man genes as us all. Having been promised a decent cat send-off for poor beloved Pepper, my sister came running into the house in floods of tears. Hysterical. She claimed in her emotional state to have seen ‘my Pepper on a skip’.

Now it’s not unknown for the grief-stricken to see visions of the recently departed. That’s what must have happened here. Or so I thought. My dad calmed her down and asked me to help him with something. He quietly told me we needed to move the body.

Sorry, Dad? The body?

You see, my dad had deposited poor old Pepper, the family cat, on the neighbour’s skip. Hey, who hasn’t dumped some carpet underlay or old paint tins in a neighbour’s skip late at night? But a dead pet? He hadn’t even made an attempt to cover it with anything! So now he was getting his son in on his deception, and I was loving it. Both father and son bonded and giggled as poor old Pepper was lifted off the skip and taken elsewhere. Then my dad calmly told my sister we had just checked the skip and there was no cat body. Go see for yourself, he urged her. She checked it and agreed. I had learnt a valuable lesson: men lie.

Then there was the time he tried to landscape the garden on the cheap by doing it himself. He hired this beast of a thing called a rotavator. He tried to steer it one way and it flung him over the neighbour’s fence. All I saw was this runaway rotavator, Dad-less, and then I heard a word I hadn’t heard before – ‘FUCKER!’ – as my dad popped up the other side of our neighbour’s fence, leapt back over and began to chase after it. Shirtless, wearing only, of course, his magical Dad Pants.

I learnt another valuable lesson. Men are funny. Funny peculiar. Oh, and another lesson: always hire a rotavator with an automatic cut-off switch.

When I think of my school days, I physically wince. It’s the flashbacks of brand new shoes in September, which had no give in them until March the next year, at which point it was time for a new pair of Clarks Commandos. In your early school days your mum dresses you… but then something called puberty happens.

In men puberty lasts until they die. So many changes happen to the young man. First come the little acts of rebellion in your school uniform. You don’t want your mum’s big fat Windsor knot in your tie – I was at school in the eighties so it was now a slim jim. Or you tucked it away into your shirt. Then you wanted to wear Stay Press trousers. You couldn’t hope to get a girl’s attention without Stay Press.

Then it was the looking at girls differently. Very differently. Getting these funny feelings you didn’t really understand. You used to be happy to stare out of the window during lessons, praying for excitement like a stray dog running into the playground. Now you stared at bras and tried to work out who had one and who didn’t. Oh, and the teachers’ breasts.

Puberty is hard on a young man. How do you cope with getting unwanted and embarrassing erections in the middle of a history lesson about the Great Fire of London? They were either unwanted or I was getting the horn from all that fire talk. It was even worse during PE. The girls in PE skirts, getting cheap thrills coming down the ropes. Me and my grubby mates suddenly taking a very keen interest in netball lessons. Happy days. I remember this girl at school who was very attractive, totally aware of it and a terrible tease. During a squash lesson, she was playing our teacher and we were all told to watch as he demonstrated his court technique. She had conveniently forgotten her outfit so was playing in little more than her bra and knickers. With her pert breasts bouncing up and down. It was too much not only for the boys leering down at the court action but also the teacher. He started to show a boner. I helpfully and loudly pointed this out, thinking it was part of his ‘court’ technique, and everyone started shouting, ‘MR ______’S (name deleted here as he was a good teacher and I feel bad about humiliating him, but not that bad as it was funny) GOT A BONER.’ We were ordered to go and get changed immediately and wait in the school minibus. When he got into the minibus to take us back to school he told me to get out and walk. I had learnt another lesson. Never ever laugh at another man’s erection.