Time to be honest.

Answers to last week's pop quiz run as follows:
B
A
A
B
A
A
B
A
A
B
B
A
B
A
A
B
B
B
B
A

Marmite or Marmalade?

Answer A or B to the following (or pass), and please feel free to send in your answers. My choices will be revealed in the next post, if requested.

1)Keep the peace or Rock the boat
2Ask questions first or Work out the rules along the way
3)Know fear or No fear
4)Extrovert or Introvert
5)Rhino or Hedgehog
6)Half full or Half empty
7)Justice or Mercy
8)All or nothing or Moderation in all things
9)Leader or Follower
10)Nature or Nurture
11)Wanting to please or Happy to shock
12)Instinct or Evidence
13)Prudent or Rash
14) Feelings or Knowledge
15)Trusting or Suspicious
16)Party animal or Early bath
17)Solitude is bliss or Two is company
18)Summer or Autumn
19)Task-driven or Work-shy
20)Marmite or Marmalade

Put down the colour chart, and pick up the hunting knife

As a bloke, you know you're in need of a masculinity/testosterone audit, when you start getting excited by the prospect of decorating. Now I'm not knocking the value of a lick of fresh paint, or even a roll of funky wallpaper (I like to think of myself as a modern man, after all),but come on, when did the sense of adventure die? This isn't to be confused with "shed syndrome". No, this is much worse. For those of you closer to 20 than 40, "shed syndrome", is the technical name for middle-aged man's need to consolidate his territory. Think of it like a woman's tendency to "nest", but with the addition of a drawbridge and gun emplacement. "Shed" man, is likely to be overheard comparing lawn treatments, home-brew vintages, and the pro's and con's of taking the Channel tunnel vs flying. It is a moment in life to be if not embraced, then at least acknowledged. But the decorating thing is something else entirely, isn't it?
After all, it seems like only yesterday I was obsessing over the exploits of the SAS, season 3 of "The Unit", and other such wellsprings of unadulterated machismo. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, that's all vicarious thrills, what about my own adventures? OK, I'm no Bear Grylls, but I have been known to go up mountains with ropes and crampons and do stupid things with fire. Heck, I've even whittled my own tent pegs. Sadly, the knife collection has long been gathering dust in the loft, and the climbing gear in danger of mildew. "What went wrong?" and "is it too late to rediscover my inner Rambo?" are the questions I long to ask my younger, butcher self. In the silence that follows this moment of tormented soul-searching, I hear a small voice. The voice says " go up to the loft, get the tent down, and use it, seek rocks and climb them." I shall obey. After I've applied this undercoat.

Books worth taking your shoes off for

I have a guilty secret: I enjoy reading children's books. I think I've known this all along, but a most recent awareness of this dubious pleasure occurred when I was given a copy of "Prince Of Mist" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The fact that I've got all the Tintin adventures, and am almost picture-perfect with them, surely cannot count. As a middle-aged Englishman, I consider the works of Hergé as items of shared cultural heritage, like the instinct to form a queue, or wear socks with sandals. Anyway, kid's book or not, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Personally, I've always had a sneaking suspicion that labels like "children's book", are abused by insecure intellectuals, in order to bolster their own feelings of superiority. All because they weren't allowed to read comics as kids. Or am I getting just a tad paranoid? Probably.
Other books I've recently enjoyed, which although not sold as kids' books, firmly belong to the category marked "frivolous", are the Gervase Fen mysteries by Edmund Crispin, and the novels of Magnus Mills. "Piano" by Jean Echenoz, and "The Pendragon Legend" by Antal Szerb are also hugely enjoyable reads, as is anything by Haruki Murakami. Maybe that's it? If a book is too much fun, certain literary factions start getting snooty. Must go, the bouncy castle has just been delivered.

Settle down everybody

If you haven't heard of "Settlers of Catan", I can only assume you've just come back from a 10 year stint in the Orient. Either that or you've got a proper job, and a proper social life. But let's be honest, I think that's very unlikely. Certainly in my tiny corner of the Solar System, this game has proved very popular, especially within Christian circles I might add. Incidentally, these are different from crop circles, in that they're made by nutters (I proudly count myself amongst their number) not aliens, and a cross can usually be found at the centre of it all.
The fun begins as soon as the box is opened; in randomly arranging the hexagonal board pieces, divvying up the tiny painted "roads" and "settlements". It's a game which has nostalgia built-in as standard, what with it's little wooden pieces, and old-school commodity cards, redolent of "Happy Families" or even "Cluedo". All this, and the game hasn't even begun yet. You play an up and coming, iron-age developer, who's sole aim is to plunder nature's bounty to sate his hunger for longer roads and bigger cities. You achieve this, or not as the case may be, through a combination of dice rolling, and cunning decision making. The pleasing ratio of luck to strategy required (about1:4), ensures even the least competitive, or most wine-affected player a sporting chance. O.K. I appreciate board games aren't everyone's idea of a good time, but if you even "quite" like the odd game of "Risk" or "Monopoly", I suggest you look for a cross-wearing nutter to accost, and borrow the game off. Who knows, you might get more than you bargained for.

Agaetis Byrjun? Not likely.

For those of you not familiar with Icelandic caterwaulers, Sigur Ros, Agaetis Byrjun is the title of their second album, and can be roughly translated as "a good beginning". If this is your musical bag, I can strongly recommend their third album, ( ). More about this in a later blog perhaps (if I ever get that far).

Where was I? Oh yes, at the beginning, and not a great one at that. Picture the scene. The year is 2010 (that shouldn't be too hard to imagine), and a 30-something man has just managed to set up his blog profile. Not a momentous advancement for the human race, or even a great personal achievement. Instead, it could possibly be seen as a 21st century rite of passage, a technological equivalent of that first clumsy snog in the dark, at the back of the cinema, with the girl your best friend ends up marrying five years down the line. And yes, before you ask, I was a late starter with girls too. I blame boarding school. This is probably more than you want to know, and definitely as much as I should say on the subject. Maybe this explains why it took me ages to buy a mobile phone. When I told my best friend John (not his real name) that I was embarking on my first blog, I wasn't expecting rapturous applause or even a manly slap on the back, but the reaction I received took me somewhat by surprise. Apparently I had just done something rather unsavoury, something akin to traipsing dog-shit through his house, admitting I like listening to the music of Carly Simon, was growing a ponytail, or enjoy riding my bicycle on the pavement. I had upset the unwritten laws of nature, and would be judged accordingly. To make matters worse, John is the sort of bloke whose values and beliefs any global-leader worth his or her salt, might possibly consider incorporating in the new bill of rights, when the survivors of World War 3 creep out of their bunkers at the end of the nuclear winter, and decide to create a new nation. Anyway, you get the gist, John is a sound chap. Which makes his distaste all the more disturbing. Is he right? Have I made a hideous mistake? I hope not. Anyway mate, you're the one who ends up getting the girl, so stop grumbling, and let me get back to her before the film ends.