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.