The style editor at a fashion magazine made her picks for what to get your man this Christmas. It consisted of gloves, a belt, a jumper and a wallet. For that she is a fashion editor – thanks a lot.
Women may not appreciate this but one of the many burdens a man must carry is having to smile at dull presents.
Look at the man in your life – supportive, fantastic lover and great chef, and yet you want to reward him with a belt?
Why not just get him a lifetime supply of socks and attach a note saying: “I can’t really be that bothered.”
It may be that the adoring and adorable man gives the impression of not wanting luxurious surprises, but that is a product of training.
Underpants
I recall distant aunts sending underpants for my Christmas present when I was smaller. There was still a sense of hard times and the value of a practical present.
Naturally, I opened these and recoiled in horror… still no Scalextric!
A few days later the dutiful thank you letter was produced:
Dear Aunt, thanks for the pants, the leg holes are very useful and the elastic is just right, yours.
It was the beginning of a lifelong trend whereby you’d get excited before Christmas only to go into Hogmanay with a small pile of practical items and a slightly wounded soul.
After pants came socks and then ties.
The message was clear – you are a man and need help getting dressed.
The thing is, buying clothes isn’t that difficult.
But finding interesting or good clothes is. It’s not that men want to wear the same drab things all the time, but that they are given little choice.
Go into department stores or the chains along the high street and men’s clothing is all the same.
You can have a dark sweater with a V-neck, a round neck or a little zip which allows you to go from polo neck to floppy neck.
Under that you can wear a casual shirt. That is, not white.
Then jeans.
As a result, it’s not that difficult to get dressed and look like every other man.
But at Christmas, we don’t want to be reminded we all look the same and live lives of drab conformity.
We want to think we look like George Clooney.
Or at least George’s second half-brother once removed, the one with the lisp and tragic back story.
To achieve this look we need bespoke suits which elegantly disguise our stomachs while emphasising our raw sexual allure.
This will all require cashmere overcoats which flow behind us like magic carpets as we walk purposefully forward while conquering the world or at least getting the milk from the corner shop.
Some may want a watch. The love for expensive timepieces baffles me, but excites a lot of men.
James Bond?
Personally I’d rather have an ink pen which readily converts into a small pistol in order that, should the occasion arrive, I can defend the free world.
If you are feeling too mean for that, then a Bentley never looks out of place.
At some point the gifts coming my way switched from being clothing to kitchen stuff.
I like to cook and initially this resulted in some useful stuff. I love my wife as much for the copper pans she gave me as the fact she stooped to marry me.
There are, however, only so many good kitchen items. The rest are gadgets which never get used.
The third drawer down – you know the one, with batteries in it, some birthday candles and a ball of rubber bands which one day will come in useful – is also home to pizza slicers, melon ballers and corkscrews in novelty shapes.
I had to clear the drawer below in order to then store the bottles of truffle oil that came my way.
Note to the world: Truffle oil isn’t that nice but if you are desperate for some, I can sell you a job lot.
The thing is, you can’t collect all this stuff and trade it in for a Jaguar E Type.
There is no exchange where men can trade socks for Chateau d’Yquem, gloves for speedboats.
Ephemeral
Which is where I come to the point of this column – value.
We give and collect all this stuff, and it holds a momentary value, representing love and thoughtfulness, but it’s ephemeral.
Hopefully we keep the love, but the object becomes just another thing. And the more things we have, the less valuable they are.
This is real. We buy cheap clothes, flat-pack furniture and electric gizmos and expect to throw them away.
I had to clear out a flat this year and the charity shop wouldn’t take some of the perfectly good furniture. There’s just no sell-on value any more.
Items which had been “investment purchases” were only good for the land fill.
Like the aunts who used to send me pants, I grew up with the idea that stuff retained a value, but this just isn’t true any more.
Love and memory are the only things which really matter, and if you can’t give those, then a Bentley will do.