Where have all the real men gone
If it’s not bacon and eggs for breakfast, it’s not the same
IF IT isn’t enough watching women everywhere push food around their plates and avoid anything with more than two calories in it just because they binged at Christmas, now the guys are at it too.
I can tell you that there are a few things that women find not so sexy in a man: slightly long fingernails; lashings of aftershave; any sign of fastidiousness; and watching the calories. The latter is a particular turn-off, because a man who doesn’t enjoy his food is not a man who is likely to tuck in with enthusiasm when it comes to those other important areas.
That’s how my thinking goes, anyway. He who takes skimmed milk seems a little less red-blooded for it, and breakfast the morning after with someone who prefers fresh berries instead of eggs and bacon isn’t quite the same experience. Would Steve McQueen have been a skinny latte man (for the three people who haven’t been to Starbucks yet, that means a coffee with skimmed milk)? Does Sean Penn ask them to hold the fries and the bun when he orders a burger? Do you find Jack Nicholson batting away the margeritas at Hollywood cocktail parties? I think not.
Which is why the news that one in four men is on a diet has me wondering whether there are any real men left. Picky eaters, calorie counters, carb avoiders – whatever you want to call them, it all spells uptight and unsexy as far as I’m concerned. This may sound a touch outdated, and even irresponsible. After all, two-thirds of men are supposedly classified as overweight, and everyone knows that the war on blubber is just beginning. But there’s a world of difference between eating sensibly and actively dieting.
Perhaps because women are only too familiar with the hidden consequences of dieting – the mood swings, the self-loathing – that I can’t bear to think of our supposedly level-headed menfolk descending into the same neurotic, Ryvita-nibbling state. Being chronically food-aware has warped every one of us to a greater or lesser extent (is there any woman over the age of 30 who can have a totally guilt-free helping of crème brulée?). We need men to be above such superficial obsessions. Also, lean is desirable as a by-product of an active, energetic lifestyle; otherwise, slimmed down doesn’t necessarily suit men.
Isn’t it enough that Nicosia is full of gaunt-looking under-nourished women trying to ape the countless slender girls from the eastern bloc? Poor, beautiful Kate Winslet was made to drop a dress size in order to fit in with the Hollywood jet-set, but thank God nobody suggested that her tubby husband, Sam Mendes, should shift that extra stone. His cosy covering is part of his appeal: it suggests cofidence and an appreciation of the good things in life.
Of course, I am well aware that, right now, there are women everywhere trying to get their husbands to put back three of their roast potatoes, despairing of their growing girths. And we all want to live longer. But there is one prospect scarier than a hint of hamster paunch: Michael Flatley with a pedometer…
Filling space
I only ever read Cypriot magazines in the reception room at my dentist, but I have to admit that I do find it quite entertaining looking at pictures of our capital’s self-appointed so-called ‘celebrities’. Most of them wear designer ensembles that are only fit for the likes of people who get on the ‘worst-dressed’ lists of magazines like Vogue and sport hair-dos that characters in soaps like The Young and the Restless tend to adopt.
The funniest magazine this time had a list of 10 of the ‘most beautiful women in Cyprus’ (all of course with daddies or husbands who pay the very expensive tabs of their high maintenance beauty regimes), one of whom wasn’t even Cypriot (she’s married to one, so maybe that makes her one?) and who adorned the front cover in a pose that resembled someone trying very hard to pose. Now I always walk into the dentist’s room with a smile on my face…
Here comes Autumn/Winter 05
One of the benefits of being a fashion writer and stylist is that I get to see next year’s looks now. Next month will see the beginning of the A/W 05 collections, and the shops will have already started to adorn their windows with spring fashions by the end of this month. Hopefully, with the accent on a cleaner, cooler look this year, Nicosia will not look like the aftermath of an explosion in a paint factory, and bright colours will be kept to the accessory department.
I would start digging out your whites and sending them to the dry cleaners…
