A "man cave" is a bit embarrassing, isn't it? There are various other euphemisms for these spaces where men go to escape their wives, hide from the kids, indulge in their nerdy hobbies, or just drink from a secret booze stash and watch questionable YouTube videos (pick your favourite stereotype!). But the concept of having a separate space from the main family home in order to indulge in some activity seems to be a well-known one.
They have some historical origins: Theodore Roosevelt had his "trophy room" for displaying hunting taxidermy work; Mark Twain had his Billiard Room which was his preferred writing location. There are a bunch of others too listed on this page which I definitely didn't just google before writing this paragraph.
The point is: men seem to need a separate space for ourselves and our silly little hobbies. Women seem to need this too so perhaps this is just a human universal: we all need a little spot we can disappear to and recharge.
Our shed back in October 2023. Just clearing all this stuff was an achievement in itself.
I remember reading somewhere that playing Tetris could be used to avoid post-traumatic stress disorder. According to research, people who played a game of the famous block-wrangling classic were able to avoid forming painful memories of car accidents if they played within six hours of arriving at hospital.
I decided to put it to the test this week after a challenging day at work. Now before this sets alarm bells ringing, I'm not suggesting my day job puts me at risk of PTSD. It was really just a long day: lots of heavy meetings and planning around big topics (pay, promotions, performance... all the juicy ones) and this is always a bit draining. Trying to decompress after all this, I thought I'd give Tetris a go.
I searched the app store and avoided the official one which was laden with advertising and looked too, well, modern. I wanted something that evoked the classic Tetris feel and eventually found "Brick Game", which carefully avoided any mention of the T-word but was close enough to what I was after. I downloaded it and played for a while.
I celebrated sixteen years with my partner Madeleine this week, a number so mind-bogglingly large that we had to count on our fingers to ensure we'd definitely worked it out correctly (look, we're tired parents). We got together at university when we were 21, and looking back at that era now, I can't stop myself from thinking about what children we were.
I was definitely a child back then; perhaps on the cusp of being a man child. In my second year of university I found myself isolated from my housemates and lonely, spending my considerable amount of free time staying up till ungodly hours posting on internet music messageboards. I'd venture outside sometimes at 3am to restock supplies from the 24 hour petrol station across the road: my staples were banana milkshakes and bars of Dairy Milk.
My student bedroom in 2006. Imagine me slumped over the keyboard having fallen asleep posting on the Official AFI Messageboard.
Despite my recent concerns about male fashion and my dress sense, back then I was much more confident: band t-shirts with skulls on them, ripped jeans and hoodies, and a belt buckle in the shape of an eagle were my mainstays. Sixteen years on I'm still unclear what drew Maddy to my youthful self, because it certainly wasn't my diet, dress sense or job prospects.
When I turned 18 years old, I received a razor in the post. It was a marketing campaign by Gillette to congratulate me on "becoming a man", even though I'd been shaving for years by the time I opened it. I also seem to remember receiving a birthday card from the local Tory MP, given there was a general election coming up soon. (I didn't vote for him.)
You can just see the edge of a PC magazine which—inexplicably—featured a half-dressed woman on the cover to promote graphics cards.
The present I was actually excited about was a new electric guitar: my second, slightly more grown-up instrument (which I still play today). This was the gift I requested when my parents asked if I wanted driving lessons.
I grew up in a small village miles from anywhere. If you wanted to head into the "big city" (Nottingham, 15th most populous city in the UK) it was nearly an hour on an expensive, infrequent bus. All my friends lived a few miles away on the other side of a steep valley. In many ways, then, it was a bad decision of mine not to opt for driving lessons.
In the "festive perineum" between Christmas and New Year, there's a lot of time to kill. Alas, I was in charge of a four year old, whose appetite for sitting down quietly with a book is famously limited. I was desperate, therefore, to encourage him to play with his Christmas present.
A year ago, I got him his first "real" bike, eg. one with pedals and brakes. He'd been happily scooting along on his balance bike since he was twenty months old, and the received wisdom is that kids who learn to ride a balance bike can skip the stabiliser stage entirely and graduate straight to a pedal bike.
Me teaching Ted to ride solo at the start of 2023
As a cycling-mad dad, I was excited for this to happen. I bought him the yellow bike he craved and we went out for a test ride this time last year – after a little persuasion from me, he was able to ride solo, while constantly shouting at me not to let go.
