Ad Nauseam: Miller Lite

The phrase ‘Man up’ is a noxious one at best. But it risks losing all meaning if it is continually employed for trivialities. A man struggling to find courage in the face of adversity, or blighted by prevarication when action is due, might benefit from the imperative, presuming it was delivered by an appropriate source. Another – a better – man is really the only acceptable giver of the exhortation to ‘man up’, and it is an exhortation to be used sparingly.

It’s not difficult, bearing this in mind, to see what’s so wrong with the latest Miller Lite commercial. For starters, all light beer should be stricken from the earth. There is really no point in claiming that one light beer is more masculine than another, for it is all abominable. If you are watching your weight, don’t drink beer. It’s that simple. Don’t doubly emasculate yourself by publicly announcing that you diet as you order your calorie-controlled weasel urine.



Second, this man clearly has no need of diet, so his choices are reducible to his general lack of taste. It is quite audacious here to have portrayed the righteous barmaid without a shred of irony. She knows taste. She knows the right light beer for real men. But she does not, I aver, for it does not exist.

The man is justly criticised for his choice in bag, but the issue is surely its cheap vinyl quality, not its denomination. Men carry stuff. There’s no getting around it. But it is possible to choose a bag of some distinction, made of leather; something that will wear and, with you, garner its own biography. This man is cheap and tasteless. His critic operates within the same sphere of cheap tastelessness. The ad overall can be reduced to the same assessment. The next time some company tells us to ‘man up’, it had better be a call to arms.

Substance and Style

Of all the blogs and websites out there trying to sell you something, how many really think very deeply about the substance of their product? In the world of Manliness Inc. the idea of manliness is reduced to an image, a suit of clothes, a telling look. Well, readers of this humble project of mine will know that I am by no means indisposed to a good suit of clothes and a telling look. But it is what the look tells that is all important. Clothes do not make the man, but they do (or should) say something about him. Yesterday, for example, when it was doing its level best to snow out there, the man in shorts and flip-flops might as well have worn a matching t-shirt with the slogan: ‘I am an idiot’. The man who matches a sport jacket and tie with chinos that puddle on the floor and a pair of running shoes would do no worse if he donned a baseball cap adorned with ‘Woman repellent’. In short, one’s clothes, more than almost anything else, make the first impression. If one is to appear as one really is, due discretion in matters sartorial is important.

With this in mind, I have to take my hat off to Austin Reed. Some bright spark in that venerable institution is well aware that dressing well sends a message, and instead of leaving all of us to work out what their brand of menswear signifies, they’ve established a blog (with facebook presence, of course) that is letting us know in no uncertain terms. From hosting dinner parties to tying bow ties; from shining shoes to mixing martinis, the good people of Austin Reed are building a lifestyle around their image, and it is an edifying one, based on the principles of etiquette. And they’re not ramming their product down our throats either. Go and have a look. And then come back!

Remember gentlemen, style signifies substance. How you look will be the basis of how you’re judged, rightly or wrongly. Better then to look the part, don’t you think?

Time and A Place; or, Get A Room.

I am all for the romantic arts. ‘Courtship’, whenever that word gets wheeled out, seems unable to escape its epithet: ‘old-fashioned’. Since I care not for fashion, nor for passing fads, I think we ought to put period to this unfair appellation. The outward form of courtship may change with the times, but at its heart is a respectable romance and a foundation of politeness. It takes place in two settings, one public and one private. To observe a courtship in public is never to be outraged, never offended. The intentions of the lover are manifested subtly, through kindnesses and attentions. The responsiveness of the beloved is likewise demure, modest. The courtship is suggestive only insofar as eye contact, or the occasional kiss of the hand, lingers, barely perceptively, a little longer than it might otherwise. In private we may dispense with some of the formality, but to put too fine a point on it would be to undo it. It is private, after all.

I was sitting in my usual spot, working in the library. I have often thought that libraries are sexually charged places, but this has something to do with the impossibility of even verbal, let alone physical interaction. As I have said before, if one desires a frisson of excitement, it is to be found in restraint, in covering up, in patience. The mind must not be deprived of its imaginative work by feasts of the eye! Yet even the hushed halls of places of learning crumble against the pressure of an uncouth culture, beating its walls from within and without.

The Place Where I Sit. Almost.

Immediately to my right, with her back to me, a woman was working away. At first, I only noticed the ear plugs: sad testimony to the inevitable noise. Well, thought I, at least I won’t have any trouble from her. Until the man arrived. As she plucked out her earplugs, I noticed the rest of her, entirely clad in black, tight work-out gear. Her nether woman was barely covered, and in the gap between the top of her sweat pants and the bottom of her t-shirt (about ten inches), her rather skimpy underwear made an unwelcome appearance. She smiled a come-to-bed hello at this unexpected visitor, who kissed her on the mouth – somewhere between friendly and obscene. She pulled the pins out of her raven hair and shook like a wet dog in a shampoo ad. He sat beside her, much preening and many eyes being made. They then proceeded to ‘talk about work’, each with one hand pointing at respective computer screens; academic and intellectual interest being feigned. His other hand made a bid for her shoulder, thereafter sliding down her back and lingering on the aforementioned lingerie. Looping his fingers around the thong, he brushed her naked skin with his thumb.

Enough. Concentration cast to the wind, I simply exited the room. I cannot help feeling it should not have been me seeking alternative shelter. In their little bubble of loveliness, no doubt thrilling to them, was something ghastly. Time and a place, dear readers, time and a place.

Dear Diary

“Dear Diary,

I have a dilemma. The funny little blog that I’ve been writing for a few months has, much to my eternal surprise, been growing in popularity. Of course, I never meant to journalise per se, and I certainly didn’t want it to be one of those crass and conceited spaces where bored individuals talk endlessly about themselves to no apparent end. Look at me! This was not the kind of attention I desired. No, I meant to create an outlet for some serious thoughts that might nevertheless be cut loose from academic apparatuses: the stifling structures and strictures of my ‘day job’. But then, you know about all that. Of course, one must entertain; such an endeavour is nothing without an audience. Hopefully, they’ll stick with me when we have to go over the hard yards. Anyway, those times are still some way off. To the matter at hand.

I don’t want to dwell on me. This blog is not a diary, after all. I’ve got you for that. But then strange things keep happening to me, and I do wonder what to do. The good people out there in the ether will probably be interested in my stories, but I can’t be seen to preach disapprobation of self-interest and wanton egotism on the one hand – it’s so terribly unmanly – and wax on and on about yours truly on the other. So, I shall commit my story to these pages, and hope in that magical way that you will provide me with the guidance I seek.

I’ve talked on the blog about compliments before, but nothing like this. Today I left my regular seat in the library and went for lunch. On my return I found a hand-written note, tucked under my book. It was from a fellow British historian, unknown to me (and me to him). He’s from a rather nice college in the northern Midwest. Harvard is something of collecting ground, it seems. He can’t have known that we had a research specialism in common. Anyway, the note read:

I love the outfit today. Great hat. Great jacket. And have picked up on you as one of Cambridge’s best-dressed men before today. Would you consider being photographed for an article on this subject?

The note raised a smile, and perhaps a blush. Just for the record, I was wearing the linen blue boating blazer with the confident white stripe, a mid-blue Valentino tie with white collar, and those new 514s I bought the other week. The trusty panama was on the desk. It’s an outfit not unlike the picture of me I have on the blog – you know the one? – only I went with the four-in-hand knot today, and an altogether more summery colour palate.

Now, how does one react to such a note. Of course, I wrote to the email address he left and asked for further details, offering thanks and suchlike. But this is such an unusual turn of events in the ordinary course of a humble man’s life, and I very much doubt that the etiquette guides would have anything to say on the matter. I’d like to ask my public for their opinion, but I loathe attracting attention to me, me, me. So, there it is. I leave it with you, dear Diary, and trust that the answer will somehow emerge.

Thunderstorms forecast for this afternoon. Till tomorrow, then.”

Creating and Recreating

Following a train of thought from my last entry, it occurred to me that doing is an imperative not limited to matters sporting. Indeed, purposeful activity runs through every facet of the life of any manly man. One of my historical heroes, George John Romanes, hated the idea of the man who did not work, and averred that being rich was no excuse. Recreation exists to refit us for work, and through work the active man creates. Without work, therefore, what is play? Please pay attention to dear old George:

There is not much to be said on the recreation of men belonging to the upper classes. That most objectionable of creatures, the gentleman at large without occupation, has a free choice before him of every amusement that the world has to give; but one thing he is hopelessly denied – the keen enjoyment of recreation. Living from year to year in a round of varied pastimes, he becomes slowly incapacitated for forming habits of work, while at the same time he is slowly sapping all the enjoyment from play. For although variety of amusement may please for a time, it is notorious that it cannot do so indefinitely. The intellectual changes which are involved in changes of amusement are not sufficiently pronounced to re-create even the faculties on which the sense of amusement depends; the mind, therefore, becomes surfeited with amusement of all kinds, just as it may become surfeited with a tune too constantly played – even though the tune be played in frequently changing keys. For such men, if past middle life, I have no advice to give. They have placed themselves beyond the possibility of finding recreation, and their only use in the world is to show the doom of idleness. They, more even than paupers, are the parasites of the social organism; and we can scarcely regret that their lumpish life, being one of stagnation self-induced, should be one of miserable failure, to the wretchedness of which we can extend no hope.

George John Romanes, ‘Recreation’ (1879).

Winslow Homer, Croquet, 1864

True, for most of us, the pitfalls of idle wealth are – and shall remain – an unknown sin. But GJR can scarcely have imagined a time when leisure would have become so thoroughly democratised as it is for us. To all intents and purposes, the average man now lives like the aristocrat of yore, and therein lies a danger. For if work is simply a place to which you travel on a daily basis, a chore to endure for the requisite period while planning your next binge, then you are – it grieves me to say – already incapacitated for forming habits of work, real work, and are in fact in a state of self-induced stagnation. If you do not work, so much as merely turn up; if your occupation is utterly meaningless and valueless for you; if you have ceased to ‘save it up’ for Friday night, but rather spend it on a daily basis; if you contribute nothing to the common good, i.e. you fail to create – then how can you hope to recreate? Your leisure is reduced to consumption; fun equates to a superficial routine, much like your idle day job.

Unlike Romanes, I do not abandon all hope. For, unlike the idle aristocrat whose birth came replete with the indelible imprint of status, the leisured classes of the twenty-first century can change course. Most of us must work; but all of us should desire it. This probably entails a reorientation of life goals: Who am I? What do I want? Of what am I capable? What can I give? The answers aren’t prescribed, but it is striking that most people do jobs they don’t like while fantasising about jobs they would like. The people who actually do those jobs don’t like them, and so on. A thorough reshuffling is in order. Whether you choose to work with your back or your brain, your gut or your graces, at least make sure you actively choose. The purpose with which you will thusly endow your life will give greater meaning to the pleasures you seek, which in turn will fit you better to fulfil your purpose. If, my dear readers, any of you have recognised yourselves in these descriptions, I exhort you: take your life in your hands, before the wretchedness of indolence consumes you!