OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

It's a well known fact that men are very bad at reading instructions. It was surely a man who coined the phrase 'How hard can it be?'

In our defence, some instructions are so ridiculous that they become a joke.

Take these examples ...

On Marks & Spencer Bread pudding - 'Product will be hot after heating'

On a packet of Sainsbury's peanuts - 'Warning, contains nuts'

On Boots children's cough medicine - 'Do not drive or operate machinery'

On Nytol sleep aid - 'Warning, may cause drowsiness'.

I bought a new electric toothbrush several months ago. It came with a book of instructions in many different languages. I thought 'Let me guess ... add toothpaste, switch on, brush teeth'. So I threw the booklet in the bin without looking at it.

The brush works just fine except that it has an annoying habit of making a funny noise every now and then. I told my lovely wife of the problem. She laughed and explained that it was designed to make the noise every 30 seconds so that the user could spend an equal time on each quadrant of the mouth totalling the recommended 2 minutes in total.

How was I supposed to have known that?

WOMEN ARE SO COMPLEX

It was 8 a.m. on the morning of dear daughter's wedding. We were in our hotel room and the bride's mother was busy making herself look even more beautiful than she was on rising.

She was off to the hairdressers where she would also meet up briefly with the bride and her bridesmaids. Me? I was doing the crossword.

I glanced up and there, sitting on its clothes hanger, hung my wife's stunning outfit. She was going to look a picture - second only to the bride herself. Foolishly, I thought I'd show off my understanding of female things -

"It's a lovely outfit. I presume you won't put it on until the last minute. Have you brought something else to wear to the hairdresser?"

"Of course I have. Front-opening obviously"

"Obviously"

I thought. I thought even more. I really don't want to look stupid here. No. It's no good I'm going to have to ask her. Being a mere male, trying as hard as I might, I could think of no good reason why the hairdresser would need easy access to my wife's bosom.

"Er....why does it need to be front opening?"

With a heavy sigh my wife replied, "So I don't have to pull my clothes over my new hairstyle of course"

"Of course"

IT'S A MAN THING

Since the dawn of time, men and women have had their individual roles in life.

Neanderthal men would be off killing dinosaurs while their women dusted the cave. Knights of yore fought dragons whilst their ladies spent hours trying to pick the lock on their chastity belt. Elizabethan explorers would sail to foreign parts whilst their wives gave birth a year or so after their departure. Victorian gentlemen in tall hats would build huge constructions out of metal for the sheer hell of it as their ladies sewed tapestries and made lace doilies back home. Last century, the men were off fighting world wars as their ladyfolk packed food parcels and drew lines down the back of their legs to look like stocking seams.

If the men were in any doubt about their role, the female of the species would leave subtle clues. Mr. Caveman would wake to find his hunting loincloth and club waiting for him by the cave entrance. Sir Laughalot would find his armour at the ready, newly polished by his distressed damsel. Explorers' telescopes lay next to their sandwiches by the door. Victorian gentlemen found their place at table carefully laid with knife, fork and screwdriver. The tin hat sat gleaming on the breakfast table as Tommy came down for breakfast.

Things haven't changed. This morning, my wife having departed for work, I entered the kitchen to find that she had left the empty pepper grinder sitting next to a packet of peppercorns both strategically placed by the kettle. Clearly, when it comes to the intricacies of the pepper grinder's mechanism, it's a man thing.