Wednesday, November 30, 2005

I Hardly Recognised You With Your Clothes On


The Wee In His Swimmers
Originally uploaded by NellyMoser.
Some men are strange. I got to thinking that as I watched the piece on last night's news about the Royal Marines 'at play'. The psychologist/apologist explained it all away by saying that these extremely masculine men, highly trained and battle-hardened, need some kind of an emotional outlet when they return from the front line. And maybe they do.

But it got me remembering a crowd we occasionally socialised with around 20 years ago. There'd be house parties where the women would be sitting around po-faced discussing babies and curtains. Meanwhile some of the men would be writhing about on the floor, fondling and snogging each other. Quantities of strong drink would normally be involved. Most of the men taking part in these rituals were ruggedly masculine, ambitious and have gone on to become successful businessmen in the Ballymena area.

I would not like anyone to think that the gentleman pictured took part in any such activities but he was (briefly) a Marine.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Some men are strange" has it taken you this long to work that out? :-)

Hageltoast said...

more fool the women for sitting around po faced. ;)

Nelly said...

CyberScribe - no I've known it for a long time, since those parties actually

Hageltoast - aye. it wasn't the man-on-man action that put me off that crowd

All - did I ever tell youse the one about the lesbian ex-nun folk singer from Sligo who got a gig at St Patrick's Barracks?

Anonymous said...

Some men may be strange, but more than a few women are absolutely bonkers. As shown by the alleged existance of lesbian ex-nun folk singers from Sligo who get gigs at St Patrick's Barracks.

[/public service announcement]

Nelly said...

Yea! I agree that it was a bit mad of her to do it. But then it was even madder of the officer who booked her. Anyways it hardly mattered who was up there on the stage as the totally men only audience of young soldiers were far too busy stripping each other, fondling and snogging each other and doing what the lesbian ex-nun reported as 'unspeakable' acts in corners.

You'll like this bit. The bouncers were (natch) heavily armed. But they only wanted to shoot me for being a feminist.

Anonymous said...

Arming the bouncers... interesting. And my place won't even let us use cattle prods.

My tendency would be to shoot any self professed '-ist'. I have very little time for most '-ism's, and so tend to give short shrift to anyone claiming to be an '-ist' on the door. Unionist, Nationalist, Feminist, Mentalist or just plain Pist, I'll get annoyed at the lot of them.

Nelly said...

What about if they put post- as a prefix?

Anonymous said...

What is a postist? Or am I being terribly dense and missing something entirely?

Nelly said...

Post as in post-feminism.

The period after feminism which supposes that all the issues have been resolved and that Germaine Greer can appear on reality TV and earn money writing about the time that George Best (RIP) wanted to shag her.

Anonymous said...

Ah, that. I've not heard anyone describe themselves as a postfeminist. Although one or two have said "I used to be a feminist, but I got over it"

Nelly said...

A sister (not Ganching) wore a teeshirt with 'I Used To Be A Feminist But I'm All Right Now) Rather brave of her considering the circles she moved in at the time - Islington, North London and all that implied in pre-post-feminist days of the early 80s.