I, as a man of the world, found myself this evening in the most difficult position it is possible for a man to be in.

“Goodness Gracious”, I hear you cry, “what manner of a position was this, Tom? Were you contacted by two ravishing young ladies who both happened to have a small fortune tucked away and were interested in the prospect of marriage, thus leaving you to have to decide between the two?” Surprisingly, no. Nor was I offered the chance to put a baseball bat through Peter Mandelson provided I lopped off my left testicle and yes, I did witness the accidental destruction of my interview with Carol Vorderman today, but that’s not what I’m getting at. The situation I was in this evening was far worse than any of these conundrums combined.

Most difficult scenarios for menfolk usually occur when they’ve just got in the house, probably after a hard day at the office. This is difficult enough in the Davies household as it is because mother delights in bombarding anyone who has just come in through the front door with a great string of questions about dining arrangements and who’s going to cook the tea three weeks on Thursday. However, this was not an issue today; partly because my Dad and I have decided that we won’t answer any questions outside of the regular press conferences we now hold at our own convenience, but mostly because mother was out. In fact, it was probably because mother was out and I took advantage of flopping straight in front of the tv with a pizza and a few slices of garlic bread that the problem arose.

The thing is that if a man is a real man he will struggle to get back up again having flung himself on the sofa and in front of the telly. With pizza and garlic bread in the mix he becomes pretty much immovable. What then, dear friends, does he do when Gok Wan’s How to Look Good Naked is beamed onto the screen in front of him and his sister has taken complete ownership of the remote?

I’m ashamed to say that I sat there and did nothing. Was it any consolation that half way through the programme Gok offered jeans-buying advice to young men such as myself? No, it probably wasn’t. I’m sure there’s a great many people who enjoy why-aren’t-you-wearing-this?-let’s-strip-you-down-and-see-how-fat-you-are type programmes but unfortunately I’m not one of them and, until Gok introduces an explosive to the series and blows something up, I’m not going to be converted. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing at all against the man, but at that moment when i was rooted to the settee watching Gok campaigning for bodily awareness in schools from the top of a cherry picker (that’s Gok on the cherry picker, not the bodily awareness classes), a small part of me wishes that someone had left him up there.

The very last straw came when Hannah changed the channel and I found myself lounging in front of Katie and Alex – for better for worse and, at that point, I did what any self-respecting bloke should do: I seized the remote and gave some japanese bloke a sound thrashing on wii tennis. However, there is a valuable lesson to be learned from what happened to me today. Gents, television is our close friend and ally. However, if you don’t check who’s got hold of the remote before you sit down in front of it with dinner, you could soon be conversant in hair extensions and this season’s must have. When you turn round and address someone with whom you don’t enjoy a romantic relationship as ‘girlfriend’, you know things have gone a little bit too far.

In other news, if you hadn’t already gathered, the Carol Vorderman interview and the backup both got deleted at work today and I am deeply distressed.

I am rather more pleased to announce that Alex Finlay will be a guest blogger on this site for the next few months while he travels around the world. So, in stereotypical voyager fashion, “welcome aboard, Alex”.

Photo courtesy of Luigi Diamanti.

Popularity: 40% [?]