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Bye-bye barbie
In fact she counts herself lucky to have had a husband who has ever been to the ballet; most men pretend they have what is known as a feminine side, and there are even some men who loudly proclaim they prefer the company of women to men; this is, for the main part, codswallop. Give a man the choice between Swan Lake with the wife and World Championship Wrestling with the boys and there'll be no race. Then there are those men who cook: personally, thus far, one of those life's pleasures I have yet to experience; my husband is an unreconstructed alpha male - deeply astonished when he has accomplished the Sisyphean task of making a pot of tea without (a) the teabags bursting, (b) the teacup throwing itself on the floor, (c) an hour's debate on the dire social consequences of putting the milk in first, from a scientific point of view. One of his favourite tricks is to bring me a cup of tea in the morning and ask me when the milk went in; I sensibly decline to answer on grounds of not being up to such a challenge before noon. You will probably have noticed the decline of the barbecue, once the backbone of Australian family life. Men have finally realised the whole concept was a cunning plot by egregious feminists to get men to cook a meal, by appealing to the most primitive of male instincts, the desire to gather around a fire and talk about World Championship Wrestling. It worked for years; all over the world men started wearing aprons embroidered with silly chauvinist proclamations, and turning out chops and steaks and sausages like there was no tomorrow. But tomorrow came when men suddenly realised they were cooking; they were doing women's work, so they dropped the tongs like hot coals and retired into the safety of the television room. We haven't had a barbecue for four years. It was Christmas Day and I hit on the brilliant idea of cooking the turkey on the Weber; a joint venture involving men. The day was boiling; while I was checking the plum pudding, they (a) dropped hot coals on the floor, which started a fire, and (b) set the asbestos gloves and the dog alight; oh yes, and my husband, barefoot, stepped on a live coal. Screams were heard as far away as Canberra and I was to blame. Bye-bye barbie. My friend, when she goes to the ballet, cooks a casserole for her husband; has been doing so for decades. But whenever she says: "Remember, dear, I'm out with the girls tomorrow night!", he looks exceedingly doleful and says: "What arrangements have you made for my dinner?" She reminds him there is, as usual, a casserole in the fridge; all he needs do is heat it and cook some rice, as he has done every few months of his adult life - upon which he looks panic-stricken and says, "Can you please remind me again how to cook rice?"
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