14 AUGUST 1982, Page 28

Low life

Men's page

Jeffrey Bernard

If any of you men out there have got anY problems you'd like to discuss with .01e please feel free to write. It's high time someone got a men's page going and I most, assume that the editors of national newspapers have never heard of the Sex Discrimination Act. Last Sunday I spent most of the morning reading a piece about ovarian cysts in the Observer. It grabbed M e so much that my own cyst-free egg got quite cold alongside the toast. Now don't worry that I'm going to write about my testicles In a sort of retaliatory way because I'm °°_,t and anyway they still haven't been returneo to me. But I'm sure you get my drift. , mean why can't they devote a little space td subjects such as 'husband-battering'? An what about beauty care? Every time I 10°,'; into a mirror I curse the fact that they don

make cosmetics for men. The wear and tear Inflicted on one by day-to-day existence is Colossal and it shows. Yes, a few beauty tips and I for one would like to know where Bernard Levin goes to get his hair waved.

I sometimes think these female hacks think that only women have sexual pro- blems. (When you see some of them you realise that premature ejaculation could be a blessing in disguise and I'm pleased to say that Cosmo Landesman is writing a book on the subject.) Yes, they're all so absorbed With their own problems that they can't be bothered to help us find the male multiple orgasm. I'd very much like to know just where the hell that's been hiding all these Years. It would kill the man who found it but where's the spirit of Dunkirk? Which reminds me. All the medical advice columns In Print are for women only. There's no doctor I can write to to ask why my hands shake, why I forget my own telephone number and why the bed keeps catching fire. And, speaking as an orphan and bachelor, where is there a word of cheer? Women think that only women get depress- ed and lonely and as I write this, the tears streaming down the channels of my face, it occurs to me that if I don't get laid this weekend then I may have to make a cry for IMP. Probably in the Man in the Moon. There's also very little advice in print for men with career problems. My own is that, quite simply, I'm virtually unemployable and it's no joke although I sometimes manage to put on a brave grin. I mean, what the hell can I do? I'm too old and weak now to do anything strictly physical .

dig holes and if I got a job as a bank clerk I'd probably get a bit fidgety round "bout 11 a.m. I couldn't even get a job as a barman since it's assumed that anyone over 40 is on the fiddle. Both Oxford and Cam- bridge Universities have rejected my pro- Posal to inaugurate a chair of cracker-barrel Obllosophy and that would have suited me clown to the ground. I must admit that the press does indulge in a bit of male fashion, but once a man's got a pair of jeans and a Jersey, a suit for the races, what on earth 'tore can he want? My dear friend, Irma Kurtz, was willing for me to take over her agony column in ,°stnopo/itan for the duration of her holi- 1_,Y but they won't hear of it. You see, they clunk men can't feel agony. God almighty, ., they knew what it was like to have a r,"`e,flogause that lasted for 20 years, to have cold flushes and morning sickness for 20 every years and to be under the moon "very night! And what about those endless interviews they do in women's magazines °Ilthe likes of Robert Redford? I don't give toss for Robert Redford but I'd very "'Lich like to know for example whether or not Cyd Charisse has got varicose veins ,a,fter all these years. Yes, we men must i`°1.triter-attack the 'women's page' and do their oPposite; namely, alienate men from women. The only danger though is that we ',NW end up as a nation of wankers and the trade union movement would never allow that.