State of Origin is not a beauty contest. Fortunately

It's usual for a famous Origin victory to be sealed by crashing across an opponent's try line, not scurrying behind your own so the mean men in maroon can't have the ball. The Blues' fullback proved last night that while regular aeroplanes might not work in reverse, Hayne Planes certainly do.

But we NSW supporters will take the win that Jarryd Hayne's strategic retreat - and of course his try saving tackle on Sam Thaiday - secured.

In fact, the Blues would have taken pretty much anything that sealed Origin 2014 on home soil, and not required us to travel north for a decider at that cauldron of northern - well, I'm not going to say "hate", but only because it doesn't seem strong enough a word for tens of thousands of seething Queenslanders.

And take it we did after what was surely one of the most lacklustre games in the series for many years. Stole it, really, since neither team played like the champions of Origins past. For long periods, neither team managed to do much when they had the ball, simply mucking around for a bit and then yielding the ball via a handling error or lacklustre kick.

Many Origin games are packed with of moments of explosive brilliance - this one was a grind, and a coarse one at that. The NRL's recent (and welcome) crackdown on punching stopped the game turning into an out-and-out brawl, and instead things remained simmering throughout, almost arcing up with two minutes to spare.

But we'll take it, because after eighty minutes the series scoreboard said 2-0.

At half-time, this result was far from guaranteed. Queensland led by two penalties scored by the record-setting boot of JoHnatHon Thurston, a kicker so dependable that his parents included a pair of uprights in his name.

The usual feeling of dread set in as I waited for the second half to begin. Queenslanders, whether footballers or prime ministers, are somehow born with a congenital belief in their ability to make a comeback, and the Maroons have done it time and extra time again.

But still, I kept consoling myself with the maths. A converted try would do it. And it did; oh, how it did. One burst of ingenuity from Trent Hodkinson who crossed the line and then somehow nervelessly converted his own try.

And somehow, the Blues held on, helped by Queensland obligingly turning the ball over on several key occasions. Had to happen eventually.

At the end of the game, I didn't feel jubilation. You couldn't, really, after a win like that. I didn't want to send abusive texts to every Queenslanders I know, as I confess I may have done in the past. After all, it's still eight-two in the past decade.

What I felt was beautiful relief. We hadn't choked or stuffed up or yielded yet another Queensland comeback. And we had kept the Maroon stars who had tormented us for so long tryless.

The history books - or, nowadays, the history Wikis - won't record the exact nature of the game, probably because all existing copies of the first 70 minutes will be locked in a vault marked "FOR INSOMNIAC USE ONLY".

What they will record is that NSW have won an Origin series for the first time since 2005. To put it in perspective, Bob Carr was premier then, and we've had five others since.

Five.

Which is one more point than Queensland scored.

A decisive victory is a wonderful thing, and so is an elegant one. But an ugly victory is still a victory. And after eight painful years, we'll take it.

Did I waste my youth by not being wasted?

In my early twenties, there was a brief, glorious period when I went to dance parties. Raves, they used to be called, if my fading memory serves. They were so cool, I thought; and so, briefly, I was so cool – even though, in hindsight, tickets were on sale to the general public.

My approach was to have a drink or two along with copious, overpriced bottles of water, and dance until dawn while hoping the lighting was dim enough to hide the mediocrity of your dancing. In fact, I think that’s why the strobe light was invented, to make it impossible to see dancers in motion. I’ve always been very grateful.

There was a dance party (even the term seems so archaic now) every few weeks. seemed achingly cool at the time. There was Tweekin’ at Club 77 near Kings Cross, and Disco Kitchen which packed out a city pub and Scissors Paper Rock at the much-mourned Dendy in Martin Place and, most curiously, Sabotage at the food court of Skygarden, a shopping centre that’s now part of Westfield Sydney.

Yes, I went to all-night dance parties at a food court, and yes, I genuinely enjoyed it, even though the kebab stand was closed.

In truth, I was hardly a regular – I probably only went to about a dozen of these kinds of things all up – but I still remember how intimidating I found it, and how desperately I wanted not to stand out as someone who didn’t belong. And I still remember how exhilarating it was when finally, with the aid of a gin and tonic or two and the sheer energy of the music, I danced enough to the trippy house music (or whatever it was) to stop feeling self-conscious. It was an incredible feeling, topped only by the taste of a greasy breakfast on the way home after the venue closed at dawn.

But the sheer delight of staying up all night and jumping around sweatily to excellent music wasn’t enough for many of the participants, of course. They would take ecstasy to add a certain – well, I don’t exactly know what, because I never had the guts to try it. Presumably it was a heightened version of the joy I was feeling, coupled with that intense grumpiness that inevitably follows when you come down, as though you’ve used up your week’s supply of pleasantness and have to spend the next few days glowering at other people.

There were plenty of opportunities to partake myself. People would sidle up to me on the dancefloor and offer pills. The first time this happened, I loudly replied "SORRY WHAT WAS THAT?", thus entirely ruining the dealer’s attempts at subtlety. He correctly interpreted it as a no.

Other people kept telling me how great it was, and how I was missing out. And there was one point when I considered trying a half, or perhaps even just a quarter, but the fear never quite left me. Everyone knows that those pills are cut with all kinds of other rubbish – and of course, the more adulterated they are, the more money the dealer makes. What’s more, the narcotics industry isn’t exactly known for its stellar after-sales service.

“If you could buy them from a chemist, and you knew they were pure, I’d give it a go,” I’d tell people, lest other people take me for the total square that, of course, I was. “But I’ve heard too many horror stories.” A few years passed, and we all stopped going to dance parties, and I never got the chance.

My other problem was that people who took ‘e’s didn’t seem like the greatest advertisement for the product. Sure, they seemed to be having a brilliant time within their own heads, but the dumb look in their eyes and tendency to hug you for far too long a time made them seem like they were carrying some kind of brain injury. Paying a lot of money to lose significant amounts of mental function and your dignity didn’t seem like a compelling offer.

In subsequent years, cocaine seems to have become the social drug of choice. I had the same concerns about purity, but coke’s effects are, if anything, even more troubling than ecstasy, at least to a casual observer like me.

As has, I think, been more than adequately portrayed by The Wolf Of Wall Street, the biggest problem with cocaine is that it makes you insufferable. It’s obnoxiousness in powdered form, and while I’m sure it’s amazing to have that “feeling of invincibility”, it’s far from amazing to be around people who are acting like the love child of Donald Trump and Kyle Sandilands. I’ve occasionally been at events where I’ve realised that lots of the people around me seem to have sniffly noses and a constant need to visit the bathroom, and that’s when I generally decide that it’s time to head home.

Now, while I’ve never tried anything else, I should admit that I did try marijuana at university. But I didn't inhale. Honestly.

Everybody mocked Bill Clinton when he said that – but in my case, I didn't inhale because I genuinely didn't understand what you were supposed to do. I stuck the thing between my lips mouth and sucked a tiny bit of smoke in, and it promptly left my mouth without actually entering my lungs. Which is why when it was finished, I said “gosh, that mustn't have been all that strong, I don't feel any different.” Thus revealing to my younger friends not only that I had no idea how to ‘toke on a doobie’, but that I'd wasted a substantial portion of their expensive ‘jazz cigarette’.

Fortunately, they were too busy giggling to notice.

Shortly thereafter I developed adult-onset asthma, providing me with the perfect excuse for further indulgence – which, given how affected my lungs now are by any kind of smoke and even by what optimistically passes for air in China, is probably a good thing.

I don’t have any major moral gripe with people who take drugs now and then, except that I don’t tend to enjoy being around them while they do. As Lisa Pryor has pointed out, some people use them recreationally without suffering any real adverse effects. I certainly know a lot of successful people who indulged occasionally when younger, and more or less grew out of it.

That’s a bigger debate than I can address here, but some of the arguments that led to the removal of alcohol prohibition certainly have some resonance when applied to other drugs. And I do tend to buy the argument that adults should be able to do what they want with their bodies – especially since they currently can and do, anyway.

But as time has gone on, I’ve never found much reason to regret my youthful abstinence. Now I’m 37, I’m clearly too old to begin experimenting. Being home in bed has never seemed to appealing.

Some of my friends talk nostalgically about their days of excess. I am left to talk nostalgically about my days of abstinence. I’ll never know how much fun I missed, but I had sufficient fun enough, without ever accidentally drooling on one of my friends. In hindsight, that’s not such a bad deal.

Ten things I learned travelling with kids

Over the Easter break, I went travelling with my four-year-old nephew and one-year-old niece. (And their parents, obviously.) I thought it’d be a wonderful chance for some family time, and it was, but in many respects it was a handy reminder that there’s plenty of upside in the fact that I can still travel solo. Because parenting is always harder than I realise, and parenting while travelling is harder still.

And yes, I know that I’ve written before about how much I’d like to be a father. Yeah, um, about that. Let’s just say that while I’m sure that dandling my own child on my knee would be brilliant in lots of ways, I now realise that having young children would make one of my favourite activities a far trickier proposition.

1) Kids have different interests from grown ups.

Whether I’m travelling or not, my first agenda item each morning is the same: finding a half-decent cup of coffee. When I’m overseas, I’ll settle for any drinking receptacle that contains any variety of caffeine – I’ve even been known to settle for Mountain Dew on occasion, and let me tell you, actual dew licked directly off a mountainside would taste better.

But sitting down for a lengthy chat over a hot beverage is an energetic four-year-old’s version of hell, only instead of demons roasting you over a flame, it’s grownups saying “mmm” a lot as they read guidebooks.

Even you’re when actually moving around, visiting temples, museums and other cultural sites are equally dull for kids – and look, I can understand that, I really can. In fact, I clearly remember being frustrated by my parents’ interminable delays when I was a kid. In reality, I probably never waited more than three or four minutes, but at the time, it seemed like an eternity, plus a few extra decades just to really twist the knife.

I am now one of the people inflicting that on my bored nephew and niece, and I’d feel terrible about that except that sometimes I really need a coffee, and hey, they’re only kids.

2) There are a lot of toy stores

By contrast, my nephew’s agenda has the same item at the top every day. We tried to find different toy shops to visit so that we, at least, had a bit of variety, but he was perfectly satisfied by the slightly different configurations of Ninja Turtles and Lego and Ninja Turtles Lego that appeared in every single shop. Until he was no longer satisfied with merely browsing, and turned his mind to adding to his collection. And let’s just say that the message that we’re living in a time of austerity budgets has not yet been accepted by my nephew.

3) There is also a lot to be said about toys

One of the things I really love about spending time with young children is that if they like you, they’re extremely eager for you to share in the excitement they have about things like; oh, let’s say, toys. Entertaining a child requires the grown-up to be able to sustain protracted conversations about things like the Star Wars canon – a subject which, I’m glad to say, I’m relatively well-versed in, especially since my nephew isn’t yet old enough to watch the movies. I haven’t yet introduced him to Jar-Jar Binks, though, because I don’t want to ruin it for him.

4) Getting around is s-l-o-w

One of the really difficult things about travelling with kids is travelling with kids. Long plane rides with limited sleep are my idea of a nightmare, but somehow parents endure this, probably because they think they’re going to get at least an hour or two of blessed relaxation at some point during the holiday that lies ahead of them.

But it’s not just the plane trip that poses challenges – while getting from an airport to one’s accommodation is simple for grownups, it can be a major hassle with young children. Will you get a cab? Does it have child seats? Will all of you plus your luggage fit? Probably not in a standard cab. So, will you get a maxi taxi or a hire car? How do you organise that in a foreign language, anyway?

Let’s say you get a train instead. What if it’s so crowded that you can’t sit down and your kids are howling or wriggling and there are lot of stairs and you have heaps of bags to lug and a portable cot and a stroller and everybody in the train carriage is clearly resentful of your presence? Even getting from A to B can be far harder for parents than I ever realised.

5) But young children are fast

My nephew may not go on to represent Australia in an Olympic sprinting contest, but from my perspective, he can do one hundred metres in the blink of an eye. Or, if I’m slightly more honest, while my eyes are momentarily elsewhere. He has very little fear of the world yet, so if he sees something interesting over yonder, bang – he’s there.

Combine that with the fact that he finds just about everything extremely interesting, and you have a kid who not only needs to be watched like a hawk, but regularly sprinted after. Still, chasing him was the most exercise I’ve had in years, and it turns out that when I’m fuelled by terror at something awful happening to him, I’m surprisingly quick across the ground myself.

6) I am scary

There’s no way around this one: my one-year-old niece finds me terrifying. My all-time record for holding her without her bursting into loud sobs is around thirty seconds, and I think that for 29 of those seconds, she didn’t realise I was holding her. I hope things will improve when she starts talking, but until then, she’s being held by some kind of Godzilla demon.

7) Tablets make great babysitters

What did parents do before the advent of smartphones and tablets, honestly? A little dose of Peppa Pig can transform a restless child almost into a statue. It’s altogether too effective, really – it makes you worry about whether it’s somehow harming the child. Interactive games (which are also available from the Peppa Corporation, fortunately), seem a slightly better option. But I’ve learned that sometimes, the only thing worse than a child staring at a screen is a child not scaring at a screen – and by a considerable margin, too.

8) Try distraction instead of confrontation

I did gain one insight from the trip that may well come in useful if I’m ever a parent myself. Rather than confronting my nephew, I learned that it’s sometimes better to try and be lateral. So instead of saying “no, we can’t go into that lolly shop”, it’s better to instead say “bet I can beat you in a race to that pole over there”. Five seconds later, he’s forgotten about the shop.

Of course, this is simple stuff for parents, and they often have to simply confront a child when they’re doing something they’re not allowed to. But for an uncle, it was quite a neat trick. Maybe that’s why I remember playing lots of fun games with my own lovely uncles and aunts – they were cleverly trying to get me to do stuff.

9) Kids need routine

Especially involving baths, pyjamas and bed. My nephew and niece just had to be back where we were staying by 6, or the whole schedule would get out of whack. By 9, they were asleep and their parents were available for dinner, if we could find a place where we could bring sleeping children. This means that bars, clubs, and pretty much anywhere smoky or raucous was out. I was very grateful that, post-dinner, I could bid parents and kids farewell and head out to some bar or karaoke joint.

10) Having young kids limits your choice of holiday

When kids are incapable of independent movement, it’s not so hard – you can push them in a pram or stroller, or wear them with a Baby Bjorn. But as soon as they’re capable of independent movement, things get far more difficult. As a result, the kind of holiday where you stay in one place and chill out at the beach/by the pool/etc is probably fine, but anything more ambitious is hard. Like, really hard. Just like having children is.

So ultimately I learned that if I want to backpack around Nepal or go on safari in Kenya or learn surfing in the Maldives or anything that isn’t sitting in a resort with excellent facilities for children, I’d better call my travel agent now.

Of men and... makeup

If you ask a management consultant how to grow a business, they'll have two broad strategies for you. (I know this because I was one once, albeit for only long enough to learn how to make PowerPoint slides and drink too many 'bonding' tequila shots.) You can convince your existing customers to spend more, either by increasing their consumption or up-selling them to more expensive products, or you can grow your customer base.

And now that you've read that, I'll be invoicing you for $10,000.

More specifically, if you asked a management consultant how to make the beauty industry more profitable, they'd probably tell you that lots of people already spend a huge amount of money on a great many expensive products, so the best bet for expansion would be to target people who don't currently buy cosmetics – the great unwashed, so to speak – or at least uncleansed, unmoisturised and untoned.

For years now, big cosmetic companies have been doing this by targeting women in developing countries, to whom many household name cosmetics company have the audacity to sell cream that promises to lighten their skin. But there's another group with hefty disposable incomes who could, if successfully tapped, potentially double the size of the markets for overpriced unguents: first-world men.

Now wait just a minute, you might be thinking. Surely men aren't going to buy makeup. Surely they'd be paranoid that people would question their pathetic manhood. And you're probably right, the burgeoning metrosexual plague notwithstanding.

But while we blokes aren't about to start slathering foundation over our sandpapery, pockmarked faces, it's undeniably the case that cosmetics for men are a substantial growth industry. The likes of Clinique, Nivea, Kiehl's and even Tom Ford have been developing their men’s ranges. And it's not just cleanser and moisturiser – they're selling blokey bronzer, and amazingly, there’s apparently a market for facial masks, or even 'masques'.

The golden rule they use, of course, as noted in Drew Magary's recent GQ article, is that they don't call it makeup, which is kind of like how Pepsi helps men pretend that they totes aren't on a diet and drinking lame Diet Pepsi, but instead choose to drink Pepsi Max because of their manly commitment to, um, maximumness.

Honestly – if you're applying skin-coloured stuff to conceal blemishes, it's makeup, fellas. Own it.

As Elial Cruz notes in another article about the phenomenon, cosmetic companies market to men with the same playbook they use when marketing to women. 'All of these products are designed to smooth, cover-up or darken,’ he notes, ‘the implication being you're not tan enough, your skin is not perfect enough.' 'Evenness' is the key buzzword, and amusingly, there’s also a concerted effort to make it look like the fella isn’t wearing makeup.

I can imagine that some female readers may be rolling their eyes and saying – oh, you poor dears, the nasty makeup companies are preying on your low self-esteem? And fair enough, too.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that the impact or experience are comparable with the juggernaut that is the female-centric beauty industry. Not being a woman, I'm in no position to assess its impact – but the attempt to extend these kinds of marketing games to men is certainly new.

But what I am familiar with is the impression they’re attempting to create, which is that the target falls beneath Derek Zoolander's gold standard of being "really, really goodlooking".

Whether or not we are objectively good-looking has little relevance, really – if you feel that you're less than stellar-looking, then you will lack confidence, and be romantically hopeless, and stuck in a vicious circle that makes you a prime victim for unscrupulous pedlars of makeup.

And really, how scummy for a corporation to make a buck by playing on these kinds of psychological vulnerabilities? I particularly object to the idea of bronzer – in an era of widespread melanoma, who gives a damn how 'bronzed' we Aussies are? If anything, a tan should be taken as a sign of foolishness, whether it's because you brave the UV rays or are silly enough to stand in a little booth while a machine sprays rust-coloured paint all over you.

The strangest product of the lot is Clinique's product that hides dark spots. I don't even get what that's for. Freckles? Moles? Post-footy bruising? And then there's the anti-ageing cream. When I want to feel younger, I play video games or watch a Pixar movie. A cream offers me nothing.

But while I resent the idea of concealing imperfections, I am a convert to the notion of skin care. Having (as previously noted) dry skin, I can feel the difference whenever I remember to apply moisturiser, and my adolescent oil-slick of a face would have been far worse if I hadn't diligently applied cleanser every morning during my youth.

And what the hey, I'm man enough to admit that I like it when my skin feels soft and supple to the touch, dammit. So I'm all for a bit of manly moisturiser, and if that helps the areas beside my eyes look a bit less like the dancefloor at the end of a crow-only disco, then that's fine.

But if I was going to begin concealing my biggest physical vulnerability, I'd be investing in wigs rather than skin-toned concealer; or perhaps some kind of portable mirror to make my significantly asymmetrical visage look a bit less lopsided.

Besides, I'm 37, overweight and balding. How good do they think I think I could possibly look?

Then again, many men are all too happy to conceal their hair loss with techniques ranging from chemistry to transplantation, so perhaps the makeup companies are onto something?

So by all means, tell me that your products will make my skin healthier. You can even pretend it'll stave off the ageing process if you like. Just don't tell me I need them to hide the full force of my physical appearance, such as it may be.

Because here's the thing – I am beautiful, no matter what they say. Just like Christina Aguilera, words can’t bring me down.

Or more realistically, I now accept that I'm as beautiful – or otherwise – as I'm going to be, and overpriced cosmetics are unlikely to make a lick of difference.

Ten things I want to see in 'Game of Thrones' Season 4

Today’s the first day of the new series of the greatest television series of all time (if measured by either gratuitous nudity or gore, at least.) So, quivering with anticipation, I’ve put together a wish list of the things I'd like to see in the ten weeks ahead.

Yes, I know these things probably won't happen – naturally, I'm more than nerdy enough to have read the books. But the producers have already taken a few creative liberties with the story – maybe they can take some more?

Note – if you haven't watched to the end of Season 3, there are spoilers below.

1) Bran gets a wheelchair. Disability rights in the Seven Kingdoms are utterly woeful, obviously – but surely a Prince of Winterfell can do better than being carted around by an oaf whose limited spacial awareness means that his charge's head is constantly bumping into things? There is a lamentable shortage of level access in the realm's palaces, let alone the wastes of the frozen North. They have wheels in Westeros, and they have chairs, too. Do the math and put them together, maesters.

2) Summer comes. Weather reports are frequently unreliable in our world, and we have radars and computers and stuff. What if the Starks are wrong about winter being on its way and things warm up suddenly in Westeros as a result of the constant burning of wood, and indeed bodies? Global warning is no picnic, especially when your capital city's built on the water – but it's probably a sensible idea if it puts a halt to that legion of ice zombies from the Lands of Always Winter, surely?

3) Dany arrives in Westeros already. Don't get me wrong, I love the Mother of Dragons, but she's spent three whole seasons mucking around with slaves and revolutions over across the narrow sea. Surely it's time for her to put those dragons and incredibly awesome eunuch troops to work and regain the throne that is kind of hers by right? Surely she won't spend another ten whole episodes stuffing around in the desert, without intersecting with the main plot in the Seven Kingdoms?

4) Sansa's Red(head) Wedding. Poor Sansa. I know she was a twit back when Daddy was alive, but she's suffered enough. Somebody give her some bloody vengeance already. We've already established that in Westeros, there's no such thing as a fairytale princess. As the daughter of two tough-as-nails parents, surely she's got some backbone in there somewhere?

5) Varys gets Theon's spare equipment. We already know it's been sent across Westeros, so why can't Theon's detached manhood be given to the on person in the realm who needs it most? We've already seen that resurrection is possible in this world, at least in part, when Khal Drogo came back from the dead. He was kind of like an unthinking zombie – but whereas that was a tragic shadow of the former Khal Drogo, I doubt Varys would ask any more from his little slice of Greyjoy.

6) Also, Varys gets his own talk show. The Spider knows everyone's secrets, so why not reveal them in public as Westeros' very own Maury Povitch? As a top-rating TV host, he'd be even more powerful than he is now. In particular, all Seven Kingdoms would be sure to tune in for the "Joffrey's paternity test" special.

7) Littlefinger chills out. Okay, I know Westeros is kind of a competitive place and he wants to run everything. But couldn't he just calm down a bit, perhaps with the aid of milk of the poppy? He has a whole bunch of, ahem, establishments in King's Landing – couldn't he convert one of them into a comedy club, and maybe wander around in a kaftan, calling everyone 'man'?

8) Robb Stark: Grey Walker. The Red Wedding was all kinds of devastating. But what if, what if, a White Walker somehow made it all the way south to the Twins and infected Robb Stark? It'd be awesome to watch a reanimated Robb chowing down on Freys, Boltons and Lannisters.

9) The dragons do something. We know they're the ultimate weapon. We know that with just one of them, the Targaryens wreaked havoc on Westeros, uniting all seven kingdoms into one under their rule. With three of them, Dany can clearly win any battle. Having a fleet of dragons is kind of like having ballistic missile-equipped aircraft in the bronze age. They've gotten pretty big now. So, why can't they go and incinerate some Lannisters or something? Or couldn't she  use them to win those interminable wars in the various slaver cities which all seem to blur into one another? Shouldn't take her longer than half an episode, surely?

10) Stannis smiles. Just once, for love of the old gods and the new. Actually, this is probably the most unlikely scenario of all.

What ho, Jeeves, monocles are back!

Apparently monocles are back in. Yes, really. Men, I'm assured, are deliberately leaving the house with a tiny circle of glass chained around their neck so they can squint through it, wilfully ignoring the decades of heady success that the optometry industry has had with stereoscopic glasses.

It’s highly likely that waistcoats and pince-nez are back too, and probably even spats and plus fours, as privileged young men the world over have begun to blow their (parents’) hard-earned income on fashion items that were once found in the voluminous wardrobe of Bertie Wooster, or perhaps even Little Lord Fauntleroy.

This part of the ‘young urban male’ or ‘yummy’ phenomenon, something that definitely exists and is not just one of those awkward media labels written by lifestyle writers desperate to identify a new trend, although it definitely is that as well.

As New York magazine (which is painfully hip itself) aptly put it, “According to HSBC, Yummies – dear God, it hurts to type – are reshaping the retail landscape for luxury goods, thanks to their vanity and penchant for trend-chasing.” We men are all toffs now, apparently. Or at least my fellow fellows with greater wardrobe budgets than I have.

I thought 'yummy' had been already been bagsed for a hideous social trend as part of 'yummy mummy', but HSBC would beg to differ. And it's curious that this phenomenon was first observed not by fashion bloggers combing the neon-soaked streets of Tokyo or the microbreweries of Williamsburg, but by a bank. But then again, who better to identify a trend like this than an organisation with access to millions of credit card statements and noticing a sharp uptick in purchases of pocket watches?

This trend should come as a rather firm riposte to those Members of the Opposition (a group which, for this purpose at least, includes Malcolm Turnbull) who have poked fun at the return of knights and dames is some kind of retrograde step. Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen tried to argue that it was as passé as bringing back vinyl records. Um, hello, Chris, have you not been to a hipster pour-over coffee lounge lately, or a party in a warehouse-cum-pop-up jazz venue? Those places behave as though the compact disc had never been invented, let alone Spotify. 

Perhaps we can blame Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby movie, which was such a remarkable showcase for the wardrobe genius of Catherine Martin. Or perhaps we should put it down to Downton Abbey? Personally, when I watch the Crawleys dining, I tend to think “thank goodness menswear has evolved beyond the dickey”, but clearly some youngsters out there are bent on imitation.

We’ve all heard about metrosexuals, men who pay attention to grooming and wear nice clothes, and let me tell you, that was definitely a real thing. Just go to any university campus and see how well-dressed and nice-looking the fellas are nowdays a far cry from the flannie-clad slobs that were there in my undergraduate days. Why, they seem to even moisturise!

But yummies are taking it far beyond mere metrosexuality. They're buying seriously upscale brands, the kind of thing you might find duty-free in Dubai Airport, and dress as though they were heading to a croquet tournament.

Even so, it’s a fairly big call to say that “Rather than being in a minority, men who buy grooming products to boost self-esteem or feel more attractive are now in the majority,” as the report does. But the true yummy doesn’t just slap on a bit of face wash to get rid of the pimples on his forehead. He gets facials, and often.

Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon wrote a noble piece called ‘Stop trying to make monocles happen’, which like all good articles, references Mean Girls. Even though she was attempting to quash  the phenomenon, she conceded the devastating proof that monocles aplenty can currently be found on Etsy. (But of course they can.)

The other reason I’m inclined to believe in the ‘yummy’ phenomenon is because I have a friend who is at its epicentre. Several years ago, Nicholas Atgemis set up a company to manufacture Italian silk bow ties and sell them online. It’s called Le Noeud Papillon, which is French for ‘butterfly knot’, and is not only stocked all over the world, but has opened a bricks and mortar outlet in Vaucluse. I interviewed Australia's foremost bow impresario exclusively for Daily Life.

DK: Why did you decide to start selling bow ties?

NA: At the time I started making bow ties, the men of true sartorial style, or perhaps one could say ‘Old World’ style, were so few and far apart that they were almost covertly operating like a group of clandestine French Resistance operators under Nazi occupied France. We wanted to change that attitude and to celebrate men who dress well.

DK: Have you seen any evidence that 'yummys' are a real phenomenon?

NA: The word is just a new buzz word… what we are seeing is young men turning to websites such as StyleForum where they educate themselves on the finer points of menswear before they purchase. Then, empowered with greater knowledge from these forums plus numerous menswear blogs which are all very accessible, they are becoming some of the toughest shoppers in history. They know a lot more about fabrics, cut, sewing techniques and above all, they have learnt to dismantle pricing structures which makes them very dangerous. These guys don’t want to pay off-the-rack prices.

DK: Is there a better term out there?

NA: The ideal word for it is ‘renaissance’ men. Because essentially they are re-generating interest in age-old areas such as tailoring and personal grooming. These things existed for my grandparent’s generation but with my parent’s generation everything moved towards the corporation and ready-to-wear/off-the-rack. Now the buzzwords are ‘custom’, ‘bespoke’, ‘hand-made’ and ‘tailored’ – and corporations have cottoned on so now they are using the same language. But what I like about these ‘renaissance’ men is that they are re-birthing old information but also generating new information at the same time. Another word for this phenomenon is the ‘peacock’ and to appreciate this fully you need to watch the blogs which snap the photos of men who turn up to Pitti menswear in Florence twice a year.

Following Nicholas’ advice as always, I looked up Pitti and - whoa. Seriously, whoa.

Nicholas has also at times favoured the term ‘dandy’, and has directed his army of loyal blog readers to helpful coffee-table books such as I Am Dandy, which like all books nowadays, is based on a blog. It catalogues the phenomenon worldwide and features a gentleman somehow rocking off a light-blue suit on its cover. Nicholas himself, I am proud to report, was photographed by its author at the Waldorf Astoria.

Through his blog, I’ve discovered shops like Mr Porter, a hilariously high-end menswear boutique whose website has a section not just for boat shoes, but espadrilles. Indeed, Nicholas' most recent blog post is about a custom-made beaver felt hat that he obtained from Toronto, Canada.

So, young men's interest in fancy accessories is here to stay, it seems. But if you don’t believe that this is really, truly a thing, allow me to introduce further a piece of incontrovertible evidence. King Gee is introducing a range of skin-tight ‘compression workwear’ for ‘industrial athletes’. If even tradies are wearing fancy gear that takes optimal care of their bulging pecs, we blokes really must be becoming dandies.

So make some extra room around that fancy dining table of yours, Crawley family, because the yummies are here. And yes, Mr Carson, of course they are dressed appropriately for dinner at a pre-war stately home.

How to be a knight (or dame) by someone who already is

This week, the Prime Minister announced that he has restored the imperial system of honours – something he was apparently able to do unilaterally, subject to the Queen’s approval, a curious reminder for anybody who might have forgotten that we do indeed live in a monarchy. But it’s been several decades since we last had any newly-minted knights and dames, and those who do still live among us are advancing in years.

Consequently, there are not many people in our community with the suitable heraldic knowledge to induct our new honorees into the chivalrous ways and rich traditions of the knighthood.

Hence, as a proud member of a family who have been Knights for many generations, I proudly offer my expertise to all knights, dames, and would-be knights and dames who might be looking to pull up their imperial socks ahead of the receipt of such a pre-eminent honour.

Consider this advice a grace note, if you will, in our national reaction to the Prime Minister’s plan.

Chivalrous language

Dames and knights must at all times use language fitting of the great tradition that has so honoured them with inclusion. So if you’re an eminent person who thinks you’ve a chance of being recognised pre-eminent, start using words like “vouchsafe”, “forsooth” and “prithee” in everyday conversation. Do not say “mate”, say “vassal” or “knave” as appropriate. And it should go without saying it’s “thou” or “thee”, not “you” (or "youse").

It might help accustom the public to discourse of this nature if senior members of the government set a more courtly tone in public discussion. For instance, instead of saying “This is a bad tax” on the campaign trail, they might choose to say the more formal “Verily this be the most dishonourable of imposts”.

Maintain an honourable bearing

A knight or dame must behave with suitable dignity at all times. In particular, knights will find that the joke "night night, knight" will get old. Nevertheless, knights must grin and bear it as a matter of honour. Trust me on this.

Similarly, dames will soon find that they’ve heard more than enough of the song ‘There is nothing like a dame’ from South Pacific.

Get a sword

Possibly even two. But you definitely need one – for centuries, a sword has been the defining feature of knighthood. In an age of gender equality, it will also shortly become a defining feature of damehood, just as soon as a few dames behead vassals who dare to suggest that dames are lesser members of the warrior class than knights.

A practical tip – when travelling by plane, it’s best to put your sword in your checked baggage. You will fail airport security scans if you try going through a metal detector, and if you behead the impudent dog who dared to try to take your sword from you, as is your undoubted feudal right, you may nevertheless find that the airline refuses to fly you in future.

All tables must be round

If you have a rectangular or square table, dispatch it to the tip forthwith. Or give it to the Salvos Round is the only shape for a knime’s table. Not even oval, as all must be equal when gathering around the festive board.

Well, except that knights and dames are, by their very definition, marked out as social superiors. And at the same time, they are marked out as the inferiors of the monarch. But within the boundaries of the Dames and Knights of the Most Excellent Order Of Australia itself, they are totes equal.

Get a horse

Again, this is a non-negotiable part of knightly life. Even if you cannot ride one, you should walk around holding it by the bridle, lest the peasants laugh at you. Until you can procure a suitable steed, it’s perfectly acceptable to substitute a pantomime horse, if you have two vassals handy to wear the costume. Even a hobby horse or pool pony will do. The important thing is to maintain the equestrian elements of the tradition.

Perform acts of chivalry

Most of those elevated as knights and dames do so already, of course – but there are practical considerations to take into account. For instance, Dame Quentin Bryce has long been known for her array of colourful garments. But because dames, like knights, are required to lay down their coats in mud puddles should the monarch wish to cross them without spoiling their shoes, she may choose to augment her lemon-yellow coat with a Drizabone for such situations.

Choose an appropriate name

Sadly, the lack of dames and knights in recent years has meant that many who might be elevated to the honour have entirely inappropriate names. By way of an example, consider the notion of Sir Shane Warne, or Dame Kylie Minogue. It doesn’t quite sound right, does it? Although, that said, nobody seems to baulk at the idea of Sir Elton John – although his birth name, Sir Reginald Dwight, would be far more appropriate.

Consequently, those who anticipate receiving knighthoods or damehoods might like to pre-empt their pre-eminence by changing their first name to something more appropriate. Lancelot, Gawain or Aethelred will be suitable for knights, while prospective Dames might like to follow the finest monarchical tradition by changing their names to the names of the most acclaimed of the realm’s various queens regnant. You may choose from Elizabeth, Victoria or Elizabeth.

Get into lute music

It is important that all knights and dames become familiar with the courtly arts, and lute music is a very important element in them. Those who have not previously had much experience with the ‘guitar of chivalry’, as knights (well, I) have called it, will be glad to learn that Sir Sting of The Police recently recorded an album of lute music. (Yes, really.)

Defend the realm

The incoming Governor-General, General Sir Peter Cosgrove, has already performed this duty admirably, of course, and as the monarch’s Australian designate he will act as commander-in-chief of the Australian military. However, those without his lengthy and distinguished military experience are nevertheless required to ride into battle with honour when the occasion demands. In this event, it also helps to have a suit of armour handy at all times. Seriously, all times.

Even at a dinner party, anybody who disses Australia or the monarch should rebuked sternly, albeit honourably. You may also wish to unsheath your sword.

Ten things I don’t miss about my twenties

It’s common for those approaching forty to mourn their lost youth. Being extremely common, I feel the same way. Oh, how I miss that time without responsibility, those days without much to do besides the uni work that I could comfortably neglect, and taking advantage of that effortless adolescent ability to sleep in until midday which has now deserted me.

But when I find myself reflecting on my twenties, my memory conveniently wallpapers over what I was actually like in my twenties. What I’d really like, I’ve realised, is to be 21, but pretty much as I am now.

What I want, then, is to be exactly like Zac Efron in 17 Again, but with Matthew Perry’s brain. I’d be happy to have Zac Efron’s level of attractiveness to the opposite sex as well, actually - or even Matthew Perry’s. What I want isn’t possible outside the realms of excessively contrived Hollywood comedies written by people like me who frittered away their youth and are now bitter and resentful about it and spend their writing careers in wish-fulfilment.

So, to try to cure myself of this, I’ve spent a bit of time remembering what my twenties were really like, instead of what I fantasise they could have been like if I had been a completely different person. Henceforth, I will bring out this list whenever I find myself remembering a crucial party from 1998 and wishing I’d been awesome instead of awkward. And if you’re struggling with the aging process, perhaps it’ll help you, too?

Self-consciousness

It’s oh-so easy to forget just how much of our twenties we spend worrying about how we don’t fit in, to the point where it absolutely guarantees that we won’t. I remember standing endlessly on the edge of parties, wondering whether people were judging me for being some loser who stood on the edge of parties. (Answer - no, they probably didn’t even notice, because nearly everyone in their twenties is absolutely oblivious to anyone else they don’t find attractive.) Awful, just awful.

Dancing

This was the peak of my self-consciousness to the point where it deserves a separate entry. It’s so thoroughly essential that a twentysomething be able to dance at parties, and so thoroughly impossible if you’re me, and so bad at it that during my Law Revue days, I had to do remedial classes. Now, I just move vaguely in time with the music, and if I look ridiculous, then I look ridiculous.

And yes, okay, I do still look ridiculous.

Lack of self-awareness

The flipside of the crippling self-consciousness that affects many twentysomethings in social contexts is our lack awareness that we say terrible things all the time. Boastful things, self-aggrandising things, insensitive things. It may be that many of us stop talking constantly about ourselves because we’ve come to realise that we aren’t really all that special or great after all, which is perhaps slightly sad on one level, but if it stops us being just downright terrible pretty much every time we open our mouths, then it’s worthwhile.

Fashion

When you’re in your twenties, you’re expected to be cool. When you’re in your thirties, if anything’s cool, it’s indifference. It’s exhausting having to keep up with the endless labels/haircuts/shoes/cosmetics/bands/shows of which we’re supposed to be partaking. In your thirties, you like what you like, and people who like other things are wrong.

Uncertainty about the future

We probably spend at least one full year of our twenties worrying about what we’re going to do with our lives, as our high view of ourselves and our prospects finally comes into conflict with the reality of the labour market. Our twenties are when we go into jobs we don’t want, quit them to follow our dreams, and then in most cases acknowledge defeat and go back into them. And every step in that process involves many hours of agonising and boring our nearest and dearest senseless, when all they want us to do is just make a decision, any decision, instead of speaking.

Whereas in your thirties, you may well be happy with what you’re doing, and if you aren’t you either change it or make do. You may well have kids or a mortgage and even though we didn’t realise it when we were younger, they tend not to pay for themselves.

Not being able to drive

I could drive by the age of twenty, but I certainly didn’t have my own car. Even when I finally got my own car, I didn’t tend to drive to parties because I wanted to be cool and drink to impress people.

Being broke

I’m keenly aware that brokeness can occur at any age, but one’s twenties are generally our most penniless decade as the parental tap gets turned off and we enter gingerly into the workforce, generally at a fairly lowly level. This applies especially if you live in an expensive city, and applies exponentially, I’ve found, if you have absolutely no self-control and an excessive fondness for gadgets and/or travel.

Sexual inexperience

Okay, so some people know what they’re doing by their twenties… but if you don’t… actually, I think I’m going to finish this one right here, very abruptly. Seems fitting.

Pimples

Perhaps the human body’s cruellest joke is to crater up our faces just when we want them to be as appealing as possible. Honestly, I don’t know why we waste so much time trying to extract oil from the depths of the ocean when our adolescents generate millions of barrels of the stuff every single day. (And they were single days, let me tell you.)

My skin’s transitioned straight to ‘dry’ nowadays without so much as stopping at ‘normal’, but in my twenties it was still a pustulent minefield despite me purchasing a frankly embarrassing volume of cosmetics to remediate it. When I imagine myself being heaps awesome in my twenties, it’s certainly not with the actual skin I had back then.

Knowing better

Ah, the misplaced overconfidence of our twenties, when we know so little about the world that we think we know everything. The one thing it has going for it is that to older people, it’s a little endearing how twentysomethings think the world works in black and white terms and that all they have to say is something like “why can’t we just let all the asylum seekers in” and magically solve complicated debates in a puff of righteousness.

Whereas now that I’m in my thirties, I pretty much do know everything… actually, watch this space for my forthcoming ‘Ten Things I Don’t Miss About My Thirties’ article.

What does your coffee order say about you?

Coffee is an important part of my day. In fact, given the caffeine addiction that delivers an intense headache by midday if I haven't had one, it's an indispensable part of my day.

Like many people, my most frequent order is the takeaway flat white. There's nothing pretentious about a flattie – it doesn't have one of those eye-talian names, for one thing. Solid and dependable, like an old Holden made before they abandon Australia.

But as I've branched into other orders over the years, I've discovered that some coffee preferences draw all sorts of implications about you. If you don't believe me, just try asking a colleague to order you a piccolo latte, and wait for the sniggers.

I've ordered just about all of the following over the years, and experienced various harsh judgements each time. So I've prepared this extensive guide that explains what else you're saying when you ask for a coffee.

MILK DRINKS

Flat white

A cup of steaming baristartery often topped with a little leaf or love heart which is completely pointless when immediately covered by a plastic takeaway lid. The flat white has begun conquering the UK and US, and I’m fully confident it’ll become the world’s favourite morning coffee – the balance between the flavour of the coffee and comfort factor of the milk is perfect to begin the day. I reckon ordering a flat white says nothing much about you except that you like coffee.

Caffe latte

In some parts of the world, a small latte gets you a flat white. But in Australia, a latte is milkier in its composition than a flat white, and often a lot larger in size, meaning that the coffee is diluted and less flavoursome. Most often, you get a glass of warm milk with a tiny it of coffee flavour. Also, after that one time I was in a park in the glitzy Sydney suburb of Double Bay and a woman ran past me in her heels calling after a dog called “Latte”, I find it a bit difficult to order them without wincing.

Piccolo latte

This is the most embarrassing to order of all the drinks, with a name combining the wankiness of a latte with a tiny flute. It’s ironic, seeing as the name is so silly, that the piccolo is one of the best coffee orders. Essentially it’s like a short black (espresso) cup filled to the brim with milk, giving it a strong flavour.

Macchiato

The perfect afternoon booster, a macchiato is just a short black with a dash of milk in it. You need to like strong coffee to enjoy this, so it either makes you seem kinda tough, or an unspeakable coffee snob who’s ordering something that’s meaningless to the majority of people.

Long macchiato

This is slightly different in just about single café – it’s something like a long black with a splash of milk. Quite strong and with an intense coffee flavour. Ordering this is unlikely to draw much of an implication except that you have obscure tastes in coffee.

Cappuccino

This was what I first started drinking in my late teens, and it’s a good entry point – you can eat the chocolate-sprinkled froth with a spoon before you have to tackle the coffee flavour. Drinking cappucinos (cappucini?) suggests either that you’re heaps 80s retro-cool, or still don’t quite like the actual flavour of actual coffee.

Mocha

Whereas ordering one of these says you don’t like coffee at all. I quite like mochas on a cold day, but don’t kid yourself – they’re basically a bitter, stronger hot chocolate.

Cortado

Essentially a three-quarter flat white. Good to order if you want to overtrump a snooty barista, as these aren’t generally ordered in Australia, as opposed to America where they have specially sized cups for them. I’m mainly including it here because I want to show off myself – and because they’re really flavoursome.

NON-MILK DRINKS

Espresso

Also known as the short black, this establishes you as a purist with no time for milk or excessive hot water. This is the kind of coffee people drink standing up at bars in Rome, and ordering it may well suggest that you know this and are a bit of a toss... well, let’s just say, the kind of person who would know that. But many say it’s the best way to appreciate the flavour of different blends of coffee, and I suspect they’re right.

Expresso

Don’t order this – people will laugh at you.

Ristretto

An even shorter black for those who really like it strong, this is another coffee with an Italian name that’ll be incomprehensible to most people. Still, thank you for saving water

Long black

Very flavoursome and generally much hotter than coffee with milk in it, cradling a long black suggests that you’ve got the time to linger while contemplating nihilism and/or Sartre. Or that you don’t like milk.

VARIATIONS

Decaf

One of my friends who drinks decaf is at pains to point out that there is still a bit of caffeine in decaf so it’s not completely pointless. But if you’re an addict like me, it’s a waste of time. (If you’re not addicted to caffeine – what’s your secret?) Sure, people may mock you and call your coffee a “why bother”, but I reckon it’s worth it to avoid that crushing need for coffee that kicks in when travelling and has forced me on more than a few occasions to drink Starbucks.

Soy

Those who drink soy, or "morally superior" milk are, in general, either lactose intolerant or carnivore intolerant. I always thought soy coffee was a disgraceful compromise and would taste disgusting and watery. As it happens, it's nutty-flavoured and rich – well worth trying it even if you like regular milk. But there's no denying that ordering soy says you're fussy - and rich, since you'll be paying at least four bucks for a takeaway.

Half double decaffeinated half-caf with a twist of lemon

LA Story is such a great film. I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what this would actually get you, but as yet, I’ve failed. Nevertheless, I’ll have a twist of lemon.

A fond farewell to my record collection

I can admit now that my CD collection was assembled to impress women.

In my teens, I imagined the unwilling recipient of my latest crush letting her eyes play across the neatly arranged discs in my trendy IKEA shelves, slowly becoming convinced of my exceptional taste.

“You have all of the Cure albums,” she’d say, clearly impressed.

“I’m a fan,” I’d say, hinting at the intense inner turmoil that I shared with Robert Smith. The torrent of powerful emotions churning beneath my cool exterior that, if she chose, she could unleash.

“Is there anything you want to me to put on,” I’d say, really asking if there was anything she wanted me to take off.

“So many excellent options,” she’d say, running her finger tantalisingly across my CD cases. “The Smashing Pumpkins, or maybe the Pixies… hmm, but I’m not quite in the mood for guitars, y’know?”

In the end, she’d opt for one of my highly credible mid-nineties trip hop slash electronica albums, like Morcheeba or Massive Attack or Thievery Corporation. Maybe even Portishead’s Dummy, because we weren’t afraid to confront the sadness of existence itself as our bodies…

Let me be very clear that this sort of thing never happened. I didn’t live an entirely monastic life in those days, although I wasn’t too far off. But whatever strange alchemy attracted the occasional woman to me had nothing to do with my CD collection, at any rate.

And yet I assembled my CDs with a devotion bordering on the fanatical. Even when I had practically no money, I’d buy, say, a rare Clouds mini-album just because I wanted my collection to be complete.

It’s not that I didn’t love the music - I did. I always had a CD on, no matter what I was doing. And I queued to get the self-titled Blur album on the day of release because it came with a free shirt which immediately became my favourite t-shirt. But I wanted my music to do more than just fill my ears with melodies - I wanted it to define who I was, at a time when I really didn’t know yet.

So it was with more than a little recognition that I read Nick Hornby’s brilliant novel High Fidelity at about this time. Hornby’s narrator loves music, but he and his record-shop employees use their arcade music knowledge as a proxy for taste, for coolness, and even in lieu of a personality. Whereas once their ancestors fought one another to demonstrate their strength, they duel to see who has the best knowledge of obscure Clash B-sides.

High Fidelity’s recurring motif is the compilation tape, which was a labour of love back in the era of C-90 cassettes. By this point, I burnt compilation CDs instead, which was slightly less time-consuming but equally agonising in terms of assembling the perfect playlist.

I digitised my CD collection long ago when I got my first MP3 player, and given my love of gadgets, I haven’t played a song off a disc in years. Now I use my phone or tablet to play a song off my hard drive and beam it to my stereo. Or, increasingly, I just play it with a streaming service.

But still I lug my CD collection from one house to another, carefully preserved in a sealed series of plastic tubs. It cost me so much money to put together at a time when I had precious little, and I devoted so many hours to flicking through the racks at now-departed megastores that I can’t quite bear to give them all away. CDs don’t even have the romance of vinyl, but still, even though I objectively have no need for them, I hold on.

A few weeks ago, a film critic friend of mine gave away all his DVDs. I can only assume it was pointed out to him that he’d never watch any of them again, and that in the small apartments we all have to live in nowadays, space was at a premium. He had thousands of discs, and he was giving them away for nothing to his friends, who excitedly promised to come around and scoop up a bunch of them.

As I looked at the photo of his shelf that he’d put on Facebook to publicise the event, I felt a brief flickering of jealously, but it quickly subsided. Once upon a time I would have viewed a man with a collection like that as lucky. Now, the shelves of DVD just seemed like clutter.

I didn’t go around to grab a share of his DVD bounty, because I have my own collection of unwatched DVDs sitting in another series of plastic tubs. More of them are still in their plastic shrink-wrapping than I’d like to admit. Because now, when I want to watch a movie at home, I tend to watch something I’ve stored on my cable box’s hard drive, or pay for a high-definition download. It’s just easier, and it absolves me from the responsibility of building up a collection, hoping it’s complete.

Sure, it’s far from a completely satisfying system. There’s no easy way of watching, for instance, the wonderful Wong Kar-Wai DVDs that I ordered from Hong Kong on eBay. But that’s okay. I don’t seem have that much spare time to watch movies nowadays anyway, and there must be at least fifty on my cable box, just waiting patiently for me to watch them.

Besides, pretty soon Netflix will launch in Australia, and a few similar services are already here or on their way which will let me stream movies to my heart’s content.

It makes me a little sad that the art of collection is dying. That instead of careful curation, we have lazy abundance. Friends sometimes confess that when they log into a streaming service, they’re so overwhelmed that they can’t even think what to search for. And I know those services don’t necessarily have all that much in the way of obscure indie music, or some of the lovely rarities that the High Fidelity characters prized so highly, but with literally millions of songs on offer, even they wouldn’t be stuck for choice.

And if they somehow were, they could just log into Pitchfork’s Spotify app to listen to the new albums that their fellow obsessive tunesnobs are raving over.

These days, I don’t have any groaning shelves of CDs or DVDs, These days, anyone inspecting my apartment will have to be impressed by other indicators of my excellent taste. I may have to impress visitors with my charm, or conversation, or, heaven forbid, perhaps even with who I actually am.

And if that fails - well, I’ve still got a fairly decent book collection.

Twelve ways to celebrate Lunar New Year

It's the Year of the Horse, of course, of course, and Lunar New Year is always a wonderful time to celebrate the many delightful elements of Asian culture that have made their way to Australia. Lunar New Year is celebrated in Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia and of course China (including Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau), as well as across the region where migrants originating from these countries have settled in other places like Singapore and Malaysia.

So, in honour of the twelve different animals that lend their identities to the years on the lunar calendar, I've come up with twelve fun things you might want to do in honour of this equine lunar season.

Admittedly, many of them involve eating, but after all, what better way to see in the Lunar New Year?

1) Yum cha is the best. It would be the best if it was merely a handy service whereby you sat and a succession of steaming hot dumplings were brought to you, without you needing to move. But there's so much more to yum cha than that. Like the barbecued meat, for instance. And those fluffy white pork-filled buns. And the steamed vegetables, and the noodles that are fried at your table, and the other soft noodles that are folded around prawns and pork and, well, everything except chicken's feet.

2) Bubble tea takes iced tea to a whole other level, and mass-produces it in heat-sealed containers of milky goodness that are full of taro balls and other delights. If you don't have a sweet tooth, steer well clear of Easyway, Chatime and the other increasingly ubiquitous vendors, but if you don't mind a sugary, milky tea hit, get into it.

3) Watch Asian movies, especially those from Hong Kong and Korea, which have two of the world's most vibrant, exciting film industries. If you liked Scorcese's The Departed, you would do very well to check out the original, which is called Infernal Affairs. Combining the ubercharismatic Andy Lau with the intense Tony Leung makes for a partnership every bit as good as that of Matt Damon and Leonardo di Caprio in the Hollywood version. Comedian Stephen Chow (Kung Fu Hustle), auteur Wong Kar-Wai (In The Mood for Love) and gangster supremo Park Chan-Wook (Oldboy) are also very reliable.

4) Eating late is easy in Sydney's Chinatown, where the Chinese, Thai and Korean restaurants are buzzing well past midnight. Somehow Peking Duck feels even more decadent at 3am.

5) Banh mi are those delicious crusty bread rolls which betray Vietnam's French heritage, infused with delicious flavours that could only come from the Mekong Delta. Try the original with pork, paté and chili, or the lemongrass chicken and beef.

6) Korean BBQ is sweeping the world, and it's just a matter of time until your local pub copies the genius idea of putting a grill plate on every table. You're given a plate of raw meat, generally marinated, and you grill it yourself. Not only is it fun, but it saves on labour costs and keeps the price down. If you don't know what you're doing, one of the staff can show you the ropes.

7) Fireworks are no longer legal, even in the ACT, but hey – big public displays are always fun, no matter how many times you've seen them before. Most cities have a number of firework displays at this time of year.

8) Lion dancing is great fun, especially for kids. It brings good luck to businesses (and bad luck to your eardrums if you're too close to the instruments).

9) Watching horse racing is a popular pastime in places Hong Kong, home of the famous Happy Valley racecourse, and what better way to see in the Year of the Horse? Just don't bet your shirt, because, well, the house always wins.

10) New Year Cake is a bit of an acquired taste, at least in my experience, but well worth trying.

11) Red packets containing money are traditionally exchanged during new year as part of Chinese culture. It's customary to include notes rather than coins, though, so it can get expensive if you follow tradition and give the packets to everybody! With luck you'll get a few packets back and break even...

12) Spending time with your family is what Lunar New Year is all about. In China, travelling to your home town to spend time with your family is pretty much mandatory, especially seeing as there are a number of public holidays in honour of the Lunar New Year. So if you get together with your loved ones, perhaps over a dumpling or two, you'll be celebrating what's ultimately the most important thing about the festival.

What does Christmas mean in 2013?

Today is the day when billions of people across the world eat, drink, open presents and generally make merry in celebration of Jesus Christ's birthday.

At this time of year, it's common to observe that as with most major Christian festivals, the secularisation of society has made today just another occasion for indulgence rather than anything more profound. Which means that Christmas has largely returned to its roots in the winter solstice and the Roman Saturnalia.

It's ironic that the church's effective early marketing decision to co-opt existing festivals has been turned on its head, as the once-Christianised pagan festivals have been re-paganised by our own indulgent era. But part of me suspects it's a pity that Christmas isn't about anything more than spending lots of money on gifts few of us really need and food that most of our waistlines certainly don't.

Since comparatively few of us are religious, and the tradition has never had all that much to do with its supposed theological theme anyway, what is the point of Christmas in 2013? Given the fuss we make over it, surely it must mean something more than that there’s 24 hours until the Boxing Day Test?

At least when we had Jesus at the centre of Christmas, it was an occasion for gratitude at the benevolence of a deity who provided a get-out-of-jail card for a sentence that he himself had imposed. (I remember asking in Sunday School whether perhaps the death sentence couldn't simply be commuted to make things easier on everyone – apparently that was the wrong question.)

But Christmas, like Easter, has always been a strange hybrid of different festivals. Giving gifts dates back to Roman times – and hasn't got any link to Jesus unless you think he wanted everyone to exchange them as symbolic of his own gift of himself. But surely it belittles a human sacrifice by saying “Just as Jesus gave his live that we might live, I give you today a pair of socks.”

I don't imagine that even the most religious families would suggest that Jesus came into our world so that little Timmy could enjoy his new Transformer Construct-Bot Elite Class Buildable Action Figure. (And given the dark arts of modern marketing and cinema tie-ins, little Timmy perhaps could be forgiven, if the idea of Optimus Prime coming to earth to save us from the Decepticons might seem more plausible than the idea of some Galilean carpenter rocking up for the same purpose?)

The Christmas tree under which Timmy got his toy hasn't anything to do with that night in Bethlehem either, unless you count the token star on top. And don’t even get me started on Santa, whose only real redeeming feature in 2013 is that he’s carbon-neutral.

Jesus himself was no stranger to feasts, and was only too happy to transform a modicum of food into an abundance that could feed a multitude. In fact, Jesus' regular provision of all-you-can-eat buffets may be one reason for his enduring popularity in America.

In my family, Christmas means protracted lunches on both sides of the family, where there are cousins and aunts and uncles galore, and small overexcited children running around. (Now the cousins have started having children of their own, I can’t imagine how overwhelming this’ll be in ten years.)

I was driving back from the first instalment of this on Saturday, full of ham and nibbles and my aunt’s delicious summer pudding, suffering a mild case of sunstroke from having played the usual Christmas sport with my cousins, when it occurred to me that of course, the holiday is ultimately all about family.

That’s what links both pagan and religious tradition — during the winter solstice, relatives came together to eat the unusually abundant meat, and Saturnalia was also an occasion for family feasting, where the masters served the slaves for a change. The Christian Christmas is all about family, obviously, since Jesus is God’s son, and Mary’s, and sort-of Joseph’s, although there are certainly some questions about how that supernatural conception went down.

And let’s not forget that Joseph was only in Bethlehem because he had travelled back to his ancestral home from Galilee for the imperial census – which means that the original Christmas was, as so many of ours are today, a family reunion. (Why Joseph’s rellos couldn’t offer him a decent place to crash isn’t made clear in the Gospels.)

The baby was given presents by the wise men, and by the time you hit your mid-thirties, you soon learn that the presents that matter most on Christmas Day are the ones you give young children. (Which is not to say I’m not thankful for whatever my loved ones have just given me – cheers, loved ones!)

Some things have changed – we no longer follow stars in the sky, but on Twitter, and frankincense and myrrh really have fallen out of fashion as Christmas presents. And fortunately, the advent of the internet has made it easier to find last-minute accommodation than it was in Joseph’s day.

But Christmas, whether religious or pagan, has always been about children and families, and the way we celebrate it today certainly continues that tradition.

I’m always glad my family gets together for Christmas, because otherwise I mightn’t see relatives I’m fond of, but whose live out of Sydney, or have busy lives like mine. We come together and eat, and sing carols, and play sport, and pause to think about where we came from, and how connected we all are.

And we know, I think, that even if we don’t necessarily catch up all that often throughout the year, we’ll be there for one another when it matters. I know not everyone has a family, or gets on with the one they've got. But for those who do, Christmas is about getting together to celebrate that.

I wish the merriest of Christmases to you and yours, as they, say. Now, switch off your computer, or put down the tablet, and go and have some more pudding.

The Godfather

Twelve months ago today, a child was born in the little town of Sydney, Australia. It did not happen in a manger, he definitely had a crib for a bed, and although a bright light was seen in the sky, it was probably just a passing satellite.

There were wise men in attendance, though, and wise women too – neonatal care is wonderful nowadays.

Now this child, whose name was certainly not called wonderful counsellor, everlasting father or prince of peace, and on whose shoulders the government will highly likely not rest (I’m quoting Isaiah via Handel’s Messiah, for you heathens), is almost certainly not the Messiah. Then again, he’s not a very naughty boy.

The parents of said child are friends of mine, and in their wisdom, or more likely in a state of brain-addled exhaustion, they decided to ask me to be his godfather. Secular godfather, to be precise, which is a clear contradiction in terms but increasingly common in these irreligious days. The clarification was probably wise, because I’m not sure I’d be much help with providing thorough religious instruction.

Traditional godparents are supposed to ensure that their godchildren are brought up in the godfaith, and give them godbibles at their godchristening and that sort of godstuff. But even outside the context of traditional Christianity, it remains a rather lovely, life-affirming concept. As I understand it, my job is to take an interest, offer advice, administer pats on the head when required and be available around the clock to post bail, should that be necessary. It makes me kind of an unofficial demi-uncle.

Today was his first birthday party, so I got to show up with a present, eat some cake and be suitably impressed by how well he’s walking. Which is very well, I’ll have you know. I’d put it down to my outstanding godparenting if there was any credible basis for claiming it.

What I like about the idea of being a godparent, though, is the idea of what’s to come across the broad sweep of decades ahead. The prospect that when there are significant events in the life of the boy, or the man he’ll become, I’ll be there to offer a smile, or a kind word.

I imagine us sitting down to have a chat about which high school to go to, uni options, or whether he should marry his partner, or what he should call his firstborn child (Dominic, or Dominique, as applicable).

It’s a genuinely lovely prospect to have a connection purely based on my friendship with his parents in the first instance, and the relationship that started when he was born. I certainly hope it’s a lifelong one, and since I’ve known his father since the age of 11, the odds are fairly good.

Of course, criminals and godfathers have a long association, and although it wasn’t specified, I’m willing to provide those kinds of godfather services if required in future as well. He’s welcome to come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married, if I ever have a daughter, and ask me to do murder for money, for instance. I almost certainly won’t be able to help him, but he’s welcome to ask.

He probably won’t need much criminal mastermind-style help during his toddler years, at least, but if he needs me to organise, say, a hobby horse’s head to be left in somebody’s bed, then I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a theatrical propmaker who can make that happen.

Don Vito Corleone was all about peddling favours to get something in return – as he tells the hapless Bonasera “Some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me.” But true godfathership is a one-way street. You’re repaying the kindnesses done unto you by the previous generation, and that’s all.

I don’t have any godparents myself, although I am extremely well furnished with fabulous aunts and uncles. And most friends who’ve had children haven’t nominated any. But while in today’s society, godparents are more of a nice-to-have than a must-have, they can certainly be useful. I have friends whose godparents have provided mentorship, emotional support, connections which have led to employment and even references in criminal matters on the odd occasion.

I’d be keen to nominate some for my own children someday, but I suspect whose of us who are not eager that our children follow us into organised religion might need to find a different name for the job. If there’s no intention that we teach our godchildren about the role of god, then the term is fairly meaningless.

Perhaps it would be better to come up with a term like ‘godlessfather’, or ‘nonfather’, or ‘sparefather’? And “father” is a little strange as well, now that I think about it, so the way “uncle” is used in an honorary fashion in Asia might be more apt.

Perhaps there’s a term from the corporate world, like associate uncle, consulting uncle or uncle-at-large? Or maybe one from academia, like emeritus uncle?

It’s too early to know what my role as a godfather, nonfather or emeritus uncle will involve over the course of my godson’s life. At this stage, the main thing I have to offer him is this article full of vague good intentions and promises of assistance with pending criminal conspiracies that I hope any future court will assume is a joke.

But I would hope that in the years to come, if he needs anything from me, I’ll be in a position to provide it. We all need support when we’re making our way in the world, whether it’s attendance at school concerts or a godfather who can use his political influence to protect our burgeoning drug trade. And that’s what I hope to do for my godson, until I sleep with the fishes.

I hope Amazon's drones never get off the ground

I love technology. I'm never one to write when I can type, and wouldn't dream of doing analogue what could be accomplished by some fancy gadget or tricky app. Whenever technology is dangled in front of me, I don't just bite, I megabyte.

And yes, I probably should have used a comedy app to find a better joke to put there.

But there comes a time when even a gadget freak like me must use his trendy aluminium stylus to draw a line on his tablet.

And I choose to draw it just short of the point where Amazon.com dispatches a massive army of drones to deliver orders by flying to your front door.

That's right – the world's largest online retailer is seriously pursuing a fleet of airborne delivery copters to cut its delivery times down to thirty minutes, which probably includes the time they'll need to fire missiles at any remaining physical bookstores that haven't already been crushed by Amazon.

Call me a Luddite. Call me one on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or even Google+.* Hey, even app.net if you know what it is, which I mention merely to establish my geek bona fides. But there are so many problems with the drone idea that I don't quite know where to start.

Nevertheless, Jeff Bezos has always been one to dream big, so I guess I shouldn't be afraid to criticise big as well. Here goes.

For starters, the whole thing seems incredibly dangerous. Bezos concedes that they need to figure out how to stop these things landing on people's heads, which is awfully considerate of him. But here's the thing – all vehicles crash a certain proportion of the time, and all electronic devices fail. A crash is bad enough when it's on the ground, but imagine what an airborne drone crash would be like. These things have whirring propellers, and they're heavy enough to do real damage. There is absolutely no way that Amazon can guarantee that these drones will be safe.

I'm going to come out and assert that the acceptable casualty rate so that people can get their crap delivered to them more quickly is zero. If anybody got injured even slightly just so that some lazy sod could get their Kindle delivered twenty-four hours earlier than it would have arrived by road, it would be not only awful, but a massive publicity nightmare for Amazon.

And how do you stop the drones crashing into each other, given how many of them there would be in this scenario? Sensors maybe, but sensors fail. If every company has its own delivery drones, how do you make their systems interface so they won't crash? I know this is being done on the road for driverless cars, but doing things in the air – in three dimensions instead of two – is massively more complex.

Oh, they'll use GPS, apparently. But if anyone's ever navigated via GPS and digital maps, they'll know that the data sets are riddled with imperfections, so much so that they come with safety warnings that say you shouldn't just blindly follow them onto, say, an airport runway, which is where Apple Maps recently directed some drivers. And if human common sense wasn't enough to override those directions, which could have caused a plane-on-car crash, what hope do autonomous drones have?

Then there's privacy. I assume these drones would have cameras on them for accountability, safety and remote piloting reasons, even if they'll largely be automated. Amazon makes millions of deliveries each year – are we comfortable with a private company having cameras absolutely everywhere? What if they monitored competitors – if there even are any left, the way Amazon's going?

And we can assume that the NSA will have access to the cameras' video streams – whether it's legal for it to have it or not. Do we really want flying surveillance robots all over the community, or is that going to happen anyway as we move ever closer to living in a cyber-panopticon?

If the likes of Amazon no longer use them, it's entirely conceivable that existing courier and postage services would go broke, meaning that it was no longer economical to have a publicly-owned post office, which would put thousands of people out of work, and potentially make it impossible for smaller players that don't have access to their own drones to compete. Not to worry, they can all get jobs with Amazon as drone technicians so they can make deliveries from a chair rather than hitting the pavement. Walking is so low-tech, after all. And why leave your house when Amazon can deliver every whim robotically?

But here's my biggest question – how is this even a problem that needs a solution? Are there really people out there who are so frustrated by Amazon's current speedy delivery options, that they are gagging for a drone to turn up on their doorstop within a matter of minutes? Are we so addicted to instant gratification that even an overnight option is just too darn slow?

I mean, toddlers will say "But I want it now" even though something is clearly going to take a little bit of time, like Angry Birds Star Wars II adding another whole free level to complete the ones they've already finished, to choose a not-at-all-random example. But don't we grow out of that? Is patience no longer a virtue in our society, unless you're Amazon and trying to prototype a ridiculously ambitious drone army?

I was glad to see Bill Gates pouring cold water on this bold plan. And this is a guy who knows about being overly optimistic, having backed the Zune.

I do like Gates' idea that drones could be used in disaster-hit areas – you can imagine a fleet of robotic aircraft could swarm out in an area like the Philippines post-typhoon, rapidly getting food to people where roads have been cut off. But that is a genuine problem requiring an urgent solution – unlike, for instance, being able to get your Miley Cyrus boxed set as rapidly as the crow can fly.

Technology can do wonderful things to make our lives better, and Bezos has driven innovation in fields like e-books and e-commerce that transformed our society and economy. But in this particular instance, I very much hope that regulators cut Amazon down.

James and Miranda and looks and stuff

Image: Eva Rinaldi (CC)

Some things are destined to go together, like meat pies and sauce, or pokies and misery. Some things are so closely connected that it's even hard to think of one without the other, like Boonie and his moustache, or Elvis and cheeseburgers, or André Rieu and nausea.

In the same way, billionaires and supermodels are drawn inexorably to one another, much as the media is drawn inexorably to another billionaire, Clive Palmer. Some billionaires get supermodels, while others get hundreds of animatronic dinosaurs – and I think it's clear which offers the more fulfilling relationship.

So it made all kinds of sense when I read that James Packer was dating Miranda Kerr. It might just be the perfect match. After all, they undoubtedly have a great many interests in common, like Miranda Kerr, bikinis, and Miranda Kerr in bikinis.

He's not alone, of course – putting the phrase "Miranda Kerr bikini" into Google gets an astonishing 68 million results, and researching this article is definitely the first time I've ever looked up that phrase.

And as for the other pix of Miranda that come up in Google image search, let's just say that Victoria evidently didn't have much luck keeping that Secret of hers.

The new lovebirds have the town of Gunnedah in common too, of course. I mean, in James' case, it's because his now-ex-wife also comes from there, but still, I'm sure it gives them something to talk about now, and will enable him to continue his begrudging in-law visits into the future.

Plus they both have – sorry, had young families, and now have fragments of young families.

Not that I'm excessively worried about the feelings of Erica and Orlando, who will undoubtedly be just fine – financially, at least. While I've never married a billionaire or a supermodel, I doubt that if the opportunity arose, I'd be expecting the relationship to last forever.

Of course, James Packer may not be dating Miranda Kerr. The reports may simply be scandalous scuttlebutt. But we surely cannot doubt that James is a Miranda Kerr-dating kind of a guy. His dating strategy can be summarised as Australia's Last Top Model. The man updates his models almost as frequently as Apple.

Now let me pause for a moment to say what an absolutely fantastic bloke James Packer is. I feel I should clarify this, because whenever his business dealings are discussed, lots of media people who are far older and wiser than me seem to go out of their way to mention their close personal friendship with and respect for the guy and how they went to one of his weddings and dandled him on their knee and suchlike.

So let me definitively state that I haven't got a bad word to say about the guy. In fact, he's probably one of the most upstanding casino proprietors on the planet.

I've always had a bit of sympathy for James, in all honestly, because any bloke whose dad tried to toughen him up by buying a bowling machine and making him face 110mph full-paced deliveries deserves a break in life.

Although he did get that break some years ago, when his father didn't instantly garrotte him for losing all that money on One.Tel. Had he not been Kerry Packer's son, let's just say the famous phrase "bottom of the harbour scheme" might have had a more sinister implication.

But what's in it for Miranda, besides the billions and guaranteed entry to a forthcoming VIP-only casino she would have gotten into anyway? Some have expressed their shock that Kerr would swap a pretty thing like Orlando Bloom for a fellow who was, being charitable, not exactly in contention to play the yummiest of all the elves in Lord of the Rings.

Well, she doesn't need money, but she might like the idea of lots and lots of money. And besides, James Packer is probably a charismatic, fun guy, the way you can be if you have a massive stash of cash.

And that's the thing about coming from a family like the Packers – James is the kind of guy who's always known precisely which side his bread is buttered on, eaten it and then asked for seconds.

Miranda Kerr dating James Packer seems as much an example of the natural order of things as, say, James Packer getting planning approval for his casinos. Because anyone who's spent any time in a casino knows that the house always wins. And in particular, the House of Packer is not often known to lose.

I would wish James and Miranda every happiness if they didn't probably already have it, according to their own terms. James gets to date a woman whose beauty is world-renowned, even if her "difficult reputation" is too. And Miranda gets a guy who... owns stuff, and will undoubtedly go on to... own more stuff.

Which is a fine thing if you like... stuff.

So here's to James, Miranda, her looks and his stuff. A lasting, loving relationship isn't easy to find in this world. And if yours proves not to be one, breaking up and dating someone hot and/or rich instead is certainly a popular substitute.

The dos and don'ts of office Christmas parties

The silly season is upon us, and of course there are few sillier things you can do than getting together with all the people you work with and becoming so intoxicated that you lose your judgement, and potentially your job.

So how can you have a great time with your colleagues, impress the bosses on whose preference your advancement depends, and keep the underlings who'd just love to take your place the moment you slip nice and downtrodden like they're supposed to be? This guide has all the answers.

DO relax. I'm not saying “definitely have a few drinks” – the constant peer pressure to do that is one of the most pervasive and lame features of Australian society. But it’s supposed to be a party, not an extended whole-of-office meeting. In particular, don’t talk only about work stuff. Yawn.

DON'T drink too much. If you’ve been to a Christmas party before, either you’ve seen what it’s like to be that one person who writes themselves off and has to be put in a cab, or you are that person. Cab cleaning fees are extensive, and it’ll take a long time to wipe off the stain to your rep, too.

DO dance. Don't worry about whether you're good or bad – in fact, it doesn't pay to have extremely smooth moves on the office dancefloor. If you think you look a little ridiculous, just pass it off as a comedy move, and claim that you're Australia's least convincing John Travolta impersonator. Which you probably aren't, because I am.

DON'T dirty dance. You remember that old cliche, "dance like nobody's watching"? Well, it doesn't apply at office Christmas parties. There, you need to dance like everyone's watching, and potentially making a video recording. At best, your drunken antics will make it into an embarrassing videoclip montage; at worst they'll reappear in your disciplinary hearing.

DO dress up. If there's a theme, own it, and if you don't own it, rent it from a costume shop. If you don't, you'll spend the entire party feeling like an idiot and trotting up some unconvincing line you thought of to justify your boring outfit. For instance – if the theme is "Frolics in the snow!", don't think you can get away with wearing a boring suit because you're interpreting "snow" as "cocaine" and everyone knows drug dealers dress as nondescriptly as possible. It won't seem clever, it'll seem pathetic, and besides, how come you know so much about the wardrobes of narcotics traffickers, anyway?

DON’T undress. I really don't think this should need to be spelled out, but certain prominent media figures have run into difficulties in this department on more than one occasion. If you have a recurring issue with indecent exposure, maybe you should stay at home on Christmas party day, having a special Party For One?

DO Secret Santa. It's fun to buy thoughtful or amusing presents for co-workers. If you're going to buy an embarrassing or insulting present, though, remember that secret Santa is only as secret as the person who drew up the list and has probably had three champagnes too many.

DON'T do a Kris Kringle. Getting random presents and shuffling them around so everyone gets one virtually guarantees that almost nobody will be happy with what they're taking home. And shop thoughtfully – remember, if you don’t want the genitalia-shaped soap, nobody does.

DO try the punch. But just a tiny sip first to see how thoroughly laced with spirits and/or Drano it is.

DON’T try to punch someone. See “Don’t drink too much”.

DO have a laugh with your boss. This might take the form of a nice, normal conversation, or maybe even poking a bit of fun at them. They won't mind -–Christmas parties are the one time when they'll wish they were one of the gang and that people weren't forced to be nice to them even if they didn't especially want to.

DON'T laugh at your boss. They’ll remember, especially come performance review time. After all, they didn’t get to be the boss by not being ruthless or bearing grudges. Just laugh at them behind their back the way you usually do.

DO photocopy your arse. This is a Christmas party perennial, and therefore is always funny. If it at any point seems unfunny, convince yourself that you're not so much photocopying your arse as making an ironic comment about the cliche of photocopying your arse at the office Christmas party*.

DON'T upload your arse. The new generation of internet-connected photocopiers are a nightmare waiting to happen. Once your arse is online, being forwarded endlessly around your friends, it will never disappear, and may well end up setting up its own social media. Oh, and a related tip – DON'T accept a friend request from your own buttocks. They probably don't genuinely want to be friends.

DO karaoke. Because it’s the best, and if you follow these rules, it’ll be awesome.

DON’T not do karaoke. Oh, I know not everyone likes it, but in short, those people are wrong.

DO stay out late. Most workplaces don't socialise much, and it's a rare chance to get to know your colleagues. I always feel much more comfortable working alongside people when I've had the chance see them behaving like normal human beings outside of the office. So make sure you enjoy it to the full – it might be your last chance for 12 months.

DON'T be the last one standing when everyone else has had enough. You don't want to be that person who's trying to convince everyone to do just one more round of tequila shots when all they really want to do is go home and sleep. It makes you look like you don't have a home to go to.

* Don't actually photocopy your arse. But Australian Christmas party protocol demands that you pretend this is a hilarious idea, and make lots of jokes about it. Ha!

How is Adam Levine the sexiest man alive?

Adam Levine is the Sexiest Man Alive, according to no less a source than People magazine. I know, right? Adam Levine. Not only sexy, but sexiest. I haven’t been this surprised since I discovered Clive Palmer was actually going ahead with the Titanic II.

If you’ve ever listened to the music of the bizarrely-named Maroon 5 – as opposed to Maroon 8, which would be Queensland’s state of origin winning streak, which I don’t like to talk about – he’s the guy with the voice so high that playing his music to dogs makes them hump the nearest available leg. And who knows – judging by the vote, perhaps it has that effect on humans, too?

Some might consider the Sexiest Man Alive crown somewhat tainted by the fact that Channing Tatum was the last to hold it, but at least he is a lump of prime beefcake, even if his name sounds like some goopy bathroom sealant.

Is that really what it takes to win your affection, women of the world, or at least women who read People magazine? What are we men supposed to do with this information, then? Be more like Adam Levine? Sure, I’d happily duet with Kanye West, and I can sing almost as high, even though in the interests of public safety I generally choose not to.

I can see ‘attractive’, in a boy-crush sense. But sexy? Really? Are the women of America imagining him emerging towel-clad from their bathrooms, squeaking with ultrasonic lust as he caresses them? Do they want to trace the contours of his douchey sleeve tattoos with their tongues? Do they watch his acne treatment commercials (see, I’ve done my Levine research) and imagine his pristine zit-free posterior gleaming in the soft light of a bedside lamp?

If womankind is going to thus honour someone, couldn’t it be someone without sleeve tats, even on purely aesthetic grounds? Football players already have more than enough of them. At this rate every second man is going to face tattoo removal surgery when they hit fifty.

I’ve always found female tastes perplexing. I’m baffled by the collective sighing over Roger Federer, who looks for all the world like a ferret who’s had a tennis racquet surgically attached to his arm. Justin Bieber has always been someone who I imagine women grew out of as soon as they hit puberty, but it appears they’re not. And I know women in their twenties and thirties who sigh over One Direction.

This adoration of Adam Levine has given me flashbacks to Year Six Camp, when we arrived in Canberra for a week of parliamentary elucidation. When we emerged from the bus, the Popular Girls, the ones Everyone had crushes on, had all written "I ♥ BROS" on their pillowcases, betraying not only dreadful musical taste, but a concerning lack of respect for their parents’ manchester collection.

My heart sank as I considered my own thorough lack of resemblance to the blonde, buff Goss twins, and while I mocked their crappy synth-pop like the other boys in my class, inside I wished I was a member of the band so the girls would write my name on their pillowcases.

That was about the extent of my pre-adolescent desires, incidentally - having name my scribbled on an exercise book (not a pillowcase, I’ll have you know) in thick black texta. And maybe going to see a movie like Ghostbusters II together.

But as I’ve wrestled with my confusion and outrage over Levine today – seriously, listen to ‘She Will Be Loved’ and tell me I don’t have a point – it’s high enough to shatter perspex, let alone glass – I’ve found myself conceding that there’s a double standard here.

When the news came through that Scarlett Johansson was officially the Sexiest Woman Alive – and why this stuff even counts as news in the first place is another question, by the way – I have to confess that I just nodded and thought yep, that figures.

I didn’t for a moment ponder what message the Cult of Johansson sent to women. That their voices should be huskier, perhaps, or that they should film lingering shots of their own panty-clad buttocks like the first shot in Lost In Translation? (Which totally counts as arty rather than creepy, by the way, because it was made by a female director.) Does it further the stereotype, once again, all that men really care about is cup size, and thereby fuel the plastic surgery industry?

If blokes get to drool over Scarlett like the guy did in the accompanying interview (which was brilliantly dissected by Clem Ford on Daily Life, incidentally), it’s only fair that we should have to put up with the Adam Levines of this world getting objectified too. Even if that means more photos of Ryan Gosling.

A better option might be to declare a truce, and to agree never to name Sexiest Men Or Women Alive, and to apologise for our past misdeeds. I hereby regret contributing my adolescent saliva to the general fervour about Elle Macpherson. I even regret watching that four-hour-long French film where Emmanuelle Béart is naked because she’s playing an artist’s model and it’s oh such a terribly serious rumination on the nature of art which also just so happened to require the woman of my 16-year-old dreams to get her kit off for like a whole hour.

Mind you, it certainly helped me prepare for HSC French.

Since on all the available evidence, men will highly likely never stop their tacky, icky adoration of the Scarletts and Emmanuelles of this world, I guess I’d better get used to the idea of Adam Levine being upheld as a delicious piece of man-crumpet.

But honestly – couldn’t we at least have given the title to Ryan Gosling? At least he doesn’t sing at a pitch that makes Michael Jackson sound like a bass.

We are all in love with our selfies

When I discovered that the expert lexicographers of the Oxford Dictionary had chosen "selfie" as the word of 2013, as the best possible distillation of all the accomplishments by the six billion inhabitants of planet Earth, as the sum total of all of the staggering scientific discoveries and provocative, ingenious artworks, of all the dizzying glory of capitalism and touching altruism of the charitable; when I learned that all of this splendour could apparently best be represented by hastily-taken, poorly-composed, crassly narcissistic photos of ourselves, I wanted to punch myself repeatedly in the face.

And then take a photo of it for Instagram, because I too live in 2013.

If a picture speaks a thousand words, then a selfie offers a detailed denunciation of our technology-saturated, narcissistic society. My general revulsion with selfies approximates my increasing doubts about the value of social media, even as I progress beyond the 20,000 tweet mark and continue to collect and engage with Facebook friends.

It's not the sociability that makes me cringe - in fact, I find that comforting. Technology tends to alienate its users from human contact with one another, and there's no putting that e-genie back in its web-based bottle, so we might as well take advantage of technology's ability to keep us connected. And I find the endless stream of other people's photos of babies and food and babies eating food bizarrely soothing as it washes over me like the gentle waves in those holiday photos everyone posts of the one day it didn't rain during their holiday in Bali.

The problem I have with social media is how much we value it. Literally, in the case of the recent valuation of Twitter. 99.9% of all tweets are utterly banal, surely - I know mine are - so when you package them up together you have a gigantic mound of banality, the greatest ever produced by humanity. And somehow the sheer scale of this gargantuan, wobbling mound of banality is worth something due to its sheer size and comprehensiveness.

It's though you packaged together the entire contents of the world's refuse in the one giant landfill and somehow convinced the stock market that its sheer scale somehow rendered it valuable.

It wouldn't surprise me if all the tweets and Facebook status updates generated in any average day would exceed 1000 times more words than were contained in the contents of the Great Library of Alexandria, and be 100,000 more times more deserving of disappearing in a huge inferno.

But while tweets have some worth as an aggregate proxy for what the world is thinking about, even if that is Justin Bieber a perplexing proportion of the time, the sum total of the selfies of the world offer very little. Perhaps it might offer future generations an insight into the fashions of our day - certainly it will offer an insight into our endless, facile fascination with ourselves. But mostly it will offer endless examples of the gormless grin and definitive proof that for millions of people, Derek Zoolander's "blue steel" wasn't so much a work of satire as an instructional manual.

What will happen to all of our terabytes and terabytes of storage? Will anybody bother to preserve them once we're dead? The average smartphone-equipped person will take tens of thousands of photos during their lifetime, and while their offspring might select a handful as mementos, surely most of them will never be seen again.

Whereas I can hardly glean any information about my forebears from the few severe, posed portraits that I've seen of them, we are at risk, for the first time, of generating far too much information about ourselves. Whereas our ancestors are tantalisingly mysterious figures, if anything we risk boring our descendants witless. (Apologies in advance to any foolhardy offspring of mine who decides someday to read these columns.)

So if the selfie represents us - and I fear it does - then surely there is very little that can be said in our defence. While this particular set of selfies tells a compelling story about the 2013 election campaign, it also tells us how little Kevin Rudd's acknowledged mastery of social media mattered. His huge number of Twitter followers as opposed to Tony Abbott's, it turned out, was not a proxy for votes.

There's nothing especially wrong with selfies, of course - in moderation. Sometimes they can be a fun record of a moment. But they'll never be exhibited in a portrait gallery, or indeed looked at ever again more than a few days after their creation, when they've dropped off everybody's feed. The problem comes when we treat things that are inherently disposable and valueless as though theymeant anything. Selfies are like the Police Academy movies - there's a great many of them out there, but they amount to precious little.

Which is why they're the perfect proxy for social media and the perfect proxy for this age, in which the value of articles like this one is established by the number of page views, "Likes" and tweets, not by whether they're objectively any good.

By all means photograph yourself and share it online. But let's not kid ourselves that our candid snaps mean much except to us, in the instant of their creation. I like the tweets I've written over the years, but I am well aware that they're of next to no value next to the lengthy pieces of writing that I've put considerable time into. Depth, not abundance, and consideration, not haste, is what generally creates enduring value.

And if you think I'm lecturing you, I took a selfie of myself lecturing you, because I want to value-add to this article and make it a transmedia property. Because that's the stuff that matters most in 2013. Even if I'm far from convinced that it should be.

Dom admits to taking several selfies lately, but only to chart the progress of his Movember moustache. You can donate here.

I was a good reader in kindergarten

I am a good reader. I know what lots of long words mean. Words that you wouldn't necessarily expect me to know, I do, in fact, know. And I can read pretty quickly, too. Because, as I mentioned, I am a good reader.

At one point in my life, it would have been extremely important to me that you knew what an excellent reader I was. I was reminded of this last week, when I attended the final of the NSW Premier's Spelling Bee and ran into Barbara Ryan, one of my old kindergarten teachers from North Sydney Demonstration School who now teaches at St Ives North.

After we figured out the connection, she recounted a story that has had me laughing and wincing ever since. Apparently when I arrived at kindy, she gave me a standard-issue reader, and asked me whether I read books.

My reply was "I don't read books, I read encyclopaedias."

Yes, apparently that really happened.

Now, there are several things wrong with this. Firstly, clearly, that was utter bollocks. If anything, I occasionally read encyclopaedias alongside books. Books undoubtedly made up by far the majority of my reading diet. I probably glanced at an encyclopaedia once and wanted to boast.

It's also possible I'd been reading Encyclopaedia Brown and thought, incorrectly, that he was a heaps cool role model. Being a guy who was such a know-it-all that he was nicknamed ‘encyclopaedia’.

The broader problem here, of course, is what an arrogant little brat I must have been. While five-year-olds generally get a lot of latitude for cuteness, that is a monstrous little ego on display right there. If I was like that, it's no surprise that the odd bully decided to try to take me down a peg in later primary school years. Frankly, I can see their point.

Of course, anyone who needs to constantly and abrasively assert how smart they are hasn't managed to learn much about how society works. Anyone who's a bona fide genius presumably learns how to dial it down so that the rest of us normal folk don't openly despise them.

Clearly, though, at five I wanted people to think I was precocious so badly that the more important question of whether they thought I was a massive pain in the neck mattered relatively little to me.

What would no doubt have shocked the five-year-old me, though, is that the "good reader" concept is one that really doesn't have much currency beyond primary school. When you're growing up, you're constantly being benchmarked against everyone else who's the same age in events like the MS Readathon. Which I totally crushed, by the way - and, I regret to say, not out of a desire to advance research into a debilitating condition.

But, as I wish I could go back and tell my infant self, after the HSC, that benchmarking thing never happens again. Once you achieve adulthood, you're competing for actual achievements.

That is, if you're competing at all - in itself a fairly pointless and self-defeating exercise, in many respects.

Here's the thing I didn't quite realise - nearly everybody learns to read. Some struggle to achieve literacy in adulthood, which is most unfortunate, but the reality is that the ability to read an encyclopaedia is nothing special in the long term.

What I didn't realise about being precocious, as I so desperately hoped I was, is that it means you have a lead in a race where the only thing that really matters is getting there in the end. It’s like those early leaders in the Melbourne Cup who often fade away - there’s no prize for being the first after 500 metres.

Perhaps I could write stories with long words in them at age eight, but when you're an adult, all that matters is whether the stories you write are any good. And that's a far more difficult, and far more important challenge.

I see some of my friends with young children falling into the same trap of valuing precociousness. Some toddlers can speak in complete sentences remarkably early, but only very few of us never gain the ability to do that. Some kids grow big quickly, some can walk before others. And I know other parents who worry because their own children are behind others in their childcare group with things like toilet training. Well, we have plenty of years of being able to use the toilet by ourselves, and then most of us end up in nappies again in the end anyway.

Being supposedly ahead of the curve can also create extreme, unhelpful pressure ahead of things like the HSC. And being good at school, doesn't necessarily mean you're good at dealing with stress. Some people I know who've been successful in adulthood were precocious at school, but many weren't. And many early, bright stars fade out. I wish I'd known in my own schooldays that 'success' has many definitions, and that achieving happiness on your own terms is a more worthwhile goal than ticking off things that society tells you are important.

For the record, I no longer read encyclopaedias. And of course, in 2013, encyclopaedias have been superseded, and I can tell you that five-year-old Dom never saw that coming in any of his fancy long-worded books.

I do, however, read for pleasure nowadays. And if I see a word I don't understand, I look it up in a dictionary, and draw no conclusions about my own cleverness from the size of my vocabulary.

And when I attend an event like the NSW Premier's Spelling Bee, and it occurs to me that I might have done well at it because I was a good speller back in primary school, I try to slap what remains of my five-year-old ego down, and tell myself that in an era where everybody types on machines with inbuilt spellchecking, one's spelling ability is of extremely limited use.

What ultimately matters in life is which words you choose, and what you try to accomplish with them, not how long they are, or whether they’re spelled correctly. And that’s something you won’t learn in an e-n-c-y-c-l-o-p-a-e-d-i-a.

Dating sucks. Just ask Stephen Merchant.

Dating is hell, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. If you don't believe me, remember Sex & The City, a warts-and-all portrait of the relentless New York dating scene that seemed to me exactly like the deepest pit of Hades, only with better footwear. I assume Manolo also produces a cloven-hoof range for the afterlife.

I've never been able to understand those serial daters who flit from romance to romance like bumblebees buzzing from petal to petal, spreading STIs in lieu of pollen. It's hard enough trying to find someone who's single, tolerably nice and over their last failed relationship/s, let alone facing the near-impossible challenge of trying to convince them that their lives would be improved with you in it.

As someone who doesn't immediately assume that women I meet must have a me-shaped hole in their lives, I've always struggled with the challenge of hooking up, and have always resented those dudes who seem to be instinctively good with women.You know, those guys who, on arriving in any room, can simultaneously make every female heart flutter, and who collect phone numbers like I once collected episodes of The Late Show recorded onto VHS.

I know I'm not the only one who has struggled with dating, not least thanks to this article in the paper this week about George B. Green’s book offering dating advice for beta males. As one who's generally been only too happy to step aside for the alphas to get first dibs as per the natural order of things, resigning myself to offering a shoulder to cry on when alpha-guy had inevitably moved on - at least partly in the hope that the shoulder might prove more enticing than the lady might have been expecting - I would have enjoyed reading about others' experiences.

Or, more accurately, inexperiences.

The book does sound a little problematic. But that’s inevitable - after all, as we're painfully aware, we betas are flawed. In particular, Green’s suggestion that you memorise jokes seems lame even by beta standards. My approach has always been simply to make jokes at my own expense. That way everyone will laugh with you, instead of at you, even though they are technically also laughing at you.

That awkward divide between laughing with and at somebody is one that Stephen Merchant explores in his new HBO comedy series Hello Ladies, which is screening on Foxtel. As co-creator of The Office with Ricky Gervais, drawing humour from agonising social awkwardness is familiar ground for him, but I have to say that at least half of my laughs came from embarrassing recognition rather than the script.

Asking a mutual friend whether someone's been talking about you and refusing to take their gentle hints that you should give up, because they're out of your league? Yep, I’ve done that. Finding yourself buying drinks for everybody instead of just the person you're interested in? Check. And retaining impossibly high standards even when there was no chance of getting anywhere? Story of - well, a large part of my life, at least.

Assuming that riding in a stretch limo would lead to action? Been there, too. And driving a fancy convertible and mentioning it constantly to ladies in the hope that they'd be interested in the car, at least, even if not with me? Maybe if I could have afforded a convertible as nice as his. And driving home alone, feeling glum as yet another night of potential translated into nothingness - well, I've been there more times than I could count.

George B. Green should watch it too, I suspect - especially since there's one episode where Merchant tries to memorise jokes, with results that it would be charitable to describe as mixed. I'm sure that on watching episode four, he'd find himself revising his book.

Merchant's character is pathetically desperate and deluded, and uncomfortably so, but he's also got elements of David Brent-style obnoxiousness in the mix as well. He's appallingly cheap -a highly unattractive characteristic in anyone - and highly crass. I don't know that the character needs it, because it makes him a bit less endearing.

But Merchant pulls it off, because - well, he's Merchant, with his tall, thin figure, disconcertingly-parted hair and a goggly smile that veers between comical and terrifying. Some day, somebody will cast him as a serial killer, and he'll win an Oscar. But in the mean time, he's made a very funny comedy series, even though I can barely watch it because of the amount of shameful flashbacks I experience while watching.

As for beta males - as awful as we can be, Green makes a compelling case for dating us. Apparently we "make better long-term partners due to [our] caring nature and increased capacity for empathy". In other words, having been shat upon repeatedly by life, we're more able to relate to others when it happens to them. In still other words, the truth is that we're generally desperate, and consequently grateful when anyone takes a chance on us.

As for Stephen Merchant - well, he was dating Rose Byrne, at least at one point, and is now a TV star. So while he still plays a loser on-screen, he is nevertheless a hero to us betas everywhere. He shows that all you have to do to date a Hollywood actress is create several of the funniest comedy series of all time, and then star in your own show. Which is challenging, I've no doubt. But he probably found it considerably easier than asking girls out.