I GOT A CHOPPING BOARD — SO I CUT HIM OUT OF MY LIFE
Jenni Murray, broadcaster
AN ExERCISE bike for Christmas? What sort of husband would dare deliver anything so insulting?
Maybe it would have been rather more appropriate if he had noticed his own physique had gone beyond its best and simply bought it for himself.
I would never have forgiven my husband if he had done such a thing. Just as I never forgave the old boyfriend I had adored for a short while in my late 20s when he made a similarly infuriating offering.
He was handsome, charming, attentive and very funny, but not too well versed in the sexual politics of the time. It was the lateSeventies, when everyone was talking about feminism and the new roles of men and women. Everyone but him.
His gift was large, rectangular and heavy. Would it be a beautiful book or a lovely painting? No! I tore off the wrapping paper to discover a huge wooden chopping board. Worse still was the explanation that it was to ‘enhance your skills in the kitchen’.
He never got to experience my culinary talents again after that Christmas. I had him out the door before the New Year!
be the thin end of the wedge, and that in no time at all he would be supplying me with a gymslip, a sexy nurse’s uniform, or a burlesque corset.
(Actually, the corset I wouldn’t mind so much — I once had a lesson in tassel-twirling, though I kept my cardie on.)
I do feel for people whose partners don’t know them very well. I am told that men suffer similar teeth-grinding moments when presented with a Bullworker bicep-trainer or muscle-vest.
Worst of all, I suspect, is to be given some hideous game, hobby or experience that only the giver wants. Just check in advance before buying that rather cumbersome StairMaster . . .
Thankfully, my husband, Paul, is irreproachable and never puts a festive foot wrong.
Needless to say, Mr Denim Knickers and I split soon after. Good riddance!
HIS ELECTRIC BLANKET DIDN’T WARM MY HEART Bel Mooney, author, journalist and Daily Mail advice columnist
I’ve never been given a really sexist present — but there was one unromantic one which made me scowl on Christmas Day.
I must have been 25. The parcel was large and exciting. But my trembling fingers unwrapped . . . an electric blanket.
My (then) husband Jonathan beamed eagerly and said he knew I wanted to be kept warm. Warm? All a 25-year-old woman needs to keep her warm in bed is her loving man!
It must be said that I had married a generous, loving guy. Usually he did just fine. But the more I gazed at the salmon-pink thing encased in plastic packaging, the more it blanketed my spirits in gloom.
Somehow it symbolised the domesticity I had willingly embraced when I married at 21. Who made the bed every day? Who took our sheets to the laundry, then ironed them? Who had sewed the bedspread and bedroom curtains for our first rented home? Who always remembered to fill the hot-water bottles? Me, me, me!
He must have seen through my robotic ‘thank you’, because he never made a mistake quite like that again.
In the 35 years of our marriage, I received wonderful gifts: pictures and other artworks, lovely jewellery, fine books, a dress bought in venice, knitwear I’d admired in a shop window, a trip on the Orient express. I have no complaints.
And, these days, an electric blanket is one of the most important things in life. After all, neither jewellery nor books can keep a gal warm through winter.
THE SAME PRESENT AS HIS SECRETARY!
Esther Rantzen, writer and presenter
My lATe husband, documentary-maker Desmond Wilcox, used to give me the most marvellous sexist presents — so generous that I forgave the sexism and was thrilled. (I categorise them as sexist because they were so extravagantly over-the-top, no woman would risk giving them to a man — it would offend his machismo too much!)
For instance, one year, Desi hired a plane to circle our home with a banner inscribed: ‘Desi loves essie.’
lovely — except that the pilot circled the wrong house.
The sexist presents I did not forgive were the mean ones I was given years before I met my husband.
I was very young and working as a sound effects assistant when I fell momentarily in love with a radio producer who was the worst present-giver in the world.
One Christmas, he opened his desk drawer to reveal two identical packages, one for his secretary and the other for me.
Mine contained lipstick and nail varnish in the most unflattering shade of deep purple. I hope hers did, too.
The following Christmas he gave me some appalling transparent red nylon knickers embroidered: ‘No, no, no.’ A friend sug-gested I add another ‘ No’ and return them.
So, cheap and sexist, unforgivable. But generous and sexist, we will tolerate.
As Zsa Zsa Gabor once said: ‘I never hated a man enough to give him his diamonds back.’
ELECTRIC MASSAGER THAT SIMPLY SAVED HIM A JOB
Linda Kelsey, author and journalist
My SexISM radar is finely tuned, but I must confess I’ve always been thrilled with gifts of a domesticated variety.
That doesn’t put me in the category of little woman or surrendered wife, it just lets everyone know what I desire.
This year (in case anyone is stuck for inspiration), if Jamie Oliver’s new vegetarian cookbook, some super- sharp Japanese kitchen knives, a large, white, oval platter to replace my chipped one, and some tea towels from Williams Sonoma — on which I’ve had something of a crush for 20 years — should appear in my stocking, they would go down very nicely indeed, thank you.
There was one present, though, from years back, that I remember with distaste. It was a gift from an ex of mine who used to give really lovely shoulder massages. He had truly healing hands.
One Christmas, however, he bought me a hideous, battery- operated thing similar to a long-handled back brush, only with a vibrating pad at the end rather than bristles so I could massage my back and shoulders myself.
The underlying message, as I saw it, was that he could no longer be bothered with the job — or me.
Of course I thanked him, but the death knell for that relationship had been sounded. We were over before the tinsel was up the following year — and the massager never made it out of the box.