Does any chap need Heston’s £799 BBQ?!
When I see Christmas gift guides for men — all those tool sets and rucksacks and brogues and corkscrews — I start wondering whether I really qualify as a man.
‘The Ultimate Gift Guide For him’ ran a headline in one newspaper last week.
Beneath it was a list of 25 items that, once the giver has departed, seem destined for the furthest corner of the kitchen drawer or to moulder in a cardboard box at the back of your garage, along with that scratched CD of now That’s What I Call Music 25 and the Breville toasted sandwich maker you were given as a wedding present but only used twice.
Take ‘Classic car biscuits’, for instance. You might think that these were ‘classic’ biscuits — hobnobs, chocolate fingers, ginger nuts — intended for eating in the car, but they are, in fact, something even less necessary: biscuits shaped like classic cars, packed into a tin with a sports car on the lid, and all for £45. Who wants a biscuit shaped like a classic car? Given the choice, I would rather have a classic car shaped like a biscuit.
Inevitably, the ultimate guide recommended two different types of toolkit. One was a ‘stainless steel manicure set’ which, from the photograph, looks like a Victorian surgeon’s bag, packed full of implements — knives and pincers and scissors and forceps and sharp- ended things — that look as though they might have been used for extracting confessions from tongue- tied witches in the 17th century.
I know that ‘male grooming’ is all the rage, and obviously in these enlightened days none of us should go around looking like the Yeti, but is there a man alive who really needs 18 different metal contraptions to help him prod and pull and pince and poke before he feels able to leave the house?
The other tool set — the nappa Dori Leather Toolkit — is said to be ‘handcrafted in genuine harness leather’ and certainly looks rather stylish. If you had ever asked the late Karl Lagerfeld to fix your kitchen sink, then this is undoubtedly what he would have brought along for the job.
It comes with all the basic implements — a hammer, a pair of pliers, a choice of six spanners, etc — that you could buy for a few pounds from any hardware store, but its fancy packaging boosts its price tag to £185.
expensive wrist-watches tend to feature heavily in these Christmas guides for men. At the age of ten, I was given a wrist-watch. I wore it for a fortnight before losing it, and I have lived perfectly happily watch-free ever since.
So I speak from experience when I say that there is no need to wear a watch, and certainly no need to wear an expensive watch. If you must buy a watch, then here’s an exclusive tip: cheap watches tell exactly the same time as expensive watches but cost much less.
Sir Mark Thatcher and Prince Andrew both wear expensive watches; Prince Andrew apparently ‘boasts’ a collection including several Rolexes and Cartiers, a £ 12,000 Apple Watch and a £ 150,000 Patek Philippe. It all goes to show that an expensive gold watch says a lot about you, and what it says is: ‘I’m a spoilt wally.’
expensive sunglasses also have the miraculous ability to transform an ordinary looking man into a narcissistic buffoon.
Just as ‘boutique hotel’ generally means ‘poky guest house with a chocolate mint on the pillow case’, so the expression ‘luxury brand’ means ‘just the same as you’d get at Lidl, but in flash packaging’.
One ‘luxury brand’ item I dread getting is ‘ everdure by heston Blumenthal’, billed as an ‘electric ignition charcoal barbecue ... you’ ll love the simplicity and style’. This begs the question: what’s wrong with a stylish and even more simple match?
The ‘everdure by heston Blumenthal’ barbecue in the guide costs £799, which is roughly £795 more expensive than a throwaway barbecue, which does the same job, though without the ‘sleek, sturdy legs’ and the ‘ elegant freestanding pedestal’.
Leather driving gloves (£49), a cheese knife (£21), a matt black electric scooter (£1,599), a Lego Collector’s Model of a Jeep (£160), a Paul Smith Robot Key-Ring (£90). has being a man really come to this? If so, I may well put a luxury boutique gender reassignment top of next year’s Christmas list.