‘Metrodaddy’ Mark Simpson on the evolution of male vanity (Originally appeared in The Daily Telegraph June 10, 2014 – with a title I did not choose) In a development which will probably have him running to the mirror yet again to search anxiously for lines, this year the metrosexual leaves his teens and… Read More »From Metrosexual to Spornosexual – Two Decades of Male Deliciousness
Maybe I suffer from what Freud described as man’s tendency to devalue what he desires, but I find anything touched by TV survivalist Bear Grylls’ calloused-but-manicured hands difficult to take too seriously. But taken seriously he most certainly has been by the UK media with his currently airing C4 reality show The… Read More »‘Bare Thrills’ Strips Masculinity Down To Its Skidmarks
2nd gen metrosexuals are coming & this time it’s hardcore by Mark Simpson What is it about male hipsters and their strange, pallid, highly ambivalent fascination with bodies beefier and sexier than their own? Which means, of course, pretty much everyone? You may remember last year that last year the… Read More »Meat the Spornosexual
From the gender-bending antics of Eurythmics and Culture Club, to the propulsive synthpop of Depeche Mode, New Order, and the Human League, was there ever, asks Mark Simpson, a more spectacular time for pop? In 1983, the year that McDonald’s introduced Chicken McNuggets and the second Cold War was at… Read More »1983: The High Summer of (Synth-)Pop
Mark Simpson goes on a road trip connecting four countries: England, Scotland, the UK – & Yorkshire What’s so ‘Great’ about ‘The Great North Road’? Better known in our more impatient era as the A1? Well, if you’re unfortunate enough to find yourself in the south, it takes you to the… Read More »A1 Love – The Greatness of The Great North Road