“We hired a helicopter, we got hold of a sniper rifle, we shot radioactive wolves…” Writers at loaded magazine used to pride themselves on their wild gonzo journalism and madcap antics. It was, as founding editor James Brown described it, …
The men paying to be taller
When Ryan* arrived in Istanbul he was 5’7” — but when he returned to the UK he was 5’10”. By having his legs surgically broken and then extended at the glacial rate of 1mm per day, he had achieved his …
The male baldness industrial complex
Shakespeare had it wrong: uneasy is the head that wears no crown. Because from Samson onwards, men have feared losing their hair. It’s something to do with ageing perhaps, a sense of retreat or fading virility — though for decades …
The benign bullshit of Arnold Schwarzenegger
I’m not a fan of self-help books. Their prose ranges from dully functional to the equivalent of a hot-breathed salesman prefacing every sentence with your Christian name. Most of these books are based on the experience and expertise of their …
The reason lads want Joe Rogan
In terms of scale, there are podcasts, then there is The Joe Rogan Experience. The difference is an order of magnitude. If The Joe Rogan Experience were a pop single, it would make Bryan Adams’s monolithic 16-week stint at Number …
Why men need bad-boy literature
In so many ways, the “crisis of masculinity” is a crisis of imagination. We have a vivid, if generalised, image of its victim: the lost boy of modernity surrounded with his clichés of video games, online porn and Jordan Petersons. …
LadBible has dumped the lads
“Thou shall covet thy neighbour’s breasts.” “Thou shall always drink more than you can handle.” “Thou shall specialise in creating and distributing exquisite banter.” “Thou shall share hot Milf with friend if opportunity arises.” “Thou shall always prefer Pippa to …
The Luton estate that made Andrew Tate
Two years before the Tates moved to Marsh Farm, there was a riot — followed by a rave. It was July 1995: a summer of drought, Tory civil war, and three nights of anarchy on an estate in Luton. After …
Who is the asshole?
Consider famous moments of moral crisis throughout the ages, real or imagined. Peter denying that he knew Jesus before the cock crowed, say; or Jean Paul Sartre’s former pupil in Existentialism Is A Humanism, torn between joining the Free French …
The sexual holy war is coming for you
“Children in their games are wont to submit to rules which they have themselves established, and to punish misdemeanours which they have themselves defined.” Thus did Tocqueville marvel at Americans’ habit of self-government, and the temperament it both required and …
Could you beat Elon Musk in a fight?
It never ends well when the geek humiliates the jock in high-school films. One minute the bespectacled boy is running rings round the football star in algebra class; the next, they’re in the playground, and the smart kid is getting …
What does Caitlin Moran know about men?
It’s a brave soul that dares offer advice to the opposite sex these days. Women authors tend to stick to listing men’s flaws so that female audiences can enjoy the resulting catharsis. Men are pretty much banned from making any …
Is Donald Trump a werewolf?
Is Donald Trump part werewolf? Perhaps so, according to a remarkable little paper published in 2017, “Donald Trump, Werewolf Spawn?”, by Kevin D. Pittle and Nicholas A. Hopkins. The authors speculate, on the basis of inconclusive but interesting evidence, that …
How women colonised yoga
Last year, my husband and I got into a curiously heated debate, along with two other couples, about whether or not it is manly to eat fruit. A surprising consensus emerged among the men, that fruit was categorically feminine. The …
The Taliban’s lessons in masculinity
During the US evacuation of Afghanistan, as the mainstream press argued about the fate of translators, or the evacuation of Pen Farthing’s dogs, the online Right had fun tweaking progressive noses by cheering on the Taliban. The return of veiling …
