Gliding through life isn’t easy for a man of the 21st century as there are so many things you need to know and a number of tricky situations you have to handle on a daily basis. That’s why you need to be prepared for whatever life throws at you and overcome all obstacles. Here are five important life hacks every man should master if he wants to win every single day. Get a Proper Shave Going to the barber’s and getting a professional shave is amazing, but that’s not something you can do all the time. And if you have to shave morning after morning, there’s nobody else to rely on but yourself. The problem with razors today is that there are too many choices and you can’t be sure what will work for you. Everyone has a different skin type and not every man can use all razors, so you need to find the one that suits you the most. Once you do, all that’s left is to decide whether you want to shave your face or grow facial hair. Cook a healthy meal Going to restaurants and sticking…
Despite popular belief, men aren’t as strong and indestructible as most of them would like to be. Once you reach a certain age, your health starts deteriorating and you’re experiencing more and more problems in all aspects of your life. In order not to let things go too far, you should act on it and solve your problems one at a time. It’s important to talk about these issues and let everyone know them, which is something the media doesn’t do – they still prefer to portray men as strong individuals with no health issues. If we want to shift the paradigm, we need to address these topics and talk about them more often. Therefore, here are some of the most serious men’s health issues media ignores, but you shouldn’t. Depression Despite being strong, brave and powerful, men also feel down from time to time, no matter how much this may sound peculiar to some. Depression is one of the most concerning problems of the modern era and it affects both men and women, regardless of their age. Men actually react to depression quite differently and some of the things…
While the rest of the world focuses on building their stamina, pumping up their muscles and getting ripped, why don’t you try shifting your attention to other issues? Not enough people spend time developing their mental health, which is probably the worst thing they could do in this day and age when everyone’s working hard and spending their days totally stressed out. And if you add insufficient amount of sleep and unhealthy diet to this equation, you end up with more problems than you could’ve imagined. That’s why it’s important to work on your mental health and boost it as much as possible. Here are three ways to do so efficiently and skilfully. Talk to someone This may sound like the most generic advice out there, but it’s actually one of the best ones in the world. If you’re feeling down, stressed, aggravated, depressed, hurt, angry or mentally shaken in any way, the best thing to do is talking it out with someone. Picking who you talk to isn’t that important – the list is quite long and includes everyone from your friends and family to total strangers, priests and…
I was commissioned to write a piece on shaving for a grooming brand last month. Unfortunately it didn’t quite fit the bill, so have subtracted the mention of the brand, and am just sharing a shaving related anecdote. The razor pictured is from Harry’s and was gifted. Harry’s did not pay or commission this article. A quick history on how I got into shaving.. Zanzibar Club on Seel Street, Liverpool in the late 90’s was the dwellings for sullen hip students armed with Daddy’s money and a fervour for cheap indiscernible cocktails. You could barely hear over the live band, that sounded great by the way, all the time. I remember Penny, she was long faced, matriarchal and cut a melancholic shape, apparently she carried a secret that gave that justified that shape and then some. Nonetheless she was the apple of my eye, a girl I could fix, we could be interminably miserable together for the rest our lives and spawn miserable wretched children. That particular night she had subjugated myself and another student, whose name I forget, but shall call Charles. Charles was also bidding for her affection and between us,…
“Little Nelly got a hot reception. Four big shots made improper advances toward her, but she defended her honour with great success.” Bond, You Only Live Twice. I un-pouched TheArsenale from it’s bubble wrap cocoon. It had some weight, coated in black tactile alcantara. As I flipped through the pages, notes of linseed oil, maybe a dusting of teak hit my register. I stopped on a page about a DS designed UFO. I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with the thought of being abducted by a Citroen. But then, how narcissistic to think anyone would want to abduct little old me. I could only imagine the sweet sigh of disappointment when presented to the king bee on the alien mothership. Not handsome enough of a specimen for the super galactic keep-net. Plaintively he would wave me off with his long green fingers. Dismissively, I’d be disgorged and thrown back to the Oxmoor estate where I’d spend the rest of days telling tales to the locals of The Lord Protector how I was ‘taken’ … by a Citroen. Sorry what the fuck was I talking about? Ah yes, The Arsenale. The almanac on independently designed…
Aesop are coming up to a 30 year anniversary, so come April your column inches will be besieged with all things Aesop. How they build their shops taking the natural environment into consideration. I had something of a guided tour in their store on Marlyebone. The walls unadorned, the shelfs meticulously stacked with products such as Mouthwash (£15 a bottle) and some ointment or other that you put in the toilet to knock out poo vapours. I had my hands massaged with mint moisturiser and coconut balm. If only the guys on the building site could see me now, I thought. They’d mock the scent of citrus and cloves that have overpowered the smell of shit emanating from the cubicles. I would be ex-comminicated, forced to eat lunch in the car, my now lavishly smooth and odoriferous hands, quarantined. I’ll be talking more about Aesop in some upcoming features, but for now. Here are some pictures. Yes you heard right, £15 for mouthwash.
Artful Badger return to the VAULT Festival in Waterloo for the 5th anniversary of their unrivalled annual Valentine’s Ball. Travel to the ends of the Earth and beyond, trek through solar systems and speed past stars as they embark on an outrageously amorous Galactic Love adventure! We spoke to Sam Ritchie from Sam and the Womp and he gave us the load down on what to expect: Quick background on you. I’m a trumpet player and musician and general party-goer. Started in 2009 just as an experiment, mixing genres, then it blew up in 2012 with ‘Bom Bom’ and we did the festival scene after that. I play guitar, bass, piano, very important to play more than the trumpet if you’re songwriting, but it’s a collective experiment it’s a large live band; drums bass sax, keys, etc It’s a seven-piece ensemble. We take the band where we can. The live thing is what it’s all about. A word on the organisers.. You have to experience an Artful Badger party (organisers), we’ve been doing gigs with them 7 years now. We headlined Secret Garden Party a couple of times through them. Although…
“Know how to make a red-eye young Flannigan?” Doug, Cocktail. Bobby’s seventies party pad, Bobby Fitzpatrick to be exact, up West Hampstead, has an upright piano stashed in the narrow corridor that’s bookended by two drinking quarters. You can picture the wallpaper if you’ve ever seen an episode of Minder, Only Fools and Horses or have a relative that lived through the war. I pass a blonde in a two-piece Prince of Wales tweed suit and approach the neon lit bar that blew out muted streaks of plum and violet hues onto the floor. A guy in front of me, early twenties, with figure hugging jeans and sausage thighs busies himself attempting to get a flat-lay shot of his Alison Mahoney (Havana 3, spices, lime, ginger syrup) on the bar. I wait. He shows his initial attempt to a small girl next to him. They confer, he brings her glass of Sour Fritz (Bobby’s falernum, lime, egg white) in closer to his and he goes for a reshoot. I wait. More conferring. This time on which filter to use before posting to his social. I wait. I turned to the piano, apocryphally watching myself…
Q: It always makes me feel a little melancholy. Grand old war ship, being ignominiously hauled away to scrap… The inevitability of time, don’t you think? What do you see? James Bond: A bloody big ship. – Skyfall. Of course I should have made notes. Read the tiny blurbs of text by each exhibit and digested how artists attempt to interpret dysfunctional elements of modern society. But I’m no existentialist. As I stare at Monet’s Water Lilies, my mind is already racing ahead to my next sardonic self-effacing quip on Instagram. In secret, I’m not sure I feel anything when I look at Monet’s Water Lilies. Mother loves Monet, she loves Impressionism, so she’s happy, which in turn makes me happy. Only it’s short lived as we soon realise that we’re in the wrong gallery and all the Monet’s are stashed over in the National Gallery. Never mind. Can’t say I’m much into Rothko, but I did sit in the Rothko room for a bit. Originally his work was intended for the Four Seasons but the lad went a bit off-piste and didn’t think they’d be suitable so he pulled out…
‘My name is Pussy Galore,‘ … Bond smiles to himself… ‘I must be dreaming’. – Pussy Galore & Bond, Goldfinger. For the uninitiated, the Savoy’s Beaufort Bar is a darkened room – ornamented, and not by accident, with classical gold tints of trimmings that festoon the ceiling architraves. These mirror the gold studded chairs and the undulating wave motif on the carpet. The gold lamp lights shone modestly from the inverted arms of the Murano glass chandelier over a conclave of impeccably dressed Russian diplomats and business men. I’ve covered nearly 100 miles on my pilgrimage to The Savoy, but that’s small beer compared to the journey of the serve I’m here to sample has undertaken. The highly anticipated Age of Discovery, a specially created, barrel aged cocktail, is now available as an exclusive serve or by the bottle at The Savoy’s Beaufort Bar. Having travelled the globe on board Cunard’s flagship Queen Mary 2, the cocktail has now returned to The Savoy, a Fairmont Managed Hotel, where it was mixed, sealed and bonded for its world voyage many months ago. The drink, priced at £40, is served in a custom–made glass with a magnified base, atop…
