However, I do feel offended when people equate certain traits and characteristics with a specific sexual orientation. Just because I happen to talk about the quality of cosmetic products used by a woman makes me a homosexual? I do not think I appreciate this approach. Unfortunately, this is the reaction that I got from almost all the woman I met in the past week. Whenever I spoke about cosmetics, they either lashed out for talking about something private and were uncomfortable discussing it or spoke to me as if they knew it for a fact that that I was a homosexual.

Woman do not have any problem stepping up to men and telling them that they are dressing sense is awful. In fact, we feel grateful when a woman comes up with such a statement because we see it as a chance to improve our appearance and impress the woman in question. Yet, a man who does the same is either considered insensitive or is considered a homosexual. I do not think that is fair.

I complained to my female friends but was stunned to find that they sympathized with the women whom I met over the week. I was told that I should not go around telling women that they should purchase cosmetics from a particular place. They said that women do not like to get advice about such a thing from a man Well, is it because they think that I am a man and cannot possibly know where to purchase cosmetics? If yes, then that is a very sexist thing to do.

Things this brings me to the same old question of positive discrimination. Women do not have any problem pretending that they are special, unique and different as long as it serves their purpose? However, they immediately get outraged when men treat them as special, different and unique individuals for our own purposes.

In my defence, m’lud, I did have a mate from America staying on my sofa, and he did need to see everything London has to offer. It wouldn’t have been fair not to show him some nightlife, would it? And we did have a fairly dull drinks reception to attend for work early on. So you see, what with the warm weather and the mate and the free champagne, my hands were tied… I was just a victim of circumstance, honestly!

And in fairness, neither myself or Adam* (*name changed to protect his dignity!) are men who should be left alone with a free bar. Free champagne for an hour or two at the start of the evening was the catalyst for the chaos. Without that, we would’ve been home at 8 o’clock eating a takeaway curry. Instead, we headed out to the wonderful Wahaca in Covent Garden for Mexican street food and a few cocktails with some of my colleagues. This was the sensible part of the evening. Wahaca is a great night out, with delicious (and authentic, according to our American) Mexican food and particularly good drinks. Their tequila mojito is worth the visit alone.

It was now about ten o’clock. Not yet witching hour, but still… As we left the restaurant, we lost the members of the party with children as they wandered off to get the tube home. The rest of us were discussing what we should show Adam on his night out in London town. We adjourned to a nearby bar to discuss. After a drink or two more, Ripley’s Believe or Not came up in conversation. Did you know the tourist attraction was open until midnight? No, me neither. And that is how a group of drunken businessmen ended up looking at a giant chair and a lamb with two heads at 11pm on a Thursday night. It was truly surreal!

From there it was a short walk to the casino in Leicester Square. As Adam is originally from Las Vegas, this seemed to make sense to our drunken brains. Obviously, in retrospect, to him this was a bit coals to Newcastle. But luckily, the drinks there are much cheaper than elsewhere in Central London so he didn’t seem to mind! One of their bars is also open until five in the morning, but, good boys that we are, we resisted temptation and staggered away at three o’clock instead.

It was whilst negotiating taxis home that we realised Adam and our mate Steve* (*name also changed to protect his dignity!) had wandered off. We ineffectually shouted for them, called mobiles, sent texts… No response. We weren’t quite drunk enough to think calling the police for two fully grown men who’d got lost in Leicester Square was a good idea! All we could do was go home and wait for them to show up or reply to a message.

I was actually at work the next day (and feeling a bit below par!) when Adam finally showed up. Now, he can’t explain the whole thing (he doesn’t remember all of it) but if anyone else has an explanation then do leave a comment! Adam lived in Oxford for a semester when he was at University. That doesn’t really explain why, six years later, he and Steve decided to get the bus back to Oxford at three in the morning on a Thursday. Or how Adam ended up without his shoes and Steve ended up with a purple feather boa… Any suggestions?!

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That’s why this is the best time of year to get yourself some sun. Never mind the summer months- use up some of your holiday time now. You won’t be competing with school holidays so the prices will be cheaper, your destination and the airports will be less crowded (imagine your whole journey, from stansted transfers to arrival, without any screaming kids!) Your line manager and colleagues will be pleased you’re not all battling for the same dates as usual as well.

Let’s face it, the most important element of this holiday is going somewhere warm, preferably with a beach. Grab some mates, persuade them to take a week off and find yourself a destination. Since it’s going to be cold in the Mediterranean at this time of year, you’ll need to look a bit further afield. The Caribbean, Mexico and Florida are at the more expensive end of the holiday spectrum, with Egypt and the Canary Islands potentially a little cheaper.

Booking at the last minute could also get you more of a bargain (and an intriguing mystery destination!) It’s not for everyone but I really like the idea of booking a holiday to a random place, packing a bag, picking up your passport and heading straight for the airport.

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The more fashion changes the more it remains the same and this can be said about Boat Shoes. Boat shoes or topsiders or deck shoes are in vogue. These shoes are light weight and have a very thin rubber sole with slit cuts. Many boat shoes have an oil finish and are water proof. Boat shoes used to be just worn by sailors but they were made into a fashion line during the 1980’s when designers became interested in using them and introduced them in America and the UK.

Wearing boat shoes is a long lasting tradition and they are comfortable and fashionable for men. They can be worn in different events or in any water related activities like sailing or even for casual look that can be fit with shorts. They are also very cool to be worn with suits.

Sperry Deck shoes are boat shoes that take pride of their style and comfort. Sperry Deck offers colorful footwear that you can experiment with. The shoes'eyelets add to their charm and their shock resistant heel cups offer even more ease of wearing them.

Moreover, the market also has the Canvas Deck shoes that can be worn over a long period of time. The materials used to manufacture these shoes offer breathability to the feet and keep infections like boils and blisters at bay.

Deck shoes for men are cool and comfortable to wear. They come in a range of designs that include tan, old brown, patterned and checkered variations. They are made to resist water because they were originally intended for use around water.

Now boat shoes despite their stylish design and popular in cities such as London, are not fitting for certain situations including say, police work, doing London builders construction, and heavy duty work. They are best suited for formal and causal situations and go well with most casual and formal wear.

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I have a question for you; why do tourists keep finding themselves stuck on Tube trains in the rush hour? Where exactly are they going at 7.30 in the morning? If I worked on a line that ended at Heathrow, or went to one of the stations that connects with the other London airports then I could maybe understand it. But these people, with their guide books and their absent-minded way of blocking every staircase and corridor genuinely seem to be just heading out for a day’s sightseeing. I know there is a lot of stuff to visit in our fair town, but starting at the crack of dawn is ridiculous. You’re on holiday, for heaven’s sake. Have a lie-in!

Actually, I said just then that I wouldn’t mind so much if they were heading for an airport, but it’s easy for me to be generous in that department; after all I live and work a long way from any of the major tourist arrival points. Friends who live or work on the Heathrow line are always full of horror stories about lost backpackers with their huge suitcases covered in vinyl packaging blocking the whole platform or taking up half a carriage. The sourpuss in me says we should ban all non-residents from the Tube between 7am and 9am and again between 5pm and 7pm. Perhaps only those of us with Oyster cards could be admitted to the stations?

Of course, that’s not a very friendly attitude in a city that makes so much money from its visitors. I think it would almost be in Transport for London’s interest to force cabs to take tourists for free in the rush hour, even though that would add a few thousand cars to the streets every day. The only people that’s going to annoy are taxi and bus drivers. And let’s face it, they’re grumpy all the time anyway!

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Moaning about the prices in stores is one thing but not wanting a higher salary is completely different - it might be even called a ridiculously phrased moaning once you say ’I do not really want a higher salary’. Well, I was surprised too when I first hear my very good friend complaining about receiving a high salary. And what made me believe him is that he is actually right - higher salary comes with higher liabilities.

Liability number one, the David Beckham of liabilities, the Martin Scorsese of obligations is — paying taxes. The more money you receive, the greater tax you pay. So while working more and more to get a position you have always dreamed of, you end up paying more and more to the government. And this reaches the point where the state is allowed to collect half of your annual income in tax - then, what I ask is there is the motivation to work and earn higher income? I would be able to afford almost anything with a salary that does not exceed some 34 000 pounds per year, including the amazing Brooks running shoes that would at least make me happy after sending payment confirmation to HM Revenue. So why do I need to work myself off in order to reach some greater income - I would still the same things but would need to pay more tax.

The problem with tax is that rather than serving both the taxpayer and the state welfare, it is actually demotivating people aiming for higher earnings. Imagine you get a corporate position and the state takes half of your income - then the rest would probably equal the salary of a well-paid carpenter. Isn’t this communism?!

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English weather has never been the most reliable guarantee of a great summer. We are so used to roughing our way through months of drizzling misery that when the sun does finally come out, we act all surprised and cynically point out that it can’t possibly last. Like all good Englishmen, I always aim to go on holiday where I can be sure that the sun will come out everyday and I don’t have to worry about rain spoiling my time.

Of course this year I sorely underestimated how difficult it is to pick up a good pair of sandals for my sojourn to the beach. After all the commotion and redundancy consultations I’ve been going through with my fellow workers, I needed a break so when I saw a cheap 1 week deal to go to Rhodes, I jumped at the chance. The only problem I had is that my trusted and fairly aged sandals had finally given up the ghost and collapsed in a slightly dusty heap. I needed new sandals and fast. Yet all the shops I went to on the high street were either too expensive or had woefully inadequate footwear for my purpose.

Eventually I gave up and began looking online. Shopping for new shoes on the net is not something I had ever done before simply because there wasn’t the option to try them on before I bought them. However a friend of mine recommended a great pair of Birkenstock sandals that he had bought online last year. Curious, but sceptical, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and trust him. I’m glad I did.

Not only do my new sandals fit me perfectly, they are also the most comfortable sandals I have ever had in my life. A cork based sole is what provides the support and comfort that I’d been sadly lacking in my previous sandals. They survived my trip to Rhodes and my various scramble across rocks and pebbly beaches whilst there. I don’t usually trust my friend when it comes to things like this, but for once, he was spot on.

If you don’t already have a pair of Birkenstock’s, go and get some now, and if like me you don’t trust online shopping for shoes, rest easy. The site I found at Zalando was fast, efficient and incredibly helpful.

sometimes, the boss will appear with a packet of biscuits and just give them to us!

…And so I’ve put together this here article to make it perfectly clear what is and isn’t fact.

1) Working doesn’t completely rule my life: yes, my boss expects a lot of me and yes, I can end up working late, but do I work weekends? Oh no. Does my boss mind this? Not really. He is actually human, which brings me to…

2) Yes, like you, my boss is actually human. I mean he bleeds, he feels pain, he sometimes farts – yes, I heard him once, even if he looked around expertly and acted like it had nothing to do with him – and he even occasionally drinks a bit too much on Friday nights. How much more proof do you need?

3) Sometimes, I get treats: or, I should say, we all get treats. That is, sometimes, the boss will appear with a packet of biscuits and just give them to us! OK, I know it sounds trivial – it definitely sounds trivial when you think he’s on about 100 grand a year – but it’s the thought that counts, right? And this thought is a good one. I wouldn’t give up my biscuits for nothing, my friend!

4) Working in a large London company can even sometimes be fun: note I said sometimes, not all the time. Obviously all the time wouldn’t make any sense, as everyone knows that business can’t be like that…much as I wish it could.

5) If I am late I don’t get hauled into the office and shouted at, or humiliated and told to strip myself off my name badge (that would be horrific…). Usually my boss just politely asks me never to do that again, and then he goes back to doing his tin designs . He’s really big on doing designs on tin, you know. Don’t ask me why. It just seems to be his dorky little hobby. (But then, that also makes him more human, so in a way that’s no bad thing, either.)

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1) For starters the pint should be a PINT. Not almost a pint, or very nearly a pint, but a good old-fashioned pint-pint. That’s what you want my friend! Anything less is a complete and utter waste of time and no good for nothing!

2) A pint with a nice crisp taste. You know what I am saying with this…it should taste brand-new, and like finest nectar. It should NOT be stale and from rusty pumps.

3) It should smell right. That’s right, smell. If it doesn’t then it ain’t worth drinking.

4) Lastly, it should be served up in a nice clean glass.

Why, then, do some pubs have such a hard job of providing this one beautiful thing? It isn’t exactly difficult, and by doing a shoddy job you’re not only letting the customer down, you’re letting your country down too my friend!

London builders will tell you this, too: if a pub consistently serves up rubbish beer, then it deserves to go out of business. I know that sounds overly harsh, but the simple fact of the matter is that beer is something us Britains have to protect with all our might. Our dignity is at stake, people. It ain’t something to be messing with! (Note: if it was up to me, I would make beer available for free on the street, just so that no man or woman would ever have to go without. But that’s just me. It might lead to an epidemic of alcoholism, but that’s just a risk I would have to take.)

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1) Different types of your friends will be at the party, ones who don’t all know each other. They’re all mostly fun to hang around with, but it would be so much easier if everyone knew each other, wouldn’t it?

2) The party will consist of lots of drinking…you don’t want to get stuck with someone who can’t handle their drink.

3) Most importantly of all, you don’t want to go with a friend who is boring and doesn’t like speaking to people. That would ruin everything…you may as well not bother going in the first place, right?

All this is made harder, of course, by the fact that three or four of my friends have invited me. This forces me into a tricky situation, to say the least…as I now must decide who hates who, who will put up with who, and who will be trouble if they bump into whoever else. Basically, it’s just all really complicated.

Sometimes, when it gets too complex, I like to just break away from the pack and wander around in a drunken stupor on my own. That way at least I only offend strangers, and to be honest, when I wake up in the morning – last time this happened I was wearing Cotton Fabrics which looked like they belonged to Dot Cotton from Eastenders – I don’t remember anything anyway, so what does it matter?

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