Why Men Are So Unromantic

The problem with men is that they are always romantic on the wrong day. This sour wisdom stems not from me, but my wife.

Apparently women are happy to take our chocolates and flowers on Valentine’s Day, if that’s all that’s on offer, but these are scant substitutes for affection and attention on all the other 364 days of the year. Men (which means one man in particular – me) don’t have a clue how to pull off that trick.

Jo reckons my idea of romance is rushing round to Thorntons in a last-minute pre-Valentines panic to buy a chocolate-covered glow of self-satisfaction. She’s wrong, of course: you can order online now.

But hang on a minute: this isn’t fair. Don’t women realize how hard it is for men to be romantic? Everything we’ve been taught, from books to movies, is about how to get hold of love. We’ve never been told what to do with it when it’s in our hands.

In literature, love stories are never about two happily married people, unless one of them is dying or going mad. They tell of loves lost, sought, or unrequited. On the very last page, there might be a blissful union, but it’s the page after that which is missing: what happens when the wedding bells stop ringing?

Proust, a typically unromantic male, wrote: “we love only what we do not wholly possess”. We men are great at romance when we’re wooing. We’ll jump on planes in the middle of the night, ship truckloads of roses to your door and would gladly buy you a diamond mine just to make you smile. But the moment you reciprocate, and take away our insecurity and pain by actually falling in love with us and allowing us to spend our lives with you, then we’re lost. Nobody has issued us with the service guide to this part of the relationship. We assume that marriage comes with a lifetime guarantee; we even believe the claim that “love is forever”, when, actually, love is just the start.

Barbara Cartland, the Queen of Romance, was once a guest on a show I was producing. Her face hidden behind a mask of false eyelashes and crimson blusher, I recall her insistence on what she called her “special light”, a large white lightbulb on the studio floor whose function was to smooth out her wrinkles, a feat that no lamp invented could have achieved. She spoke about ideal love in her hundreds of formulaic novels, all with heroines searching for the perfect hero who knows how to be romantic for the rest of her life.

I’m convinced no such man has ever been born.

Ms Cartland gave me the idea for a television series called The Library Of Romance. We commissioned a load of wannabe romantic novelists to write us the most awful stories and filmed student actors camping up scenes laden with soft filters. Awash with slushy music, the ghastly concoction became an enormous hit with daytime viewers. I heard it was particularly popular with gay men and students. It had no connection with reality whatsoever, perhaps because it was produced by a team of unromantic men.

I’ve learned a few rules about married love so far. I know it’s about acceptance and trust; about sharing and even offloading your problems; it’s about not getting upset when she disagrees with you; and never cutting your toenails just before she takes a bath. Women are like puppy dogs: give them regular hugs and they’ll stay with you forever and lick you to death.

About one thing I’m absolutely certain: being loved by someone as incredibly special as my wife is a precious commodity, worth more than all the chocolates and diamonds in the world. It has to be continually earned and nurtured. I’m trying. Happy Valentine’s Day, darling.

My Censored Newspaper Column

[My usual weekly column in Newcastle's daily newspaper The Journal didn't appear this morning. My editor gave me the following explanation:

"Tom, I've decided not to print your column tomorrow. Disparaging newspapers and those who write for them should not be the work of Journal writers, however contemplative they intend to be."

For my regular readers, here's what you missed.]

The problem with writing a newspaper column is the deadline. I’d love to be writing on Monday morning as you read this, so you can know my thoughts about things that are happening right now (your right now, not mine, because my right now will have happened several hours ago).

I mean, who knows what excitement could have occurred in the intervening hours while The Journal’s presses are churning away and the vans drive through the city to your newsagent. Another of our banks (yes, the banks we now own) could have accidentally lost us another £8 billion; a third plane could have nosedived into a city; Gordon Brown could have smiled (unlikely, I know, but hey, it’s been a surprising few weeks).

But I guess if you really wanted to know what I was doing or thinking right now, we’d be using Twitter. There, I’ve said it: the T-Word. I’ve absolutely no idea how or where you “twitter”, or why it’s called “twitter”, but everyone I speak to is talking about it, if not actually twittering, so I thought I’d mention it this week to be part of the club. Obama twits (or is it tweets?), and so do Ross and Fry. It’s a social networking thing where the only communication you have with your friends is telling them what you are doing or thinking. In 140 characters or less. On your mobile phone. Goodness, modern life is exciting. How did we live before Twitter?

So, What Am I Doing Now?

"I’m actually writing these thoughts in the contented afterglow of Valentine’s Day."

That was only 81 characters, so I’ll add: "With 3 of my 5 children, including baby Izzy, and partner Jo."

Somehow the space restriction doesn’t encourage a satisfactory reflection of my feelings of bliss engendered by watching the family playing together, separated by three marriages and 27 years; or my continuing amazement at Joanna’s beauty as she smiles at baby Izzy snuffling at her breast. My world is now complete, the ultimate Valentine’s present. It’s enough to stimulate the green shoots in a recession.

Speaking of which, I know something good is on the way the way because of the tweets. Not the messages sent on Twitter (which really are called tweets), but the birds in our wood, which have gone quite twittery over the last two days. They know it’s soon to be the end of this cold, heartless winter. And according to the man in the country store, loud tweeting means early Spring.

I’m surprised I’m feeling so positive. On Thursday night I was at a dinner party with the leaders of quite a few media organisations, and, gloves off, we all said what we really felt about the recession. Gloom doesn’t describe the collective feeling. The consensus was that we’ve seen nothing yet and it’s going to get a great deal worse. It’s enough to make you go off and live in a farmhouse in faraway Northumberland. Which, as luck would have it, I do.

But the assembled gathering also felt that, aside from utter cowardice of our bankers, what’s really holding back those green shoots is public confidence. We’ve all got our heads under the duvet, waiting for winter to end, and until we pop them out and tweet like my birds, it never will. It was also felt that the last people to spot the upturn will be the journalists, and especially the newspaper columnists. News likes gloomy; good news doesn’t sell papers.

So as soon as I’ve worked out how to do it, I’m going to get Twitter. Because I want to know what real people are doing and thinking right now – not the bankers and politicians and journalists. Because that’s the key to the end of this recession. And the moment there are some positive vibrations floating around I’ll let you know. Albeit a few hours later.

[As you will surmise, the reference to journalists was actually made by others at the dinner, attended by some senior broadcasters, publishers and journalists, together with a number of academics. Because it was a small private dinner held under Chatham House rules, I can't reveal who said what. These thoughts are also echoed to a certain extent in an article on Twitter in today's Media Guardian - where it's revealed that switched on journalists are now using Twitter to get information about popular culture and the mood of society.

In one way, I'm rather relieved this wasn't published, as the piece is far from my best work. I suspect that familial contentment doesn't make for spicy writing. However, I don't really see where the slight against journalists appears, other than my cheap and unnecessary cliche about good news not selling papers. I don't actually believe this axiom, particularly not in the case of The Journal, which provides an excellent service for the North East and specialises in front page splashes about major local achievements. It also holds celebratory campaigns for the good things about life in the North, like its food and many natural assets.

However my real point, albeit sloppily made, is about the social climate, and how we can spot changes in what people want and think if we keep or ears to the ground; it's a theme mentioned elsewhere in this blog, for I believe that one of the primary jobs of a television producer (and also a journalist) is to sense the popular zeitgeist in advance. After all, we're pitching shows which won't be seen for a year or two, and we want them to be enjoyed - so predicting public taste and fashion is part of the job. As a consequence searching for green shoots in these dark days is an important goal - we can't rely on the house price index or unemployment figures. These indicators reflect what has already happened. What's interesting is what is happening now - and that's where Twitter could come in handy.

Incidentally, one person at the dinner suggested that it should be the BBC's role to provide uplifting content for the nation in its hour of need, rather as the British film industry tried to do in the 30's. I pointed out that at least one country in Europe had an alternative solution to the depression, which was fascism. Perhaps more episodes of Strictly Come Dancing might have a positive effect. Or maybe Bruce Forsyth should become our Fuhrer.]

Love Conquers All -- Even Divorce

As the McCartney/Mills divorce hearing drags into a second week, you can’t help but wish that the two of them would just step outside, grab a couple of green teas in Starbucks, and sort it out between them.

Of course that’s hardly likely. Once divorce reaches the courts, both partners are usually so blind to common sense that they stand and fight over the tiniest of details. I know, to my own shame and cost.

I used McCartney’s divorce firm, Payne Hicks Beach, in all three of my own settlements. They’re great solicitors (they represented Prince Charles), but boy do those bills hurt. Whoever said that in divorce no one wins but the lawyers certainly hit the nail on the proverbial head. Having accumulated a mountain of incendiary letters with claim and counter claim, my first wife and I one day woke up to the absurdity of decimating the family’s assets in this way. So we literally went for a coffee, found a sheet of paper, and agreed the whole thing in twenty minutes. As a result, she and I remain the best of friends and neither of us felt shortchanged.

By contrast my most recent experience involved four sets of lawyers in two continents and lasted two bitter years, twice the length of the marriage. Because I was living in California I fought for and won the right to have the hearing in Los Angeles, in the very same Superior Court where poor Britney Spears has been having her custody battles.

Unlike Britain, divorce in California isn’t about blame or apportionment; it’s based on the simple principle that marriage is an equal partnership. Everything earned by either party during the marriage is deemed “community property” and therefore jointly owned by both sides. On the other hand, any assets that predated the marriage are the property of the person who owned them before the knot was tied. This applies to everything from the CD collection to the toaster.

Now that’s clean, clear and very fair. It doesn’t matter that one party earns a million dollars a month and the other stays at home and buys shoes, the consequence of getting married is that what’s ours is ours and what was yours stays yours. This is based on quite an idealistic view of the institution of marriage. If two hearts become one, you can hardly complain if the proceeds of that relationship are split down the middle.

By contrast, our British system is antiquated, arbitrary and unfair, and has become a gold digger’s charter, creating a strong disincentive for a man with any saved cash or property to get married at all.

Even under the Californian system, the division of chattels was stressful. I had to go to court to win custody of my own dog. One national tabloid reported the story with the headline “Woof Justice For Tess”.

Tess was a delightful but not terribly bright cocker spaniel. In the heat of divorce she became a symbol of our utter irrationality. After months of haggling, my ex-wife and I were still about $100,000 apart. So, in order to get the matter settled and to avoid the astronomical costs of a court hearing, I offered her a choice: an extra $100,000 or the dog. It seemed to me a no-brainer, and I expected to walk away with the most expensive pooch in the world. Instead, the wife chose the dog, and I kept the hundred grand. Later I happily spent four hundred pounds of it on Truffle, another lovely spaniel who’s infinitely brighter and symbol of an altogether more successful relationship.

Indeed, walking with Joanna through Paris on our fourth Valentine’s Day, I now wonder what the fuss was all about. Love certainly conquers all, and I sincerely hope that by this time next year Paul and Heather will have found theirs and put memories of this degrading nightmare behind them.