4 Jan 2012

MANNERS PLEASE.


"Manners maketh man."
- William of Wykeham, Chancellor of England, Bishop of Winchester and founder of New College, Oxford, and Winchester College.


In a recent interview, Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary in DownTon Abbey, bemoaned the lost art of chivalry commenting.......


“Those old manners – such as men standing when women arrive at the dinner table or opening doors for you – are lovely,” she said. “But young men wouldn’t think about that for a second because it’s not the culture any more.”

Or is it just that with the advent of the so-called Girl Power a whole generation of women have grown up thinking men are treating them as the weaker sex who are unable to open a door for themselves? Its either that OR a whole generation of men have grown up never for one moment even considering that a woman might actually enjoy having a door held open for her? 

Hmm, I wonder.

Anyway in a Telegraph article journalist Iain Hollingshead offers this somewhat tongue-in-cheek do and don't guide to chivalry for the confused and fallible 21st-century male - click HERE to view in full.

ON THE COMMUTER TRAIN


Do ......
 Offer a pregnant woman your seat
 Check that the “pregnant” woman isn’t just a bit fat
 Check again
 Try to remain calm when you’re slapped in the face by an outraged fat woman

Don’t ......
 Put your armpit in a short woman’s face
 Hit anyone with your man bag, unless they’re a tourist
 Get on the Underground without letting people off first, unless it’s rush hour on the Northern Line, in which case it’s every man and (pregnant) woman for themselves

Do ...... 
 Offer to carry a woman’s bag if it looks heavy

Don’t ......
 Be too offended when she calls the police.


IN THE OFFICE


Do ......
 Congratulate a female colleague on her forthcoming marriage


Don’t ......
 Ask her when she’s going to have children – and whether this means you can take her job

Do ......
 Include your female colleagues when you visit a strip club with clients

Don’t ......
 Be surprised when they sue your firm for £10.4 million for sexual harassment

Do ......
 Take your statutory paternity leave

Don’t ......
 Tell your male colleagues how much you enjoyed it

Do ......
 Be encouraging to the girl on work experience

Don’t ......
 Show her round the stationery cupboard


ON A FIRST DATE


Do ......
 Offer to pay
 Repeat your offer when she counter-offers to “go Dutch”
 Give in gracefully when she insists for a second time

Don’t ......
 Suggest you should go Dutch straight away
 Point out that she had a more expensive starter than you and should
 pay accordingly
 Invoice her after the third date when she refuses a fourth


AT THE SHOPS


Do ......
 Hold a door open for a woman
 Hold a door open for a man

Don’t ......
 Get too upset when no one says thank you


IN THE NIGHTCLUB


Do ......
 Ask a girl to dance
 Dance well
 Try to kiss her

Don’t ......
 Lunge unsuccessfully more than once
 Dance too well

WHILE PROPOSING


Do ......
 Ask her before she asks you
 Ask her before she asks you to ask her
 Ask her father for permission unless she would definitely like you not to ask her father, but you can’t ask her to find out – you should just know
 Go down on one knee, unless she’d rather you didn’t
 Have a perfect ring, unless she’d rather choose it together
 Make it more romantic, more memorable and more impressive than all her friends’ proposals put together

Don’t .....
 Forget a single one of the dos

AT THE WEDDING


Do ......
 Say how nice the bride looks

Don’t ......
 Point out how much money they could have saved if she had only worn that nice dress she already had in her wardrobe

AT THE DINNER PARTY


Do ......
 Stand up when a woman comes into the room

Don’t ......
 Stand up if the room they’ve walked into is the lavatory

Do ......
 Flirt gently with your hostess


Don’t ......
 Ask her to leave the room after pudding so the men can talk business

Do ......
 Offer to drive your wife home

Don’t ......
 Put your keys in the bowl in the middle of the table first


IN THE PUB


Do ......
 Stand your round

 Pretend you’re interested in football

Don’t ......
 Order shandy


IN THE HOME

Do ......
 Take out the rubbish
 Put up shelves
 Deal with spiders
 Cook
 Learn how to change nappies

Don’t ......
 Complain
 Suggest that maternity leave is just a paid holiday

Do ......
 Fend off burglars

Don’t ......
 Kill them

IN THE BATHROOM


Do ......
 Use moisturiser

Don’t ......
 Tell anyone about it


ON THE MIXED DOUBLES TENNIS COURT

Do ......
 Pretend you’re trying your hardest

Don’t ......
 Slam a smash into your friend’s wife’s face

IN THE DELIVERY ROOM


Do ......
 Turn up
 Hold your wife’s hand
 Be sober

Don’t ......
 Be upset that when in the throes of labour pains your wife draws blood with her nails and calls you a ******* ****

IN THE RESTAURANT


Do ......
 Pretend you know something about wine when the sniffy maitre d’ thrusts a menu at you

Don’t ......
 Automatically choose the second cheapest

Do ......
 Sniff, swill and taste without giggling


Don’t ......
 Send the screw-top white back because it’s corked



ON THE SOFA


Do ......
 Pretend that you’re just as interested in Downton Abbey as Top Gear, Ultimate Force and Scrapheap Challenge

Don’t ......
 Take too seriously the views of an actress asked about modern manners

OR, might I suggest, a journalists article on chivalry for the confused and fallible 21st-century male.

14 comments:

R. Ramesh said...

wat an awesome list of dos and donts...hey super ya...and thanks friend for the nice words..wishes

Melanie said...

Ha, I love this list. I'd say I have just as much trouble looking interested when people are watching a football game as they do when I watch Downton Abby.

Gina said...

Too funny! Gonna have to share this with a few people at work...LOL. Thanks for the smile! ^_^

Dorte H said...

I agree that most of them are extremely useful and should be part of the curriculum for male teenagers.

But I really didn´t get the point of these:

Do ......
 Fend off burglars

Don’t ......
 Kill them


Please, just once in a while...?

Full-On-Forward said...

Standing Ovulation---OVATION!!! I can now go back out in public again and remain Chivalrous! I couldn't change now if I had to!

You are the Best!

J

Kelly said...

This was SO entertaining!! I thoroughly enjoyed it. :)

Melissa (Books and Things) said...

LOL These are so funny! Love them. :D

Jinky said...

I'll have to make it a point to visit here more often ..they say laughing makes one healthy & live longer. I always enjoy the humor I find here. --btw, thanks for stoppin' by my blog and visiting me often. :)

The Bookworm said...

haha, these are funny :P

Jenners said...

This was so fun to read. And besides being amusing, they were pretty on the mark for much of it!!

Melissa (My World...in words and pages) said...

It is nice to see someone with manners. Even an I'm sorry, or giving up their seat. People seem to have lost that anymore. And I don't know how to get it back to our youth again. It's very hard.

Suko said...

Loved reading these dos and dont's! It's often tricky to be polite and politically correct simultaneously.

On a (sort of) related note, I received Dont's for Husbands today in the mail, a belated gift for my hubby. I know he will enjoy it!

anilkurup59 said...

Fascinating!
Wonder when I will ever graduate.

Karen said...

Love it! Your blog posts always brighten my day :-)