We’re still chasing our tails to get the cottage in a liveable state. The veranda remains stacked with boxes, the garden is choked with weeds, and too many conversations start with “have you seen my . . .?”

At these times, it’s important to drop everything and get out of the house to do something totally useless and unrelated to the tasks at hand. Going to the local building supply outlet has served me well in the last few days – there’s always another essential widget that won’t wait and the prices are pretty reasonable. 

Yesterday I was there for something or other and came across this product:

Now I don’t know about you, but to me, thanks to Jerry Seinfeld the phrase ‘man hands’ has already been established as an unflattering description of a woman’s over-large . . .  hands.

But this is a cream “naturally crafted to protect the hard-working hands of tradies” – a balm for men who work in the various trades . . . with their hands.  I may be wrong, but I think this is the beginning of a whole new class of merchandise – Braidwood metrosexual. 

If that wasn’t enough, today I took off through the chilly wind and drizzle to get coffee, and passing the windows of Len Mutton & Co, spotted this intriguing display:

It’s a pillow. A “big blokes extra large high and firm pillow.” I don’t know about you, but the idea of a pillow brings to my mind the qualities of downy softness, gently yielding comfort and perhaps cosiness — what in less enlightened times were considered ‘feminine’ traits. But the marketing department that came up with this concept struck out on a bold new path – positively off-piste, if you like. 

This is a pillow with the qualities of a tradie’s chest: firm, rugged, and – large. It wants us to feel wafted off to slumberland with our heads resting securely on a pair of chiselled pecs or a swole manly bicep. It’s a pillow that defies tradition: like Aussie Man Hands, it harnesses rugged masculinity to sell softness – maybe even luxury.

Make no mistake: Aussie blokes are bloke through and through — work hard, play hard, drink hard. But adland harnessing these macho tropes to sell stuff? It makes me feel like a piece of meat.

Title photo by Louis Hansel @shotsoflouis on Unsplash