Jack's view on... Top 10 gift ideas for men

Buying a present for that special man in your life is never easy. I should know - I've had some pretty terrible presents bought for me over the years. Girls, let me be clear right now - we don't want socks or a framed picture of you. We want manly gifts dammit!

So I thought I would come to the rescue and list the top 10 gifts that men really want. There really is no need to thank me, unless of course you want to buy me a gift, in which case I personally recommend gift number 6! Or if you are having relationship problems, you could always give me your number?

So whether you are buying a gift for your husband, boyfriend, brother, dad, or perhaps even your bit of the side, you do not need to look any further. These present ideas are ideal for Christmas, birthdays, and Bar Mitzvah's, and they are guaranteed to make the man in your life love you a little bit more this year!

Classic Playboy covers

1. Framed Playboy front cover prints
Playboy has played a major part in every man's life. For most of us, Playboy introduced the female form to many a young boy, and made for some fantastic on the toilet reading. Buying your man a print of his favourite Playboy front cover will bring flooding back all of those nostalgic memories from his youth. And here is an idea - if you are buying it as a birthday present, then why not get the front cover from the exact month and year that he was born! That shows that you really care.

Check out websites like NotOnTheHighStreet.com and search for 'Playboy' on 55max.com for some old school nudey classics!

Talking Tony Montana doll
from Scarface

2. Talking Scarface Tony Montana doll
How many times have you heard your man say "Come say hello to my little friend" just before a bout of bump and grinding? Al Pacino's immortal line from the 1983 classic Brian De Palma film spans generations. Watching Scarface is like a rite of passage for men, and being able to imitate some of the brilliant phrases from this gangster flick is pure joy amongst a group of lads.

So what better gift to buy your man than this talking action figurine of the Cuban legend himself?! Check out Iconic Collectables or do a quick search on eBay to find one today!

"Yo, Adrian! Have you seen
my dressing gown?"

3. Rocky Balboa dressing gown/bath robe
Show me a man that isn't a fan of the Rocky films and I'll show you a southpaw right-handed jab to the face! Nothing says class like a black and gold trimmed robe. Imagine waking up and seeing your man parading around in this immaculate piece of bedtime lounge clothing. And then imagine the moment when he turns around to reveal the Italian Stallion motif. If that doesn't set your pulse racing for a bit of early morning bed boxing, then I don't know what will!

Menkind.co.uk do a great deal on this little piece of must-have clothing!

So many great memories...
So many Kleenex sales...

4. Baywatch DVD boxset
Long before the internet came along and gave us open access to hot women at the click of a mouse, a legend by the name of David Hasselhoff brought it direct to our TV screens every week! Back then, I was lucky that my folks had bought me a TV for my bedroom, so every Saturday I would lock myself in my room and enjoy a bit of Palmala Handerson time if you catch my drift! Allowing your fella to look back on all of those golden moments in a tight red swimsuit makes this the ultimate DVD boxset for men!

The Classic Movie Store were offering a discount on this bad boy last time I checked, and you can always give Amazon a go if all else fails.

The must-have summer male clothing range!
Which size will you choose?

5. The Willykini
Ever since a blog was posted on this site about the Willykini, the page views have gone through the roof! Literally thousands of you have been searching for this summer's must-have item of beachwear. Last year it was all about the Mankini, but 2013 is definitely the year for the Willykini! Just take a look at the picture on the left and imagine your man parading up and down the beach in Marbella or Faliraki in one of these.

The Willykini Facebook page have said that they will be stocking Willykini's as of June 1st.

Jack gives The Drought a
big thumbs up!

6. The Drought by Steven Scaffardi
The ultimate dating disaster story! Here is a book by a man for men, and it only stars yours truly! What more do I have to say? The Drought has already been hailed as one of the funniest books ever written and reviewers on Goodreads and Amazon are falling over themselves to praise the story about one man's struggle to overcome the throes of a sexual drought. If your man is sick and tired of your chick lit novels and rom com movies, then buy him a copy of this hilarious novel and get back into his good books!

The Drought is available in paperback on Amazon and can also be downloaded on eReaders at most good bookstores for less than a quid! Bargain.

The best way to wake a man
with morning glory!

7. Pole Dancer Alarm Clock
Men have always preferred a certain way of being woken up by their girlfriends, but in the extreme case that you are suffering from tongue fatigue, then this alarm clock is surely the next best thing. It is a well known scientific fact that men must experience at least one lap dance by the age of 21 otherwise he is liable to turn to dust. If it jiggles, then we need to ogle. We can't help it, it is in a genetic make-up.

You can pick yours up at Gadget Bargains and if you are feeling really giving then a lifetime membership card at Spearmint Rhinos would be a right touch!

Just imagine how good this would
look on the living room wall

8. Signed sports memorabilia 
You know that joke about how men would choose their football team over their wife or girlfriend? Well, it's not a joke. We would sell our own mother if it meant our team won the league title. When a man moves in with a woman, part of him clings on to the hope that one day he'll have a signed 1970 Brazil shirt signed by the whole World Cup winning squad hanging on the living room wall instead of that crappy canvas flower print you insisted we buy from B&Q.

So stop being so damn selfish and give your man what he wants by buying him a little piece of sporting history. Icons.com is not a bad place to start or you can pick up bargains on eBay.

Learn how to cook -
Mafia style!

9. The Wiseguy Cookbook
We all know that men make the best cooks, right? So why not get your man in the kitchen with Goodfella Henry Hill's favorite recipes. Hill was the mobster-turned-rat portrayed in Martin Scorsese's iconic mafia movie starring Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro, and this cookbook lists all his favourite dishes, including the prison dinner meatballs. So if you want to get your man's taste buds tantalising, then avoid Nigel Slater at all costs and make sure you serve up a plate of spaghetti fit for a gangster!

Amazon once again provides a good starting point for this book, and if your man is not the Goodfellas type, then he is sure to love Wookie Cookies in the Star Wars Cookbook!

Give your man hours of nostalgic fun

10. Sensible Soccer Plug 'n' Play
Don't worry about having to splash out hundreds of pounds of the latest Xbox or PlayStation. Long before Fifa and Pro Evolution Soccer came along, there was only one football game that mattered. Sensible Soccer. Utter those two words to any man and it is likely to bring a tear of joy to their eyes as they reminisce about the amazing times they had controlling a bunch of small dots that lost the ball if you changed direction, all played from a birds eye angled view.

This is the gift that your man can take anywhere and it will keep him happy for days. Firebox, Amazon, and eBay still stock this wonderful piece of gaming history!

Jack's view on... Why men hate shopping

My good pal Dan Hilles had a bloody fantastic post on this blog last year called The reason why men hate shopping and I have to say I could agree more with what he had to say. When it comes to a man's worst nightmare, shopping is right up there with waking up next to Sarah Jessica Parker.

But just when I thought all hope was lost and that men were doomed to drag their heels around women in the shops forever more, I stumbled across this fantastic golden nugget from the Retired Husband. What a frickin' ledge this man is! Enjoy...

After I retired, my wife insisted that I accompany her on her trips to Sainsbury's Unfortunately, like most men, I found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out. Equally unfortunate, my wife is like most women - she loves to browse.

Yesterday my dear wife received the following letter from the local Sainsbury's...

Dear Mrs. Harris,

Over the past six months, your husband has caused quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behaviour and have been forced to ban both of you from the store. Our complaints against your husband, Mr. Harris, are listed below and are "documented by our video surveillance cameras":

1. June 15: He took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in other people's carts when they weren't looking.

2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.

3. July 7: He made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women's restroom.

4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice, 'Code 3 in Housewares. Get on it right away'. This caused the employee to leave her assigned station and receive a reprimand from her Supervisor that in turn resulted with a union grievance, causing management to lose time and costing the company money.

5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to reserve a bag of Maltesers.

6. August 14: Moved a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.

7. August 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told the children shoppers they could come in if they would bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department - to which twenty children obliged.

8. August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began crying and screamed, 'Why can't you people just leave me alone?' Emergency Medics were called.

9. September 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose.

10. September 10: While handling guns in the Sports department, he asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.

11. October 3: Darted around the Store suspiciously while loudly humming the ' Mission Impossible' theme.

12. October 6: In the auto department, he practiced his 'Madonna look' by using different sizes of funnels.

13. October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through, yelled 'PICK ME! PICK ME!'

14. October 22: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed the fetal position and screamed 'OH NO! IT'S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!

15. Took a box of condoms to the checkout clerk and asked where the fitting room was.

And last, but not least:

16. October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile, and then yelled very loudly, 'Hey! There's no toilet paper in here.' One of the Staff passed out.  

Jack Chatham is a character in the hilarious lad lit novel The Drought. Check it out now!

The reason why men hate shopping!

Here is a snippet from The Drought by Steven Scaffardi. We pick up the story in Chapter 20 (Shop Horror) where our unlucky-in-love hero Dan has agreed to go shopping with good friend Kelly to help her pick out a present for her boyfriend Paul.

By Sunday morning, I was already starting to regret agreeing to meet Kelly. The previous day I had played 14 hours straight on a new football management game I had bought the previous week. It had taken me two hours just to get through pre-season as I had taken time to carefully organise my scouting strategy and had shrewdly delved into the transfer market. As a result, I had picked up a couple of real gems in Brazil and Argentina and was sitting second in the league after 22 games. At one point, I pretended to hold a news conference in my living room to discuss my upcoming top of the table clash against Manchester United.

The thought had occurred to me to text Kelly and tell her that I was not feeling very well, but I didn’t want to let her down. Manchester United and the Premier League crown would have to wait for a few hours.

I made my way to Oxford Circus via the Northern and Victoria Lines. The tubes were packed with tourists and couples heading into the hub of London’s shopping capital. I got off the Tube and the crowd dragged me up the escalators to street level. My phone beeped the second I stepped outside the tube entrance with a text from Kelly: Meet me in Top Shop xx. I groaned inside. Top Shop on Oxford Street has to be as close to hell on earth for men as you can possibly get.

There should be warning signs for men at the entrance to let them know what they are about to let themselves in for. I took a deep breath and entered, scanning the place for the impossible task of finding Kelly. I made the plunge and started weaving in and out of the hundreds of women who had dragged their boyfriends or husbands out to go shopping.

All the men have that same pathetic look of defeat on their faces as they trail behind their women around like shadows, carrying their bags, and holding up items of clothes so the women can inspect them more closely. We all share a common bond, a common misery. We could be in the pub with our mates watching the football, which is what Sundays were created for. Shopping is not a sport, and we are never going to think of it that way.

Even the layouts of these shops are designed to trip us up, like some sort of assault course which has been put together specifically for women. While the gaps in between the rails of clothes are big enough for the female physique to glide in and out of, we are left to clumsily follow, knocking clothes off rails with great frequency. Then we have the questions.

What do I look like in this?

“You look nice” is the wrong answer. “You look good” is the wrong answer. “You look okay” is definitely the wrong answer. You might as well get Roy Walker to follow you around and every time you answer this question he can jump in with “It’s good, but it’s not right.” If she wanted us to respond with “amazing” or “fantastic” then she should hold up a Brazilian football shirt signed by Pelé and his 1970 World Cup winning team-mates. This is the only item of clothing we will ever get excited about.

Which one do you prefer?

Hmm, let me think. I don’t care! Just pick that one, pick any of them! This question is designed to catch you out. On the outside it might look like a simple 50/50 question, but despite the flip-of-a-coin odds, you will never get this question right. Whichever one you choose will be met by the same response: “Really? I prefer this one.” If you have already made up your mind, don’t ask us.

Do you think these shoes will go with this dress?

Let’s get one thing straight here. Most guys will own a maximum of three pairs of shoes at any one time. So how does that make us even remotely qualified to choose which pair of shoes – out of the dozens upon dozens of pairs you have made us look at already – will look good with your dress?

Even when she eventually decides she likes something, the torture doesn’t end. Now they have to try everything on. Whose bright idea was it to put the changing rooms bang in the middle of the lingerie department? Groups of men are forced to awkwardly stand around, trying their best not to look like pervs. The problem is, the more you try to look like you are not hanging around sniffing women’s underwear, the more paranoid you become that everyone thinks that is exactly what you are doing. It doesn’t help that the queue for the ladies changing rooms is normally a mile long. Don’t be surprised either if after hanging around in the underwear section for 15 minutes trying not to look like a nonce, your girlfriend suddenly returns having not even tried the clothes on.

I like it but I don’t really need it.

Why the hell did you queue up if you were never going to buy it? Of course, you can’t say that. So you put up with the other pointless questions, which you neither have the answers to, nor really care about. Questions like “Do you think I can pull this off?” or “does this match my skin tone?”

With Stacey I used to just smile and nod, safe in the knowledge shops have to close at some point and I might make it home before dark if I’m lucky.

Some guys try to come up with a different strategy, but I can tell you for a fact that nothing you try will make the experience of shopping with your girlfriend any less painful. For example, the worst thing you can do is say that you are going off to the men’s section. You may think this will kill a bit of time, but after you have scanned everything you wanted to see in five minutes flat, you will return to the women’s section only to find that your girlfriend is nowhere in sight. Now the hunt begins, and if history tells us anything, we know that it will be a good 20 minutes at least before you manage to locate her. There is an old campfire horror tale about a guy who has been wandering around Top Shop for the last five months after letting his girlfriend out of his sight.

I really didn’t want to start hunting for Kelly so I pulled my mobile out to call her. “Dan, over here!” I heard her call out and turned round to see her standing about 10 yards away, a big grin on her face. “I have been following you around for ages.”

“Please, get me out of here,” I begged her.

“Come on,” and she took me by the arm and led me out of my misery.

We strolled along Oxford Street, her arm linked under mine. “Your face was a picture when I found you,” Kelly giggled. “It looked as though you might spontaneously combust if you had stayed there any longer.”

“You are not far wrong,” I said. “These places should come with a warning sign, or at least a designated area for all boyfriends and husbands, like a bar in the basement or something.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked with a smile.

“They should have special men-only members clubs in all female retail outlets. They would make a killing. Men would be queuing round the block to sign up. We’d gladly pay a yearly membership fee.”

“So what would be in this members club?”

“They could stock it out with table football, big screen TV’s, pool tables, Space Invader arcade machines. Free counselling sessions should be offered to all the men who have suffered identical shopping scenarios, so we could sit together and commiserate as we relive our horror stories while the women shopped until their hearts content.”

Kelly burst out laughing. “I can’t believe how much you hate shopping.”

“It’s not that I hate shopping, I just don’t understand the way a girl shops. It takes you guys about seven hours to finally decide to buy the first thing you saw at the start of the day.”

“Oh really?” Kelly said, raising her eyebrows at me. “Seeing as you think you can find the perfect present in record time, let’s put it to the test today.”

“Challenge accepted,” I said. “I just need one or two details. What is Paul into?”

“Let me see,” she pondered. “He loves his sport, and is really into boxing. Rocky is his favourite film of all time.”

“This is going to be too easy,” I said. “Come on, follow me.” I directed us away from Oxford Street down Argyll Street. A quick left on to Great Marlborough Street, and then we took a right to cut through on to Carnaby Street.

“Where are we going?” Kelly asked.

“Patience, we are nearly there,” and we arrived at a small shop on the corner of Carnaby Street and Beak Street called King of the Jungle. This place prided itself on having Original Gifts for the Lion in Your Life.

“What is this place?” Kelly asked as we walked in.

“Are you kidding me? This is probably the best shop in the whole of London,” I told her. It was the type of shop you wouldn’t find on any high street, yet it was full of little hidden gems. One side was full of football memorabilia, with framed photographs signed by some of the best players in the world, past and present. Next to that was a selection of gadgets and boys’ toys, like icy beer mugs, remote controlled cars, and an alarm clock with a small pole dancer figurine that would wake you up every morning with your very own lap dance. The back wall featured a selection of T-shirts with witty slogans.

But what I was looking for was in the film memorabilia section. Here you could find talking Tony Montana toys, a Goodfellas poster signed by the complete cast, and framed film cells from The Godfather. I resisted the temptation to start playing with the Al Pacino Scarface doll, and picked up a black luxury bathrobe with gold trim.

“A dressing gown?” Kelly asked with a bewildered look on her face as if I had gone crazy. “You brought me to this place to buy a dressing gown?”

“Yes, but not just any dressing gown,” I said and turned the robe around to reveal the Italian Stallion motif and logo on the back. “This is Rocky Balboa’s dressing gown.”

She looked it up and down. “Are you sure he will like it?”

“Trust me, he will love it” I reassured her. “If he doesn’t then I promise I will go shopping with you every weekend for the next six months. If Stacey had bought me this when we were together, we probably would have never broken up.”

I handed her the robe and she took one more look, before she turned to me smiling, and said, “I’ll get it! But it will be on your head if he dumps me for buying him a dressing gown for his birthday.”

Kelly paid for the robe and had to practically drag me away from the gadgets in the corner. We made our way back up to Oxford Circus to get the Tube home.

“Why don’t you come to Paul’s birthday party next week?” Kelly asked as we got back on the Victoria Line and sat down. “You can bring your friends with you.”

“Yeah, why not? I could do with a good night out.”

“Thanks for helping me with this, Dan,” Kelly said and kissed me on the cheek. “You’ve gone all red,” she teased.