Come back, New Man - all is forgiven! But not forgiven enough to take you on holiday with me ...

Hoorah, I'm off on my jollies - well, almost. By this time tomorrow, I should be just about touching down at Beziers airport, all ready to take to the hire car and motor off in the direction of the Riviera Coast; no father, no film crew ... just me and me fella, getting away from it all for seven days. If there are internet cafes to be found along the way (and if I can be bothered scrabbling around and adapting to a French keyboard), I'll update you as I go. If not, I'm back on Sunday October 12th (and if I can work out how to use the new camera, I'll even share some snaps). Meanwhile, have great fun, y'all! Keep dancing while I'm away.

For those of you who haven't read it yet, here's my latest rant again:

Lads: off to university? Then take the advice of ‘Zoo’ magazine and spend Freshers’ Week scouting bars for the fittest undie-graduates. Stuck for something to do while your missus gets the dinner on? You’ll find hundreds of fit girls waiting for you to Assess their Breasts in this week’s ‘Nuts’. Or you could go and play the Fake Orgasm Challenge at ‘Loaded’ online before joining the hunt for the Nation’s Tastiest Tush. Now it’s not often I side with the Conservative Party’s education spokesman Michael Gove, but I applauded loudly when he recently slammed such magazines for “reinforcing a shallow approach towards women, who are generally painted as permanently, lasciviously, uncomplicatedly available” and attempted to start a general debate about the “instant-hit hedonism” celebrated by today’s “modern men”. But before we retread the churned up water that surrounds these age-old themes, there’s another question to be answered: whatever happened to New Man?

New Man – last spotted shopping for organic yoghurt in the farmers’ market, circa 1996 - wasn’t afraid to show his feelings, was proud to be in touch with his feminine side and made sure that his partner always, always came first. He wore his heart on his soft cotton shirt (carefully avoiding the obligatory crust of baby sick), eschewed rock bands in favour of female singer-songwriters and, though he may not have been responsible for bringing home the bacon, was happy to bake the family’s bread. Okay, New Man was as much of a sad cliché as Old Lads the Gallagher brothers, Vinnie Jones, Guy Ritchie and their oikish ilk have become - but at least women could actually relate to him. He read books, spoke softly and found sporting events irksome. He did his share of the housework, paid attention to personal hygiene and was generally happy – and here’s the rub – to be a grownup. But did today’s women want a New Man? Evidently not.

Instead of taking a pop at ‘Zoo’, ‘Nuts’ and ‘Loaded’, let’s put TV programmes like ‘Loose Women’ – the tip of a murky iceberg that quickly melts to reveal such gems as ‘Chat’ magazine, spray-on tans and huge queues for “me time” at the latest “pampering hotspot” - under the sociological lens instead. Every weekday - bookended by adverts for confectionery that “give girls new ways to be naughty” (‘accidently’ soaking the gardener with a hose, lusting after the next door neighbour, etc) - a panel of four female drones, their personalities shoehorned to appeal to stereotypes as surely as the Spice Girls were manufactured to dominate the charts (the posh one, the ladette, the glamour puss and the down-to-earth frump) offer bland, knee-jerk opinions on contentious burning issues such as what makes women go phwooar and whether it’s okay to sleep in your mascara. Are you watching, Mr Gove? Because if such a formula sums up – or possibly even dictates to - the real lives of today’s real women (and viewing figures tell us that it must), no wonder New Man swiftly reclaimed his Neanderthal roots. If I lived with a woman who finds Carol McGiffin’s endless moans about her non-existent sex life interesting and makes time every day to tune into Jane McDonald bleating on about life with her mam, you’d find me swigging lager in the nearest pole dancing club before you could say Arsenal, too.

Now I’m not saying that either boy’s magazines (let’s face it, there’s absolutely nothing manly about a ‘Zoo’ reader) or desperate housewife TV shows are to blame for the current state of play between the sexes, but the words ‘symptom’ and ‘catalyst’ spring to mind. So girls: are you bored with the overgrown toddler sitting in the corner belching lager, scratching his nuts and thinking about having a Wii? Instead of texting the Uptight Harpies to complain about him, try making yourself interesting instead – it’s the New Woman’s way to be naughty, and it’s very, very good indeed.