The worst economic downturn for 12,000 years isn’t all bad, you know. Sure, a lot of estate agents are losing their jobs but just think of the positives. Like the fact that men don’t have to be metrosexual any more. No more male spa treatments, no more fancy cooking, no more “back, sack and crack” waxing (you didn’t, did you?). We couldn’t possibly afford it.

When we had disposable income, chances were that once our wives had spent what they could on life’s essentials (make-up, shoes, handbags), men had a few crumbs left. Crumbs that attracted attention. Up sprang the male beauty industry, convincing us that we must moisturise and manicure, wear manscara and guyliner.

I will not wear make-up, not when I can no longer afford butter. There shouldn’t even be a male beauty industry. Men do not need to exfoliate. It’s time to go back to basics: water, occasional soap, a Bic razor and Kiehl’s lavender foaming-relaxing bath lotion with sea salts and aloe. Nothing fancy.

And could someone please explain why I’ve spent the past decade bish-bash-boshing my way through Jamie Oliver’s ricotta tortellinis, pancetta risottos and sweet-leek pappardelles when I should have been out replacing oil filters, roof tiles and washers?

It’s not like I’ve gained anything. Jamie still goes bleating on to the French about how awful we English are at cooking and in the meantime I’ve lost vital man-skills. I can no longer remember how to pierce a lid in several places. I have forgotten the number for pizza delivery. I can’t digest battery chicken. Thanks a lot, Jamie.

From now on, it’s nothing but sausages, fish fingers, pies and braised guinea fowl. You see how good economic misery can be?

I’m not even going to go to the hairdresser any more. Because that all got out of hand, too. You could spend £50 in a salon, even if you were a bloke. Even if you were just after a short back and sides. You would have tea and maybe a biscuit. You would have at least two washes with conditioner and a scalp massage, then spend hours looking in the back-of-head mirror, then more hours deciding which “product” to put in your hair. All you wanted was a cut!

I let my wife do it for a while but that stopped because she made me sit naked in our freezing bathroom while accidentally on purpose nicking bits of flesh out of my head with an electric shaver, Abu Ghraib-style. Now I do it myself. Takes five minutes. I don’t have to say how much I like the way it’s been cut. I don’t have to tip. Nobody’s noticed. Nobody cares.

Men, it is our time again. While everyone is whingeing about mortgages, we must make our bid for freedom. Step away from the balsamic vinegar! Wash off the antiwrinkle moisturiser! Throw away your manbag! With the time we get from not spending hours in the kitchen, the bathroom and the salon, we must learn to be men again. We must hunt squirrels, grow vegetables, fix cars, go to the pub and understand the mechanics of a boiler.

Maybe the boiler’s going too far but it would be nice not to have to call an electrician simply because a lightbulb’s blown and our nail polish is still drying. Don’t you think?