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Sausage, chips and beans for tea: Five things grown men still get inexplicably excited by

DESPITE growing up, owning a home and starting a family, nothing gives men greater joy than certain types of utterly stupid shit. Here are just five examples.

Sausage, chips and beans for tea

Men get genuinely excited about tucking into their favourite meal from when they were five: dry oven chips, sugary baked beans and a trio of gristly bargain basement bangers. If it’s served on a day when their football team has also won away, some men have been known to achieve a higher state of consciousness.

Two animals shagging

Nothing causes joy and hilarity like a spot of pigeon porn in the garden or two lions humping at Whipsnade Zoo. The dad in your family will probably swerve the family car across three lanes of traffic if he thinks he saw two horses in a field shagging. He may even excitedly comment on how well-endowed the male animal is. A crap David Attenborough impression is a given.

Women who aren’t wearing a bra

Men will be held rapt by a woman with no bra on, suddenly switching from being an adult male with life insurance and a Sainsbury’s clubcard to a giggling 1980s teenager trying to spot a hint of erect nipple. The baffling thing is there’s no shortage of nipples right now, in real life or on the internet. Men are complicated creatures.

Cars they can’t afford

For some reason, men are thrilled by flash cars they’ll never own. Yes, that is the new Porsche 718 Cayman GTS, 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. This is somewhat academic if you work in a call centre and have a long-term overdraft and credit card debts. Just pray he doesn’t go the showroom and sit behind the wheel pretending to drive it.

Football stickers

An obsession of youth which, tragically, can continue into adulthood. When the new Panini stickers come out, the man in your life unfortunately has the means to buy loads, being paid, hopefully, substantially more than his pocket money in 1983. Before you know it, all the men in the office will have a Qatar 2022 World Cup Album and they’ll be meeting by the photocopier to drone on about swapping for a Jack Grealish ‘shiny’.

Traffic cones, and other pathetic things everyone steals as a rite of passage

STEALING is wrong. That said, here are five things you, and absolutely everyone else, stole at some point while you were growing up.

Pint glasses

Looking to soak your jacket pocket with tepid beer? Then why not steal a pint glass from a pub? Sure, there’s a slight thrill in knowing you’ve saved perhaps a quid not having to buy your own pint glasses at home, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that your favourite coat will now forever smell of stale Grolsch.

Traffic cones

Despite being a well-worn cliche about pissed lads and students, at some point in your youth you drunkenly approached a building site and stole a traffic cone. It was only after waking up the next day that you realised you’d no desire to own a dirty, metre-high lump of orange plastic and getting rid of it would, frankly, be a logistical nightmare.

Shopping trolley

Why do people climb mountains? Because they’re there. Why do we explore space? Because it’s there. Why do we feel compelled when we’re 17 and pissed to nick a trolley from your local Sainsbury’s and awkwardly use it to ride down a hill with your mates? It’s because you’re basically Neil Armstrong.

Election posters

After a particularly heavy night, there’s no greater thrill than waking up the next morning to see a semi-familiar face in the bed beside you. Yes, you’ve pulled alright – pulled the campaign poster of a local Lib Dem councillor running for parliament off a telegraph pole, and fallen asleep, drooling kebab sauce on it.

Cutlery

Coming to at 8am to discover that your pockets are full of teaspoons is a confusing experience. But whether you were at the house party of a friend, an enemy or a random kid, some insane teenage drive in your brain compelled you to swipe something. Then you had the fun of guiltily handing them back in school on Monday.

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