No, I said 'manbags'... not 'funbags'.
This is not a post about my moobs. All you moob-fetishists will have to go elsewhere.
No, this is the post where I come out as a true metrosexual and reveal that I own - and love - not one but TWO different manbags.
This is the first one...
I've had it for well over 10 years now and yet it shows little sign of age. I use it when I'm out walking in the summer months as it can carry everything I would possibly ever need... my fold-up waterproof jacket / cagoule, a small bottle of water, my wma-playing mp3 player, my camera, spare batteries, even sweets (should I wish to take sweets... I rarely do). It's lightweight with a long shoulder strap and I don't even know I'm wearing it half the time. Best of all, like all good manbags, it has at least six different pockets / compartments so that all my bits and pieces can be kept separate from each other. I thought it was all the manbag I would ever need...
Until I discovered this beauty...
Until late last year I was carrying my stuff to work in a part-satchel / part-briefcase effort which did the job but was rather clunky and not that easy to carry if it was too heavy. Then, for Christmas, I received the manbag above and it changed my life. It has at least TEN separate compartments / storage areas, many of them ingeniously hidden, plus three built-in penholders (because I am an utter geek I now carry a red, a blue and a green pen at all times - as well as the black pen I've always carried). Inside I have my address book (old, but I can't throw it away), a phone charger, various pills, remedies, plasters and bandages for emergencies, notebooks for when story ideas strike, magazines, my bank card reader, the Oxford Guide To Grammar & Punctuation (because a good pedant is a well-armed pedant) and a Beretta 9mm semi-automatic pistol. If only.
Louise, being a girl and therefore having to buy herself a new bag at least once every three weeks, champions my use of the manbag... though she does believe I ought to carry even more of my clutter inside it, rather than filling my pants pockets with the unsightly bulges of phones, toothpicks, notebooks and keys. But I'm a bloke, I argue, I'm supposed to have unsightly bulges in my pants! It's not just that I'm pleased to see her. Besides, much as I may love my manbags, I could still be separated from them. There are some things that must never leave my person. If you want my keys, you're gonna have to steal my trousers.
