Relationship issues

I have a major relationship crisis at the moment. On Monday I was cycling in the east of Copenhagen when I heard a loud clang below my feet. I tried to continue pedalling but my bike was having none of it. In a few seconds I was by the side of the road, my hands covered in oil, trying to figure out what had happened.

It appears buying a 20-year-old bike is not smartest thing to do. My gear cog on the back wheel had disintegrated, falling onto its axis and basically making the bike uncyclable (definitely a word).

So, yesterday I took the bike to my local bike shop. In Copenhagen bike shops are like pubs or newsagents: everyone’s got a local. Mine is just across the road from the flat, which is lovely. Anyway, I wheeled the poor wounded animal over to the shop and let the guys have a look at it.

"She used to be obedient."

I now realise what it must feel like when you take your car to the mechanic only for the guy to take a sharp intake of breath and basically inform you the thing is buggered. My bike was completely rodgered in that respect.

The verdict of ten minutes poking and prying: the cog would have to be replaced. Now, this is a problem with a bike almost as old as you are – no one produces parts for it anymore. I have five gears on the cog at the back; unfortunately five-gear cogs are unheard of in the modern age of ipads and sexually transmitted infections. The smallest available was a seven-gear cog.

‘That’s fine’, I said, ‘just whack it on’. Unfortunately when we messed around with it, it appeared seven cogs would be too big to fit between the wheel and the frame of the bike. The solution: change the wheel. I realised this was going to be a bit of a fiddle. I left the guys to it and went to the laundry. When I got back, we found out the chain wasn’t long enough, so I got a new one.

Anyway, 650 Danish Kroner later (apparently £81), and I got my bike back. And you know what: something’s changed.

It doesn’t purr anymore as I glide down the road, nor do the gears change freely. To make matters worse, there is an annoying clicking sound coming from somewhere below my arse. I can’t figure out where it’s coming from, but to me it sounds as if the bike just doesn’t want to move.

These suspicions have doubled since I realised that when changing gear the chain rattles like hell. All this noise is putting a serious strain on our relationship. I used to be able to pick the thing up and go for a spin, no problem. She used to be obedient. Now, I have to negotiate a high enough gear just to get off the starting blocks.

The problem is I can’t do anything about it. I’ve tried fiddling but there just isn’t any way of sorting this problem out. It’s like when your girlfriend comes back with a new haircut, and you realise you don’t like her as much as you thought you did. You suggest trimming the fringe or pining it back, but whatever you do it just isn’t the same anymore.

To make matters worse, imagine you’ve booked a two-week long holiday with your new freakish-looking girlfriend that you can’t get out of. I haven’t a clue how I’m going to manage cycling to Amsterdam in June with this horrible, whinging old hag between my legs.

New shampoo

As people who know me are well aware, I am the ultimate 21st Century metrosexual man. I own top of the range hair straighteners; I read FHM magazine on the toilet; I shout “she’s fit” at passers by on the bus; and of course I moisturise thoroughly after masturbation.

Sad to say, I am not actually this idealised god of a man. My neck isn’t as thick as my head, nor do my pecks strain to burst out of my t-shirt. Instead, I like the non-commercialised things in life: bread, cheese and 2-in-1 shampoo.

Maybe it’s a self-respect thing, but I genuinely don’t have the confidence or tenacity to strut around showing off my CK boxers waistband off to the world. Therefore, when I am forced to buy a brand, I get very annoyed…

Last week I was forced to buy brand, thanks to Netto’s disgraceful policy of not catering exactly to my niche in the market.

This tag line here on my new bottle of shampoo denotes everything that’s wrong with modern marketing, and the gullible fools that lap it up in the vain hope that the words on the product are somehow gospel. ‘Healthy looking hair in 10 days’ – there’s no quote marks, or expert scientist with his thumbs up stood next to it in guarantee. There’s not even a tiny asterisk in the corner leading you to even tinier writing on the back of the bottle confirming the statement is in fact bollocks. It’s an irrelevant statement that will never be challenged.

And yet, this little quote – critical as I am of it – still did enough to entice me to buy this particular range of shampoo. For it seems Copenhagen does little to cater for the simple man, unless you want so simple you may as well just scrub a soap bar into your skull. The Netto I was in last week offered ‘Pantene Wild Minx’, ‘Lynx Ferocious’ and of course something along the lines of ‘L’Oréal Fruit Infusion’. It’s the same old crap on every bottle: you smell great, you look great; hey, you even feel great!

Netto deal with the other end of the market too, but sadly an industrial sized white bottle with the word ‘Shampoo’ on the front and an ingredients list of simply ‘Shampoo, yeah?’ on the back does not really appeal to me. I need a good old 2-in-1: quick, easy and effective.

Sadly I had to punt with ‘Repair and Protect’ – whatever that really means, as there was no simple, economic – yet not completely Orwellian – product available. I’ve been using this shampoo a week now, and I must say my hair doesn’t feel any different; although I do still have to wait three more days to get that desired effect.

I fully expect to wake up Monday morning with a John Travolta slick back barnet, spring out of bed; check myself in the mirror, click my fingers and point at my reflection in a ‘still got it, kid’ kind of a way, and swagger down Strøget with my leather jacket cast nonchalantly over my right shoulder; arse bulging out of my tight pants, CK boxers on show.

But for the time being I have to remain dismayed with the over-priced shampoo I’ve bought. Apparently this shampoo helps protect against styling damage. This is interesting, as my styling approach boils down to an ‘attack hair with towel until sufficiently dried’ practice. It works for me, but it’s probably not the ‘safest’ way to dry your hair.

Honestly, this bottle just makes me feel guilty about apparently not being able to maintain a healthy head of hair. ‘Repair and Protect’? Well how bad is my hair? It’s not a car with an MOT problem, it’s hair.

On the back: ‘Do you have hair that is dry/damaged and more prone to split ends?’ – the answer: I really don’t know! But you suggesting this to me makes me think ‘yes, I probably do’. Suddenly the bottle is in my shopping basket next to the bread and cheese (non-brand) and I’ve sold myself out to a day-time TV advert with fake eyelashes, heavy blusher and some pathetically camp guy stylist claiming he offers ‘salon products without the salon prices’.

Do I want to look sensational? Not particularly. But will this shampoo guilt me into thinking I look like crap? You bet it will…

Boxer shorts

I’ve just spent the last two hours wandering around Copenhagen in search of boxer shorts. This is my personal nightmare.

For me, clothes shopping is a stressful activity. The slow walk around a shop gently fondling a leather jacket and admiring the soles of a pair of shoes can get very tedious after the eighth store. Asking a staff member each time where the men’s section is while surrounded by scantily clad female manikins seems to be a right of passage when clothes shopping.

I hate it. I can never find what I want, and I feel constantly watched by some teenage store assistant. The pinnacle of stressful clothes shopping, however, is the search for underwear.

The main problem I have is that, simply, it’s embarrassing. Underwear companies seem to pride their marketing success on how much cock they can reveal to the consumer without actually scaring small children. This is what I noticed in the first shop I entered, the fashionable Magasin du Nord, which I think might be the Danish equivalent of Harrods.

The department store is enormous, and it took me quite a while just to locate the men’s section – having gotten lost in the kitchen appliances department. I found an entire half a floor dedicated to underwear. It was hell. Each brand has its own little shelf with packs of underwear from loose cotton pants to the man thong, which is basically just a knob bag.

To make matters worse, a manikin of a guy’s midriff sits atop of each shelf. I’ve not seen so many arses in one room since the Leeds University Medic Society held a Friday social in the student union.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m as metrosexual as the next guy. If people want to reveal the contours of their penises to the world then that’s fine by me. What I do have a problem with is, as I enter the underwear section, an attractive Danish girl comes up to me and asks if I need help with anything. The embarrassment is almost too much. I mumble in English that I’m “just browsing”, but that just sounds like I’m there to ogle at the manikins.

Anyway, I get away from the staff member and find a private corner of the department where I can browse without interruption. This is where I encounter my second problem: the picture of the modelled boxers on the front of the pack. Why is it always some rippling, muscular Adonis staring back at me? Does anyone actually look like this? Does anyone genuinely stand with their pelvis thrust so far forward it could divert oncoming traffic? Take a look at this guy for example. No man actually looks like this unless he’s rolled a pair of socks and shoved them down his pouch.

My embarrassment comes from the fact that, if I pick up some boxers with a strong guy and a bulging knob on the front of the packet, it looks as though I want to emulate that guy. Underwear manufacturers seem to assume that the idiot customer’s mentality will be ‘if I buy these pants, I’ll look like that guy and get all the ladies’. I therefore look vain and yet insecure if I proceed to the checkout where that lovely Danish girl waits and make my purchase. She’d surely snigger and make me feel all queasy inside – not worth it.

To be honest I got scared in Magasin du Nord, and so I left. There were too many people near me. Underwear shopping should be a private affair. The danger of someone seeing me nonchalantly starring at tightly fitted male pelvises for twenty minutes is one I simply cannot risk.

I carried on my walk around Copenhagen in search of a cheap, non-fashionable clothes shop. However, every store I entered had the same branded pants with misshapen willies glaring out. All I want is something comfortable. I don’t want to expose the brand of my pants to the world as though it somehow makes me more attractive to suggest I can afford luxury under garments.

The pinnacle of ‘luxury’ pants seems to be from the Björn Borg collection. In every store I entered, there was Björn staring back at me. I wouldn’t mind, but at 350 kr. per two-pack, that’s a bit extreme. That’s roughly £19 per pair. How good can a pair of boxer shorts be? For that price I want a guarantee that the child labourer in China who made them at least got a mid-morning coffee break.

There is no way in hell I would pay £19 for some underwear. I feel sorry for the Danes who I assume have no other choice than to buy them. Luckily for me, I stumbled across some plain, black, probably boring but definitely comfortable, non-restrictive boxers in the supermarket (large, naturally).

As you can see, there’s no penis. There’s no six-pack. There’s no embarrassment.

They’ll do me. I didn’t have to seek assistance or stare at a cock. If they don’t fit me then that’s fine, they’re cheap. Now that would be a kick in the bollocks: £19 for some underwear only to get home and realise that fat arse of yours does not mirror the toned rump of the model on the packet. Nineteen quid to tell you you’re a porker? Nah.