What to buy the man in your life for Christmas? For me, the socks/cheap aftershave dilemma never fails to put a damper on what is meant to be a jolly time of year.

This year, I thought I’d been saved the trauma of having to make that difficult choice, when some kind soul sent me a copy of a book billed as an ‘indispensible guide for the modern man.’ ‘Vital Statistics’, apparently gives answers to ‘Everything a man needs to know.’ Great, I thought. It’s about time he found out how many plates you can safely stack on a draining board so as not to end up with a crockery penny falls. He could do with reminding how long you can leave a six-pint milk container out of the fridge before it goes off, and I was also sure the book would include how many consecutive days a man should wear boxer shorts before changing them.

How wrong I was. Apparently, today’s fellas need to know stuff like the greatest number of women seduced in a Bond movie, how often British drivers have come second in the F1 championship, and which sport causes the most deaths – professional boxing, horse riding or sky diving?

I don’t want to deride the author, but I would argue that men don’t NEED to know any of these facts.

Maybe for a pub quiz, but not in REAL LIFE, which to my mind is when you need to know the things you need to know.

If I had been asked to pen this publication, I would have included statistics that blokes really need to grasp, such as:

  • While shopping in a supermarket with his wife, what is the longest time in which a man has completely disappeared?
  • What is the most times in a year that a man has been reminded to put the toilet seat down?
  • What is the shortest period before leaving the house for work on a Monday morning, that a man has asked: “Do I have a clean shirt?”
  • What is the world record for daily use of the phrase: “I don’t know, ask your mum.”
  • What is the probability that the present a man buys for his wife or girlfriend this Christmas will be returned before New Year?
  • What percentage of men in the Western World have control of the TV remote on an evening – 75 per cent, 47 per cent or less than 1 per cent?

That last one is perhaps too easy – we all know that, after 6pm, only one in 2 billion men have a free rein with the remote. But the others provide a challenge – at least to those not living with a man.