Today’s Mediterranean machismo might not be recognised by matador José Tomás

CULTURAL differences have fed human curiosity for centuries, and, despite living in an ever-more joined up world, peering beyond the horizon remains a primal instinct.

Chinese tourists take river cruises to gape at impoverished North Korea. A French court bans a baby a name containing a tilde, as the character is incompatible with national law. Women in Nepal who observe chhaupadi are banished to cattle sheds while they menstruate.

These practices may stir anthropologists into reveries of comparison but Real Madrid’s admission that Marco Asensio missed a game on Wednesday because shaving his legs caused an infection suggests that today’s Mediterranean machismo might not be recognised by matador José Tomás.

It would be entirely inappropriate to suggest that Asensio might have been helped through his ordeal as the Irish Laurels winner Clonbrien Hero was — by cocaine.

It is certain that none of the Mayo or Dublin players on Sunday might cry off over a pimple but, in these metrosexual times, it is no longer possible to be as emphatic about the leg shaving.