The situations that a trip to a film about male strippers will prepare you for

The press-ups and sit-ups are back, Accompanied this time by a kettle bell. (A kettle bell is a type of weight in case you thought it was an alarm clock to tell you the tea was ready. It was bought in Lidl in the same kind of impulse buy that caused you to buy that generator.)

Every so often I get the urge for self-improvement. I don’t necessarily need to achieve a six-pack – maybe just a buy one get one free.

There’s usually an impetus for a better me. There are a number of reasons this time but the tipping point was seeing Magic Mike XXL the movie about ‘male entertainers’. (I went to it for research purposes. Dancing is my life.)

The film is great fun and also hugely instructive for those joiners seeking to differentiate their angle-grinding, drilling and sanding in a crowded marketplace. It does tend to make an average man feel a littlebody conscious. But there is one benefit of the experience of going to the cinema see it: dealing with being the only man in an all-female environment.

There was actually one other man at the screening. We exchanged glances not too dissimilar to those you’d exchange while waiting for Herself just outside the women’s changing room in a clothes shop. It’s a glance that says “Must be half time in the match by now.”

Men’s changing rooms seem to have no rules. Women flit around, in an out of cubicles like a bordello. Female fitting rooms are different. It’s a no-go area for men but you can’t just wander off to the safety of sitting on a ledge in the coat display.

If there’s a limit of four items, you have to mind the other seven she’s got picked out. So you loiter, draped in clothes like an awkward bedroom chair.

Other situations that a trip to a film about male strippers will prepare you for include when your normal haircutter has gone to a funeral and you’ve been directed to the ‘salong’ next door. Instead of mumbling ‘the usual’, you now have to talk about your feelings about your hair.

(Full disclosure – I get my hair cut in a salong anyway because, well, hair is my life.)

The world of women is not always a nice place to be – particularly if you’re not supposed to be there.

There is a pub in Dublin that has an extra one-cubicle toilet that is just off the street. It’s a woman’s toilet. As it turned out. But it was not adequately signalled as such. Your honour.

I found myself in there. On my way in I briefly pondering the absence of a urinal in a men’s toilet but discounting it as a Dublin affectation. Once installed, I started reading the graffiti on the wall.

Men’s toilet graffiti tends to be quite perfunctory. Someone may write a political message but it’s impact will be undermined by a willy drawn underneath.

But this ‘men’s’ toilet was different. One message said: “I think I’ve lost him forever.”

Underneath someone had replied – “You deserve so much better. ”

I was just about to congratulate Ireland on being so open-minded place that toilet-graffiti could respond maturely to the breakdown of a gay relationship, when I heard from outside: “WELL SHE’S TAKING HER TIME IN THERE”

So I had to walk the gauntlet of women with my hands over my face while saying sorry all the time. All I was short was the jumper over my head and being bundled into a squad car.

Back to Magic Mike screening, all of us – the 90 women, the one other man and I – are laughing heartily at a scene showing an impromptu sexy dance in a supermarket.

Apart from the odd exception, the world of women is not so bad.