Presidents Club
I’m so astounded that my fellow men have let us down and yet again scandal has landed across the headlines with men behaving badly in the UK.
Put men on their own together, add some alcohol and rich food and the blood rushes down.
I can’t think of anything worse, an ‘Only Men’ dinner!
Who wants to go to that?
When I was employed I had to attend, back in the 90’s, a so-called sports dinner, yep, you guessed right, men only! I’ve never played rugby or football, so basically the discussion ended up being about work and the weather. I’ve never been so bored. Usually they have a comedian whose stand-up routine is very blue too.
This latest scandal reminds me of the hit series on Netflix, The Crown, where Prince Phillip attended a men’s only club, called The Thursday Club and the goings on that resulted. He had to sack his personal secretary for inappropriate behaviour that resulted in his wife divorcing him. This was in the 1950's.
Here is a quote from an article in the Independent newspaper on 16th January, 1996, written by Miles Kington who obviously attended the club.
“I think I am probably one of the last surviving members of the old Thursday Club, the gang of cronies that the Duke of Edinburgh used to gather round him in the 1950s to have a bit of fun away from his serious life at Buckingham Palace. The club was strictly all-male, but that does not mean there were not women at these gatherings. After all, as Arthur Koestler once said to me, “The extraordinary thing about men at all-male gatherings is that they talk about women non-stop, whereas at mixed functions the men talk only about male hobbies such as sport, politics and cars — never about women, even though there are many women present.”
It is ironic that nearly 60 years later a similar club still existed, The Presidents Club.
I am not doubting the huge amount of good they have done as a charity, but now they have caused the charity to close down with the inevitable result of job losses and the good causes losing out too.
Sometimes I am embarrassed being a man.