We three writers are big supporters of Christmas. We’re lucky; we have loving families who are equally enthusiastic at this period of the year, thereby adding to our own good vibrations.

As a result, we all tend to get pissed-off with those moaning minnies forever harping-on about what a shit time it is which they follow up with an endless list of complaints about the cost of everything, the hypocrisy involved in ‘loving one’s fellow man’, not to mention the hassle of their local Tescos being uncomfortably crowded or – can you believe it – closed all of Christmas Day.

It makes you realise what a curse it

is being denied the power to Think Positively.

According to the ‘What Men Do’ Guide, everyone’s Life experiences a major change every seven years. The inevitable result of this is that the ‘good times’ don’t go on indefinitely any more than the ‘bad’ ones.

OK, so you cannot mess with Time or Fate; the only thing you can do is to deal with the low points in a Positive way. As it says in the Guide, when the love of your life has dumped you (for an obvious prick) or some other downer befalls you, looking at it Positively you quickly learn who your Friends are.

An equally Positive reaction which can often be awakened when things get rough is a deeper awareness of what we think of as one’s ‘inner space’ – that element of the invisible which is your private domain, a tiny part of which you might sometimes share with your family and the few guys with whom you’re tight.

But most importantly, it’s the ‘space’, the centre of strength where you have the freedom to ‘live’ alone (or as Ancient Greeks used to say ‘know thyself’). This ‘inner space’ reflects back to how you’re coping with your Life.

Like an audience which observes a character’s eyes to judge if he’s a serious actor or merely performing a hand-job of ‘let’s pretend’, so does the reflection give you the Truth. You can’t fool it; all you can do to avoid it is use the modern routine of some distraction.

And crucially, your ‘inner space’ is where the Positive force presents itself. Here lies what we call ‘Balls’, this Positive quality demanding a capital ‘B’.

Instead of that puny hanging appendage that’s fleetingly aroused by a pair of shapely legs, the Balls aroused by the ‘inner space’ is psychologically rooted in all things Positive.

We three guys love Christmas and the opportunity it provides to ‘spread a little happiness’.

Just by being Positive, and sharing it. So why not join in and share this.

Since first picking up Hunter S. Thompson, I’ve been a fan. His writing screams and spits and stomps about the page. Much like the accompanying scratched and splattered sketches of Ralph Steadman.

The more I learnt about HST, the more I realised that the writing wasn’t a style or an effect; the words were the man. He and his work are inseparable. Like the fingers of the hunter ingrained on his spear, Hunter left his mark on the page. I’m sure this is nothing new for a writer, as they pour themselves into their work and draw from experience, but for me at least, HST goes beyond.

This week I read something he wrote that went a long way to explaining why. It was a reply to a buddy asking for some life advice.

The advice is a must read, the link posted at the bottom of this piece. I won’t try to paraphrase something so brilliantly put. Other than taking away some valuable advice, the link between the man and the work was explained.

For HST the man and the work are one and the same. A man must be loyal to himself. Then he must find an output that lets him maximize his potential. So unlike how we are encouraged to see the world: to aim at a job, then work our way towards it. Hunter says aim at yourself, and keep adjusting as you go. Hence why

his work is so clearly a reflection of the man.

While suffering a bout of health problems at the age of 67, Hunter committed suicide. I’m sorry not to have his writing around, as I’m sure he’d have kicked seven bells of sh*t out of today’s politicians either side of the Atlantic. He could have done more Hunter.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/04/hunter-s-thomspon-letters-of-note-advice/

As we say on the back cover of the ‘What Men Do’ Guide, “Today’s Hero is the football icon with the Balls to tell us he’s gay.”

While football seemed the obvious example, this is equally applicable to all sportsmen – non-more so than a guy who spends the majority of his time in the public eye wearing nothing but a speedo.

But what really makes Tom Daley our Hero of 2013 is that he’s not saying ‘I’m gay, deal with it’ – in fact he hasn’t even said he’s gay – but rather he’s putting his Balls out there and saying ‘yeah, I’m dating a guy, so fucking what?’. He is showing us the Real Tom Daley and for a 19 year old – regardless of gender preference – that takes Balls.

We – my two fellow writers and myself – have been trying to assess the effects that Daley will have, especially on young males. Afterall, your first shag with a female is a major marking for most teenage guys even though teenage sex is usually 25% itchy nuts and 75% ego. But maybe now a young guy will learn to embrace attraction and accept that, as we say in the Guide, “it may be clear that it’s girls, girls, girls that get your motor running, but then there is that one guy…”

The definition of a modern Hero was something we struggled with when writing the WMD Guide, settling on the Balls to be Real and live life to it’s full potential. While this doesn’t quite embrace the full heroic ideal, it goes some way to explaining what we mean by a Hero.

And Tom’s actions have shown that he definitely belongs to the Tribe of Heroes. He met someone who made him happy, enriched his life, and so he took the Risk and embraced it. Now he’s publicly announced that he’s with another man, not to grab headlines but purely because he wants to ‘say it like it is’, to Risk exposing his Real self – presumably because it makes little sense to him to be anything other than Real.

Wow, does this guy have Balls or what. And to display this at age 19 … dare we say ‘That’s What Men Do’.