My Man Bag

I was listening to an interview on BBC Radio Jersey a few weeks ago with a man who had written a book about modern urban slang terms and social typing.

In the interview John Uphoff described me to the guy and asked him to put me into a social group - apparently I’m an Alpha Geek - hmmmm!

The Urban Dictionary defines ‘Alpha Geek’ as “The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group“ which I suppose does define me - although I think our chief engineer probably takes the title on the hardware side.

During the interview he also mentioned the fact that I carried a Man Bag - back to the Urban Dictionary for a definition “A bag with one strap worn by metrosexual or homosexual males.”

The guy told John that Man Bags were still VERY controversial and unusual among straight men, however, walking around Jersey I see them everywhere - so either Jersey is a gay hotspot or the guy needs to wake up.

The first is a possibility but I don’t think so - I think the reason Man Bags are popular in Jersey and other centres of finance, Geek Culture and high student populations is because men need to carry more stuff!

I carry the usual stuff like wallet, keys and phone which, until I accepted the need for a bag would have been stuffed in pockets.

However, in the last few years my carry needs have increased.

In addition to phone, keys and wallet - I now have ipod, book, business cards, DS Lite, various bits of paper, flash drive and usually spare batteries and a compact flash card or two.

OK so I could leave some of it out but don’t see any reason to - and you never know when you might be given something at random.

So, in the 21st Century with an ever increasing range of items we need to carry around Man Bags WILL become more and more popular - to the point where airlines will accept them in the same way they do a womans handbag.

Having flown a lot within the UK over the last few years I’ve come to notice that when checking hand luggage, check-in staff just pass by a womans Hand Bag as more or less a piece of clothing (not in terms of security, but in terms of being allowed it in addition to another hand luggage bag).

When it comes to checking mine (my Man Bag is about the same size as my wifes Hand Bag) they kick up a fuss about me not being allowed two items of hand luggage.

This usually leads to an argument over discrimination towards men and being ignored for the rest of the flight by my wife (which is always nice).

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