My point here is that although he cannot have been feeling on top of the world, the world’s oldest man had communicated through a third party a desire to take part in an interview with a journalist and for a magazine of which he had no prior knowledge. He was just getting on with stuff. Consequently, when men announce that they are ‘ill’, particularly Northern men, the knee jerk response of ‘Man Flu’ or ‘Man Cold’ is not necessarily fair or accurate. It might well be true of some weaker sorts but hardly a legitimate appellation for just under half the population of the world – men that is, not Northern men.