Status Anxiety: Emasculation by proxy

I’m writing this the day before the West London Free School is due to open and it’s not an exaggeration to say I’ve been looking forward to this moment for two years. The thought of our first cohort of pupils streaming through the gates, resplendent in their WLFS blazers, has sustained me through many a dark hour.

I was hoping to be in tip-top shape for this auspicious occasion and booked a ten-day holiday in Cornwall. The idea was to switch off the iPhone, get out the boogie board and spend my time frolicking in the surf with my lovely wife. Trouble is, we were sharing our holiday cottage with some friends and the other husband turned out to be better at everything than me. Surfing, map-reading, canoeing — you name it. Even his sandcastles were better than mine.
To give you just one example, last Friday we decided to hire a couple of boats on the Helford River — his family in one, mine in the other. At his suggestion, we pulled up on a beach which involved turning off the outboard motor and hoisting it up so it didn’t get damaged. I managed that part OK, but when it came time to cast off I couldn’t get the motor to go back down again. We began to drift dangerously close to some rocks and Caroline had to prevent us from running aground by using one of our oars as a punt. Things might have got a little hairy had the other husband not pulled up alongside, fixed my motor problem with a flick of his wrist and then glided off again.