A phrase I borrow from a remarkably sane Guardian reader, responding to this article by Mike Power, a man apparently determined to atone for having such a patriarchal name. First, picture the scene:

All across Britain, the whiff of charred, low-quality sausage meat is hanging in the summer haze. And with it, floating almost indistinguishably in the grease-filled air across the garden fences, is blokey barbecue chat.

And then, this being the Guardian,

If there is anything less compelling but more oppressively penetrating than the conversation of four suburban men discussing how to light and then operate a barbecue, I have yet to hear it.

You heard him, it’s oppressively penetrating. Why so, you ask?

What really drains the joy from the summer breeze is the assumption, and the practice, that this is Man’s Work. All over the UK, probably the world, the barbecue is now one of the last places where even normal blokes become sexist.

Yes, I know. Two for our archive of classic sentences. Mr Power is upset, as all right-thinking people should be, that some heinous “biological determinism” holds sway in the warm weather custom of cooking outdoors. A cultural phenomenon that, we learn, “sees women as salad-spinners and men as the keepers of the grill, the tenders of the flame, lords and masters of the meat.” “It’s a sausage-fest out there,” says Mr Power. “And it’s getting ugly.” Because there’s nothing uglier than the sight of menfolk indulging, often knowingly, in a clichéd male behaviour – cooking for friends and family, and making sure that everyone is having a good time. None of which impedes our slayer of the patriarchy. He has credentials to display and boilerplate to churn:

The mythology of meat is well marbled with machismo.

I’ll just leave that one there, shall I?

Baby bangs. // The clap-off bra. When time is short. // The $6 foot-long black hotdog. // Ways to say “beer.” // A brief history of wiretapping. // Swing of note. // Japanese schoolgirl with an electromechanical exoskeleton. // How to make slime. // Waterspout, Florida. // How clothes should fit. // Cat wedding, 1914. // Alfred Hitchcock explains the MacGuffin. // It’s a law, like gravity. // Attention UFO enthusiasts. // New York’s summer of ’69. // A stylish radiophonograph. // Frank Zappa plays the bicycle. (h/t, Coudal) // Piglet, ice cream and parasol. // And Kate reminds us why San Francisco’s public transport is second to none.