Guidos: Men who like to groom and preen.

You Tube is both a rich source of information and provider of humour.

Today, after half an hour of diversion surfing, I stumbled across this. The creature in the video is known as a guido, latterly applied to ridiculous, muscle-bound, steroid-munching people with a penchant for tight-fitting clothing and a culture based around the fierce application of artificial tanning solution, hair gel and hair removal cream. Apparently the species predominates in New Jersey, USA.

I've just come back from the beach. I love living at the beach, provided I don't spend too much time there at the weekend. Bad thoughts ensue.

You see, my neighbourhood increasingly attracts an Australian incarnation of the American guido, yet the phenomenon stills lacks a name. If a decade ago this look was found almost exclusively within the confines of the Australian-Lebanese community, today the obsession with deformed musculature, eyebrow tweezers and latent homosexuality is reaching epidemic levels and possesses little in common with it's Middle East heritage, as can now be witnessed after spreading successfully though citizens of Anglo-Celtic and Mediterranean origin. There is a growing number of eyewitness report that suggest we'll soon see this trend emerging in males Australians with East-Asian heritage. The Indian community remains immune to further mutations of this phenomenon since guido-ism appears deeply ingrained in middle class Indian society for a number of decades. Just look at any male Bollywood star.

I have to ask. What is it that makes a heterosexual make devote so much of his time to the pursuit of vanity? Why is it that males have bought into the formerly and specifically female domain of wanton self-adulation? Since the trend of spending hours in front of the mirror with pomades, unguents and ointments has previously been the realm of the stupider of the female species, why is it that males are happily risking the jeers and chiding of people like myself, wallowing in a pool of cleansing mudpacks and exfoliating dermabrasions?

My beach is being ruined by these people; walking themselves, their colossal biceps and stretched-Lycra white singlets up and down the promenade, taking up the space that should rightly be reserved for normal people.

And what is it with these tattoos? I have a theory that, in celebration of his ten and twelfth birthday, every one of the species receives respectively, a hair trimmer set permanently at number one, and a gift voucher redeemable for a hideous ink stain based loosely on 70s wallpaper designs? What is with all those swirls?

Frankly, I'm too old for this. I want the families, the dogs and the elderly people in budgie smugglers back. It's time to reclaim the sand and surf, and ask these people gently to get back into their modified cars and drive out West.