Men surviving badly

With every day that passes, it becomes clearer that the only deadly chemicals of mass destruction in Iraq are the ones craftily hidden in the brains of that country's increasingly disillusioned and disaffected citizens.

However, I remain puzzled as to why, during the battle for Baghdad, Saddam never unleashed his most potent secret weapon, an elite army of women that would have made the Republican Guard look like Lord Snooty and his Pals. With the war now over, I can exclusively reveal that what Tommy Franks feared most throughout the campaign was not anthrax or sarin, but an encounter with the crack Iraqi team known as the PMTs (or Premenstruals), the most shockingly awesome fighting force known to man. I have been on the receiving end of the PMTs myself, so believe me when I tell you that they attack without warning, are utterly unpredictable, fight like animals and, useful in the desert, retain water for four days.

Being the more ruthless sex, it is inevitable that women will one day rule the earth, and that was the starting point for Friday night's provocative How to Be a Man (C4). Set in the year 2822, the world had been female ever since "the great Ann Widdecombe abolished men in 2005", and the only remaining males were ornamental, genetically modified pets who all had washboard stomachs, never answered back and dropped dead at 30. But as with Woody Allen's Sleeper, one unreconstructed man had somehow survived and been revived, and as he lay on the sofa in his vest and pants, belching, farting and picking his nose, his futuristic mistresses explained that he had been groomed for a special mission.

To reinvigorate the planet's enfeebled sperm bank with some fresh masculine genes, he would be sent back in time to the year 2003, to discover just what it means to be a man, and to bring back some DNA of the most red-blooded and macho type (DNA being the basic building block of life, and also the initials of the National Dyslexic Association).

At that point, drama neatly transmogrified into documentary, as the rogue male (co-writer Antonio Marrese) arrived in present-day London, and tried to ascertain what the lost essences of masculinity might be. He soon found the answer, courtesy of Erin Pizzey, who is the antithesis of Andrea Dworkin in everything except bulk, and who distilled maleness to four vital ingredients (sexuality, manual dexterity, playfulness and violence), after which Marrese set about locating suitable specimens of each quality. He soon tracked down the sexual gene in a gentleman named Spess, who boasted of his prowess and desirability, and was surrounded by glamorous limping women, so I suspect that the man is not exactly two inches (unless you're measuring from the ground). "They all want a little piece of me," he smirked, and he seemed to be openly recommending bigamy, which is the state of having one wife too many. No, hang on a minute. Having one wife too many is called monogamy.

Continuing his search, Marrese found manual dexterity in a wimpish writer who chopped down trees, talked about our hunter-gatherer ancestry and clearly regarded himself as the next Iron John (although he looked more like an Ironing Johnny to me). As for the playfulness gene, that was extracted from a group of forty-something skateboarders in Bristol, whose intention was clearly to move straight from adolescence to senescence, with no intervening period of adult responsibility whatsoever.

Lastly, he acquired the DNA for violence from some investment bankers, who felt an urge to box in their spare time because "basically, men are quite stupid, idiotic, aggressive dumb creatures". Maybe so, but speaking as someone whose only experience of pugilism is shadow boxing (I was knocked out by my shadow in the fourth round), I have no desire whatsoever to be punched in the ring. Nor would I consent to a bout with any of these chaps, because (knowing my luck) I would probably end up having to stick a toothbrush up my undercrackers in order to clean my teeth.

Stories set in the future are always really about the present, and this drama-doc from Keo Films succeeded because it astutely combined those two realities into a single seamless programme. Brilliantly directed by co-writer Jaimie D'Cruz, it contained some brave and splendidly laconic lines ("After just three blows of the axe, the spirit of the monkey boy within me was released to swing freely from the branches of my mind and unpeel the banana of my soul," being my favourite) and it was uncompromising in its belief that, although women are still oppressed by society and biology, so too are men. After all, women bleed once a month, but men are also required to bleed from time to time, whenever some dictatorial sadist decides it is time to go to war again and bomb the world into goodness. So give me your white feathers and pass the tampons, because the smart money is on turning female, just in case another conflict is around the corner.