CALL me old fashioned if you like but I have never been tempted to fall in line with the many males in the Western world who have opted to carry man-bags.

I am very much a member of the cram-it-all-into-your-pockets brigade.

Anything worth carrying around can find room in jacket or trouser pockets, I have found over the years. So why go to all the bother and expensive of putting them into handbags…sorry, man-bags?

I have also heard these apparently essential accessories for metrosexuals described as butch-bags, he-holdalls, lads’-luggage and sir-satchels but I suspect that these names have been invented in the over-active brain of a public relations person desperate to catch the attention of grizzly and cynical journalists.

So I will stick to calling them man-bags. Evidently, according to new research just published, the average man-bag contains items worth �104.80 which is only �4.28 less than the items in the average lady’s handbag.

The study also reveals some telling traits of the metrosexuals – 21 per cent carry aftershave in their man-bags and five per cent claim they tote hair styling products or a mirror. One in 50 even admit to carrying cosmetics.

The most common gadget to be carried is a mobile phone while laptops, tablets (of the electronic variety) and gaming devices are also popular. A fifth of man-bag owners say they carry an umbrella.

Eight per cent claim to regularly carry their passport, for impromptu jet-setting, and some pack a spare pair of underwear, in case of who knows what.

All this talk about man-bags and handbags leads me on to another piece of research which concludes that males and females are driving each other crazy when it comes to motoring.

A little over half the women questioned admitted that having their partner in the car adversely affected their driving, making them feeling stressed and nervous. From what I have observed on the roads, it may just be their driving which does that but I could be wrong.

Men – generally a level-headed lot I find - are less likely to be affected by having their partner in the car (41 per cent) with one in 10 saying they drive more carefully when they are in that situation.

However, a similar number of men refuse to let their partner drive their car, chiefly on the grounds that they do not rate their other half’s driving abilities as highly as their own, their car is too powerful for their partner to drive or they feel their partner suffers from a lack of confidence when driving.

On the other hand, one in 10 women said their partner drives too fast or recklessly. Men got back at this by 17 per cent saying they are better drivers than their partners and a similar number daring to voice the opinion that their partner is incompetent at parking.

I make no comment on all this for fear that my dinner will end up parked in the kitchen bin.