IT'S fair to say my mum is in touch with the modern world. She can rattle off a text message quicker than me, she's up with the latest fashion trends and last week I overheard her singing along to Rockstar by Nickleback, word perfectly.

However, while she has been grappling with technology and singing about "hanging out in the coolest bars in the VIP with the movie stars", inevitably she has missed out on a few things.

One of which, is the definition of metrosexual. And this led to a rather awkward conversation the other day when I told her I was writing an article about being metrosexual.

"Well are you," she asked with an air of concern. "Well I guess I am a little, yes Mam," I replied.

The conversation then went slightly awkward and a little later I found out why. You see it transpired that my mum didn't think a metrosexual was a straight guy who takes too much care of his hair and displays the odd feminine trait, she thought it meant gay and that I was casually coming out of the closet.

Needless to say I set the record straight, so to speak, and convinced her otherwise. However, she would have been harder to convince if we weren't speaking on the phone, because at the time I was wearing make-up and, as those who saw my article on Monday might have noticed, I didn't look like a convincing straight guy.

So much so that I was meant to play cricket for the Echo against the Mayor's team that evening, but couldn't face the wrath of my own colleagues, let alone the opposition. Can you imagine what it would have been like as I stepped up to the crease? Sledging is bad enough at the best of times in cricket, let alone when you turn up to bat looking like Dame Edna Everage. Well, it wasn't quite that bad and there were some positive comments about my man-scara and guy-liner to outweigh the less savoury ones.

And things picked up even more when I went out for drinks after work. As we toured the pubs on Friday night I started to enjoy wearing make up and bizarrely, it made me feel good. Not only was it a catalyst for a bit of banter with my mates, but it also got me chatting to heaps of other people - mostly lovely young ladies.

As well as enjoying that I also liked the way people reacted when they noticed the make-up. Some were shocked, some intrigued and it was interesting challenging their views and messing with their heads without actually talking to them.

As a result of this I had a great night and if you ever want to inject some entertainment into your nights out lads, then I would advise donning some man-scara and a touch of guy-liner. And if you want advice on how to put it on I'll be down the pub this Friday and only too happy to oblige - you can't miss me I'm the Panda-eyed bloke sipping on a Babysham.