The idea for this pre-Father’s Day post was supposed to be that things get better with age and that we should embrace getting older and all of the fine things that come with it. Wisdom, perhaps; an improved financial situation, with any luck, or maybe – if you’re one of those people who jumps into a sort of panicked, late-starter love-affair with fitness – a more honed physique, or better lung capacity, or whatever benefits they all lie about when they try to trick you into doing exercise. (I jest, I jest! Exercise is brilliant! Don’t come after me, workout warriors!)

Anyway, to research this post I thought I’d ask Mr AMR for some nice little sound bites that I could work into my piece  – it’s for L’Oreal Men and was all about male grooming, you see (I’ll get to it!) and I wanted to have some anecdotal material about being a man and a father and how life gets better all the time. The title was going to be Five Things That Get Better With Age.

“What do you mean, things that get better with age?” said Mr AMR. “Like cars?”

“No,” I said, “profound things. Meaningful things. Like sex.”

“SEX?” He laughed loudly and I knew, at this point, that my lovely, heartfelt piece on fatherhood was going to have to be either completely fabricated or written off as a total loss.

‘Don’t worry,” said Mr AMR. “Give me a day or two and I’m sure I’ll think of at least one thing that gets better with age.”

And so here we are, In Conversation with Mr AMR, scraping the anecdotal barrel and getting a small insight into how his mind works. Despite not being immediately able to come up with anything that gets better with age, he did say ‘at least his L’Oreal Men products helped him to look better year after year.” Haha! Excellent. L’Oreal should put him on the telly. More on what he thought of his products below.

Me: “Right. Have you thought of the things that get better with age?”

Mr: “Five things? Yes. First one, cars.”

Me: “For God’s sake, I said you couldn’t have cars! It has to be about you!”

Mr: “It is about me. My cars, the cars that I have owned, have got better.”

Me: “Right. I’m glad you picked something so deep. Next?”

Mr: “My dress sense.”

Me: “Really?”

Mr: “Yes. You should have seen me in my rave days. I had a perm.”

Me: “Moving on. I’m not printing that.”

Mr: “OK, my general outlook on life. I understand things better and have a better understanding of what’s going on.”

Me: “Excellent! This is exactly what I need! Meaningful stuff. Carry on.”

Mr: “Yes, I understand things better. I also have better friends. Less friends, but that’s good because I’ve separated the wheat from the chief.”

Me: “The WHAT?”

Mr: “Haha! That’s not the saying is it? The wheat from the sheaf?”

Me: “The chaff!”

Mr: “hahahaha. HAHAHA! Make sure you write that down. Wait; I can make it into a joke. I only have two friends, the wheat and the chief. No, wait…”

Me: “No. Last thing that’s better with age?”

Mr: “Hm. Family?”

Me: “LAST? You can’t say that last. People will think you’re weird. That should be the first thing that comes to mind.”

Mr: “No, keep it last. It’s good that they get to see the man I really am. Anyway, family – yes it should go first; write that I said “lastly but most importantly,”. Having a family is obviously the best thing.

And that, dear readers, was the end of the conversation. I did also make him test out his L’Oreal products and give me feedback, but to say that he wouldn’t make a good beauty blogger is an understatement and a half. Here’s his mini review:

L’Oreal Men Expert Vita Lift 5 Anti-Ageing Moisturiser: good for after shaving as it didn’t burn and felt soft and soothing. Good smell, good packaging because you don’t have to put the lid back on.

Men Expert Vita Lift Eye Cream: didn’t remember to put this on a lot of the time but it felt nice and cooling when I did. Good smell.

Men Expert Stress Resist Shower Gel: GOOD SMELL!

Men Expert Stress Resist Roll On Deodorant: (wait for it) good smell.

I suppose, in a way, what else do you want them to do? Deodorant and shower gel are supposed to keep you smelling nice, or “good”. Excellent work Mr AMR, you can come back. In other news, I asked him to take the still life photos of the products and make them look somehow pretty-ish so that the images fit in with my usual style.

He returned and said, “I’ve gone a bit manly with them I’m afraid. Woodcutter style.”

Ha. He’s the best. You can buy a huge bundle of the above products on Boots.com – there’s already a massive saving, but for an extra 20% off use the code VITALIFTSAVE20. Woodcutter style.

This post contains paid-for advertorial with L’Oreal.