One of the things that drives me mad about Christmas is this obsession with recipes. There are recipes for the pre-Christmas party, recipes for using up the leftovers, a multitude of recipes trying to make turkey taste interesting or others that attempt to transform brussels sprouts into something other than what they are; small, hard balls of strong cabbage.

Then there are the lifestyle recipes, the recipe for family harmony, the recipe for healthy living – it goes on and on and on. I’ve decided if you can’t beat them, join them, so I came up with a recipe of my own – the Maurice Hickey recipe for the maintenance of bachelorhood.

As you know, I’ve had quite a struggle trying to maintain my bachelor status, and indeed had a particularly difficult few months this year just gone by when the attentions of one Ms Mathilda Greene all but bested me.

For almost six decades, I have successfully maintained my bachelor status thanks to the key ingredients outlined as follows:

1 single man

1 strong mother

1 shared roof over your head

1-2 steady sources of income

1 tight circle of male friends

One single man

The first ingredient is myself – a single man with no attachments and a general contentment with my station in life. I’m also fortunate not to have any deeply held desire to leave my genetic mark on the world.

oNE strong mother

A strong mother or a strong mother figure is essential for the bachelor – she becomes his anchor and his rock of steadfastness. While others may come and go, friends may fall in and fall out, the Mother remains the one constant. She is essential when it comes to keeping the attentions of other women at bay. In this regard, she’s as good as a rottweiler who can smell trouble coming and will gather herself up into a ferocity that would frighten off an army.

The only drawback with the strong mother arises when she finds a partner she thinks would be a suitable replacement for her as she prepares to shuffle off the mortal coil.

If she gets into cahoots with another woman then the bachelor is a bit like Germany in the summer of 1941 – he has a war on two fronts. In this situation, the advice of Lady Macbeth is crucial. He must “screw his courage to the sticking place”, or as they say in south Tipp, he must ’hould tough.

Aside from this risk, a strong Mother is an essential ingredient in the mix that makes for a successful bachelorhood.

One shared roof

A man with his own house is a very attractive prospect. There is nothing like a readymade nest to attract a clocking hen, but if there is another woman – eg the Mother – already feathering the nest, your defences are doubled against any potential encroachment by another of that gender.

Of course, I have the house and land at Lisnapookybawna but most people think it belongs to the Mother so it doesn’t appear on my balance sheet as a bachelor asset.

One to two steady sources of income

A steady income provides financial independence and keeps the bachelor insulated from outside interference. In my opinion, it would be important not to be too well off, or at least not to have the appearance of being too well off – that can have its drawbacks too.

I have two modest sources of income – one from the council and the other from my little job at the recycling depot. These arrangements have the advantage of making my schedule unpredictable and unsteady – it gives the impression that I’m a bit of a will-o’-the-wisp, not easy to tie down, and struggling to put the few bob together.

A tight circle of male friends

There is nothing to protect a man’s bachelor status like a close circle of male friends – they’re like a herd of elephants around you, an impenetrable wall of disinterested testosterone. Women are notoriously monogamous and won’t tolerate anyone – man, woman or dog – within an ass’s roar of the man they clap eyes on. If they get any hint that the men you hold court with at the local watering hole will continue to feature as prominent fixtures in you life, they’ll either seek to break the attachment or they’ll write you off as a lost cause.

That’s my recipe for protecting my bachelor status. At times it could be described as a sort of artistic struggle as I often have to resort to very creative strategies to protect my status.

As I finished this little reflection, a Christmas card arrived from one Matilda Greene informing me that herself and Percy Pipplemoth have parted ways and she was back on the single list. In the card was a photograph of herself holding a sprig of mistletoe over her head.

Another key ingredient – mistletoe is to be avoided, at all costs. CL