Thanks very much. I did eventually get to your comment - I have no idea how the topic of parentage got raised. But then I suppose the poem does have a father in it.

Well my friends, I must be off. There's a train strike today so it's gonna be a 5 mile walk home, so I'd better get going. Till tomorrow, mes amis.

I still do.

Although one never watches at the urinal as a full-grown man. That leads to trouble.

Well I'm 28, so youngish. I've been working full-time and studying part-time for the last five years. Yep, it's English - the poetry of Edward Thomas. Yours?

I think I've seen film of that Bly chap in the woods. There always appears to be crying and howling as well. I get enough of that at home, thanks very much.

Hey, go steady on the PhD, I've only just got it and it's still shiny and new! I haven't time to get disillusioned yet.

Which brings me right back to where I started! But you know that old thing about keeping your enemies closer than your friends? I sort of feel that way about fears - they define you as much as your loves. They define your boundaries. I hate them at the same time as loving the tensions they throw up. Now is that weird?

This is just the kind of primal stuff that makes me uncomfortable. But rather the breast than the hunt any day.

Christ that's absolutely right. My respect for Kurt is evermore increased. That's exactly it.

Fear of abandonment definitely. Heading into woods, definitely. But no drum banging. It's not dignified.

My hat is a wise wise garment.

Good for him. I only get emotional in the dark. And you know i think tesosterone has a lot to do with it. The double-edged sword of masculinity.

It's as if, at the last minute, you want to turn away from the great fascinating unknown thing in case it comes up and bites you. I don't know about any of this. I might be talking out of my hat.

I'm no psychologist but... I wonder if it's bred into us. I sometimes wonder if it's being English as well, we seem particularly bad at that sort of thing.

Maybe there is a preconception about masculinity, but I think it's also something more fundamental. Perhaps men still feel they're supposed to be active providers etc. and so shouldn't think about their innermost motives and desires, a sort of tyranny of action and pragmatism. Because there's a lot of comfort in action. Keep on acting and you never have to think.

Men seem to have a fear of the self. A lot do, anyway. Neither Jung nor Freud can explain this!

Men do seem to have some fear of the self. Not even Freud or jung have really explained why.

Men do spend a lot of time denying things to themselves and other people. There's some sort of fear of the self. I don't think even freud or Jung ever really got to grips with why men make such hard work of things.