When the Queen’s granddaughter Zara Phillips married the rugby player Mike Tindall in 2011, the shallower among us wondered what she saw in him. We’re not wondering now. Watching the monstrous regiment of muppets and divas competing in the latest series of ITV’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! and seeing Tindall’s equable nature – highlighted by the incompetent creative men who surround him, be they pop stars, actors or alleged comedians – makes it clear that the uncomplicated man is the smart woman’s choice.
Tindall seems tremendously capable – an overlooked virtue in a romantic partner, and one that comes to the fore during the hard times. He’s like a human Swiss Army knife, whereas the other men currently ensconced in the Australian jungle are so clueless that they make Matt Hancock look good. Before his retirement from rugby in 2014, ‘Magic Mike’ survived a lacerated liver and a punctured lung, and broke a leg once, ribs twice and his nose eight times – he’s obviously not going to have the abdabs about touching a spider.
I blame the Brontës for the fact that men like Mike Tindall aren’t what more young women aspire to
His air of calmness is so attractive that it seems neither here nor there that he looks quite like a potato.
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