It occurred to me recently that modern man was running dangerously short of ‘real man skills’.

Sadly, my theory was then compounded when a teacher out jogging in Alaska this week was actually eaten by wolves.

I couldn’t help thinking that if we knew how to fend off wild animals - like we used to - it could have been a different matter altogether.

Now I’m not talking about hunting here, I’m talking about survival.

The ability to get out alive when a bear charges, or the composure required to locate a tiger’s weak spot in a crisis.

It may seem like fairly redundant knowledge for the city dwelling masses, but who knows when nature is going to bare its snarling teeth, and let’s be honest, your iPad’s only going to help if you can throw it with sufficient power to do some damage.

While there are no hard and fast rules to manliness, it would certainly include the ability to defend yourself at all-times, combined with the knowledge of how to fix almost anything, the nous to outwit a nemesis, and the resourcefulness to forage for food - see Steve McQueen or Harrison Ford for examples.

These are the men who would hand out a pasting to the bad guy before immediately dashing off to please a woman, whether she wanted pleasing or not.

Of course thanks largely to numerous days spent in the outback wearing a lumberjack shirt, real men eventually began to die out.

A quick poll revealed that women liked that he could keep them safe when faced with danger, but weren’t so keen on the fact that he had no conversational skills of note, and occasionally smelled a bit funny.

Unsurprisingly his replacement - metro man - was an insufferable drip. He was the type who would have to call his dad when a light bulb went, and when faced with crisis could only be relied upon to cleanse, tone and moisturise.

Thankfully his reign was short-lived, but we’ve been struggling to find the right balance ever since.

Perhaps they should introduce some sort of national service whereby you spend six months in the Hajar mountains at the age of 18, learning not only how to survive on our own, but also to keep yourself well groomed.

If you came back with dry skin, an out of date hairstyle and a shaving rash you had to go back up until you got it right.

Ultimately however, and as you would expect of any advice found within this column, being in good shape is paramount.

Physical strength is at the very stem of all that is manly. It’s in the form of Michelangelo’s David and the mighty power of the Greek gods. Plus, who knows when you’re going to be required to arm-wrestle in a roadside diner or rip a telephone directory in half in order to win a bet?

And of course, while a sound level of cardiovascular fitness is hardly overtly masculine, it can, on occasion, offer certain life-preserving benefits other than the norm.

When you factor in a pack of hungry wolves for instance, it appears even jogging can be a pretty dangerous pastime.