Student Peter Wong sent me a news cutting about a 78-year-old woman who beat up her 84-year-old husband. "A witness told police the woman admitted assaulting her husband, including kicking him three times in the groin, because he had an affair 35 years ago," said the report from the Associated Press. Peter asked: "Isn't 35 years rather a long time to wait to kick somebody?"

It may seem like it, Peter, but clearly you haven't had much experience with women. They have astonishing powers of recall, far greater than humans. Married men will know what I mean. Watching TV, you make an innocuous comment, such as: "Madonna looks good for 50, don't you think?" There will be a moment of silence as the wife clicks back through her 5,000-terabyte memory dump. Then she will say: "Ah, but you said 13 years ago, on the way back from the supermarket on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, at 4.27 pm, that you thought her bottom was bigger than mine."

The only correct answer is to nod vigorously and agree with her. (Actually, this is the only response to everything your wife says.) "Yes, honey, you're quite right, I did say that, and it's STILL TRUE."

Peter, here's some advice. Never, never dispute anything your woman claims to remember, even if it is patently obvious that she has imagined the whole thing. A buddy of mine was once asked something like this by his girlfriend: "Do you still love me as much as you did at 10.34 am on the second Wednesday of our first trekking holiday in Nepal?" He replied: "It must have been someone else. I've never been to Nepal."

WRONG ANSWER! Within days, he had been kicked out. The correct answer would have been: "Yes darling. I can't remember ever going to Nepal, so perhaps the two of us visited it in a previous life." Her eyes will fill with tears as she is deeply moved by your high level of spirituality and self-awareness. She will then agree to ANY command you give her.

Why can't men remember the promises they made a year or two ago, or even, let's face it, earlier the same day? I once asked a top doctor this question (actually, he was a trainee hospital orderly, more or less the same thing) and he explained it in medical terms.

Men only have a small amount of blood, not enough to power multiple organs at once. Any man approached by an attractive woman will say extremely stupid things because the blood has fled from his brain to supercharge other parts of his body.

Factor in men's limited memory capacity and you begin to understand the challenges of being male. In fact, the only way men can function at all is to auto-delete irrelevant data such as "the toilet roll needs changing" or "I am married" to ensure there is enough memory capacity for the really important stuff, such as who scored the winning goal in the 1978 football World Cup semifinals.

Ladies: you may now kick your husbands.

(09.08.2013 - Nury Vittachi is an Asia-based frequent traveller. Send ideas and comments via www.mjam.org)