IT is an incredibly rare occurrence. But sometimes, against all odds, the planets do occasionally conspire to yield their bounty of good luck and send it my way for a change.

It is then that a period of quiet rejoicing slowly but surely warms the cockles of my heart. For Sunday's coming up... and, as it happens, there will be no one else in the house but little old me.

Thank you, oh thank you!

You see, she-who-must-be-obeyed will be taking herself off to a crumbling mansion in Gloucestershire on some course or other, and she's taking Junior SWMBO with her.

So that, plus the fact that the Elder SWMBO doesn't live here anymore means... I can do whatever I like.

My tastes will rule for that brief time when the cats are away and the mouse will be able crawl out of the skirting board... and play.

Oh deepest of deep joy!

You may think this all rather harsh. What more could someone want than to be in the bosom of their family every single day of the year, I hear you sniff.

Liar, say I - will all those who live in single sex families put their hands on their hearts and deny that solitude is not welcome from time to time?

So. Sunday will mean double kippers for a late breakfast (stink the house out) followed by Sellafield nuclear fuels-strength vindaloo for dinner (stink the entire street out).

And once I'm satisfied that the whole building smells like a Turkish wrestler's gym pump, I'll happily crack open a bottle of red, pour myself a "home" measure and settle down in the dog basket that is my - yes, MY - armchair.

Once ensconced, I'll put on a video of historian Richard Holmes talking about Wellington or watch Zulu for the billionth time. Believe me, after more than 40 years, I have memorised the entire script.

You see, this is the basic difference between men and women. We happily watch films that leave them utterly cold. Because more than half a century has elapsed since men were forced to fight a war, we do what all little/big boys have now done for years - find a substitute.

A bang-bang film on the telly.

Don't give me this New Man rubbish. When I consider all the "new men" I have known - and the media's creaking with them - there wasn't one who was entirely reconstructed.

Scratch the surface and this is what you find - men who conform to every single stereotype you'd care to mention. The whole concept of "new man" is one of the greatest con-tricks of recent years - nothing more than a cynical, calculating chat-up line.

And there's no shortage whatsoever of gullible women who fall for it.

Anyway, I think we can safely say that boys will be boys. However, this trait is increasingly causing problems in our society. Take the increasing violence in British schools.

I have no doubt that there will be many who blame TV and cinema violence for escalating levels of brutality on and off the playground. And, to some extent, they'd be right. It is difficult to imagine screen cruelty being taken much further than, say, the excesses of Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction.

But although we feel comfortable in pointing fingers at the entertainment industry, we are deluding ourselves if we think that male bad behaviour is a new phenomenon. It isn't.

Bullying was rife at the boys' grammar school I attended. Second-formers preyed on first-formers, who, in turn, predated younger lads as soon as new intakes arrived.

In this jungle of blue blazers and worsted trousers, the bullied often became the bully in due course. I did.

It was either that or "acting daft" to escape the massed jaws of the great white shark shoal otherwise known as 5C.

A few years ago, a chap by the name of Walter Sweeney was elected Tory MP for a constituency somewhere in Wales. I'm not sure what's happened to him these days - but for a brief period during the Iron Lady's reign, his name was bandied about as being one to watch.

And the thought occurred to me. If he ever attained high office in a Tory Government - maybe even that of Prime Minister - I could regale people with the following snippet.

I beat him up in March, 1965!

Yes, just imagine. I bashed the Prime Minister - surely that must be worth a pint at the Camp Inn?

But it was a shameful episode. For I had trashed his shamrock on St Patrick's Day - so he then repaid this squalid, mean act with a bottle of Quink all over the roughbook that contained my entire English Lit revision, plus the rude picture I'd drawn of Vicky Nown.

Duty called. There was nothing for it but to settle the matter in the time-honoured manner. So I lay in wait behind the door of Room Six.

The entire class was present. Bring us the head of Walter Sweeney...

But it was a cowardly, unfair match. He was smaller than me and mortal combat was over very quickly indeed. And once he had cleaned the blood off his nose, poor Walter reported me to the form master - who, in turn, told the head.

My turn for pain. Another appointment with "Stench" Staveley's beastly bamboo botty-beater...

It's peer pressure, you see. I was just doing what boys have always done. Being boys.

It would be easy to think that things had gone from bad to worse, especially in the light of recent events at a school in Lincolnshire. And there can be no doubt that a knife culture has taken grip in many schools up and down the country, a terrifying development that must be addressed.

But despite all the good-intentioned, attempts at eradicating gender stereotyping, males will always want to fight other males. It taps into the most primitive, primaeval survival instinct.

It is war by other means, preparation for the ultimate test, the eventuality that will probably never come about. It cannot be prevented, only harnessed.

Men are prisoners of their hormones, just as women are held hostage by theirs. So people and society must think in terms of damage limitation rather than denial of the undeniable.

In the meantime, for old dogs such as myself, we have the television and an empty house with no one to complain. It is here that we ageing warriors can settle down on the sofa with a cauldron of wine and relive past campaigns.

Yup. There's not a female in sight. I can do and watch what I like and be a boy again... eat jars of winkles, not shave, play blues records as loudly as I want and leave toast crumbs in the bed.

Just one thing, though. There are no fellow males with whom I can lock antlers. Hmm, I wonder. What DID happen to Walter Sweeney?