Humphrey Davy is archetypal short man

It appears I can't read a book without a serious short man issue coming up. Okay, most of the books I read are about Napoleon, but aside from that, these issues do arise with unseemly regularity.

I've just finished reading The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes, an elegantly written survey of British scientific achievements in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. One of the central characters in the books is Humphrey Davy. He was the inventor of the miners' safety lamp, which has its place in the Making the Modern World gallery at the Science Museum and is regarded by the curators there as one of the most important inventions of all time.

Apart from the safety lamp, I knew little about Davy. It turns out that he was 5ft 5ins and in many ways the archetypal brilliant short man.

Holmes, in what must be one of the most perceptive descriptions of a short man ever written, describes the great chemist thus:

"Davy was small, volatile and bursting with energy and talk...he was impulsive, charming and arrogant. Though physically small, he had huge intellectual ambitons. He was a solitary man who was also an incorrigible flirt."

I'm sure every man under 5ft 7ins can identify with that. Davy was a man who was eager to please, eager to prove himself socially - whilst being isolated from it - and eager to gain paramountcy in his profession. He was brilliant and wanted the world to know it. I'm sure that while London 'society' minded that he was a bit boastful, provincial (from Cornwall) and small, the many thousands of miners across the world whose lives he made safer wouldn't have minded one bit.

My only quibble in this masterly description is the sentence, 'Though physically small, he had huge intellectual ambitions.' This betrays the fact that Holmes lacks true insight into the make-up of the short man. He implies that being short puts a natural cap on one's ambitions.

I would say quite the opposite. The short man - assumed to be of inferior stock to the plodding man of middle height - is naturally inclined towards ambitions, particularly of an intellectual nature. I would immodestly suggest to Richard Holmes that he would have been better off saying,

"Davy was small, and therefore had huge intellectual ambitions."

That would be more accurate. Goes to show that the short man makes history; the middling man writes it.

More on Humphrey Davy soon.

Mark Owen: the latest in a long line of promiscuous short men

I've been musing about Mark Owen's recent travails. The headline in the Sun when he admitted to 10 affairs was interesting. Of course, there is nothing unusual in a pop star having affairs - it's par for the course. But to own up after having 10 affairs, that is something quite different.

Yes, the ordinary pop star might have one or a few affairs before the tabloids get onto it. But there was something very redolent of the try too hard short man in that Mark Owen - the cute one from Take That - turned it into a bit of a boast.

It was almost as if he was saying: "No-one has ever taken me seriously. Gary wrote the songs, Robbie had the successful solo career. There was nothing for me left to do except
prove my masculinity through attracting starstruck girls."

The more I think about it, this rampant promiscuity is something of a hallmark of short men. You've only got to look at Jermain Defoe's incredible ability to bed every aspiring WAG out there to see that the small, successful man simply can't say 'no' to women.

My great favourite, Sisqo, is of course another case in point. Not only did he write one of the great pervy pop tunes of all time, Thong Song, he also got tangled up in a paternity suit with a Swiss woman whom he 'met' on tour.

And checking back through my collection of Napoleon biographies shows beyond doubt that old Bonaparte himself believed in spreading his love around. So, my hastily drawn but I feel nevertheless solid conclusion - great short men are invariably promiscuous. Mark Owen, in your hour of need, take solace from the fact that you follow in the footpath of short men the world over, from Napoleon to Jermain Defoe.

Napoleon is a hero to all short men

I am very much enjoying reading about Napoleon Bonaparte. One of my French friends once remarked that I 'could be Corsican' which I took as a huge compliment. But until starting this blog I had never looked too closely at the man.

The great man. Probably the greatest short man of all time - and therefore probably the greatest man of all time. Yes, I am a convinced Bonapartist.

He displayed all of the qualities which short men should possess: brilliance, daring, volatility allied with loveability, promiscuity, and more than anything was always trying to prove himself. He had the lot.

I particularly enjoyed his furious slapping-down of Talleyrand, his double-dealing minister, as reported in Andrew Roberts' brilliant book, Napoleon and Wellington.

Napoleon: "Why, I could break you like a glass! I have the power to do so. But I scorn you too much for that. Why didn't I have you hanged in public on the gates of the Carousel? But there is still time for that. You are just common shit in silk stockings!"

I love it all. I love the threat, the scorn, the further threat, and then out-and-out abuse. And I need hardly add that Talleyrand was, of course, a tall man.

Splendid, splendid, splendid.