Reining Men

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Keep your head up and chin straight," Diana Mather tells her pupils at the Finishing Academy. They are balancing hefty copies of Castles of Scotland on their noggins. "Eyes ahead. Now walk!" They're polished. They're poised. They'll get there.

Sound like an old-fashioned finishing school? It is, with one twist: the pupils are all men. Image consultant Mather and recruitment specialist Penny Edge tutor men, who range in age from 19 to 50, in modern manners at Britain's first male finishing school, founded in October 2005. "In these days of equality, what's good for women is good for men," says Mather, co-founder of the successful Finishing Academy for ladies in Cheshire. The gentlemen apparently agree. Mather has bookings for the men's academy through January 2007, and is considering setting up shop in North America, Japan and India.

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For the men attending the three-day course, held monthly at the cozy medieval Lickleyhead Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, it can feel like they are, quite literally, learning to walk all over again. Everyday situations such as eating dinner become a minefield of possible faux pas. But within an hour Mather has them properly scooping their soup ("Away from yourself, so as not to splash the tie") and daintily adding salt on the side, rather than dousing the entire dish ("Do you think you're in a trucker's café?").

The gentlemen are schooled in public speaking, networking, deportment, dancing and wine tasting. For the modern metrosexual there are lessons in dress sense, skin and hair care, and even new haircuts on offer. And during their leisure time the gentlemen have the chance to sample pursuits such as golf, clay-pigeon shooting and fly fishing.

"It's really refreshed something," says Edward Cyster, 24, a water-skiing instructor from Fife. "It's reinstated the importance of good manners." He hopes the course will give him a professional boost and an edge with the ladies, especially the class in Indian head and shoulder massage. "But perhaps not on the first date. That might be a bit much." What a gentleman. tel: (44-1270) 611123; www.pagetraining.com/finishing-academy.htm