So it’s the 25th London Fashion Week.
All that buzz…
What will be the latest lines on the catwalk?
What can we expect to hit the High Street next year?
What will influence the way we dress over the forthcoming 12 months?
Who will launch the most outrageous pile of crap this side of a pair of steel wool knickers?
Who gives a f4ck?
All the fashionistas will be there, drooling over the latest Costelloe creations or the next slice of Westwood weirdness.
But what does it mean to a scruffy, denim wearing, t-shirty type like me or to my good lady, who has to wear sensible clothes to work.
Lets see…
What about the latest McCartney offerings or the New York offerings of de la Renta?
Do these come in any sizes bigger than a 6. No thought not.
Looking at some of the models, we are in scary territory here. This is not feminine.
How the hell is someone with less meat than a length of barbed wire fence, supposed to make a figure hugging dress look stylish? The whole androgyny of it makes it look like some weird teenage cross dressy type gig.
What we have here is something that is leaner and weighs less than one of my legs! Where this very notion that, to be a catwalk model, one needed to be size zero came from, is beyond me. There’s nothing attractive about it and it must be an absolute bastard getting clothes to fit a toast rack on legs.
I'm not advocating the Fat Slags look here but the female figure generally has the bust sticking out just a teensy bit further than the hip bones (normally).
Yup, these creations are all very well for Keira Knightley and the knotted string brigade but if you’re arse is anything like normal you’d be better off hiding it in one Paul Costelloe’s offerings.
Some of the latest Costelloe creations look like they’ve fallen off of Kokeshi dolls or Samurai warriors. The only thing missing was the top knot or the Kendo Nagasaki wrestling mask to complete the image. Others were so outlandishly shouldered that it would be hard to imagine what shape of being was inside – in the realm of big suits, forget David Byrne or Grace Jones, we are talking Sue Ellen Ewing meets NFL chic. As for the thing with the funny little baseball cap peaks for sleeves, why did he not go the whole hog and have Sydney Op House on one side and the SECC on the other. Some of it is just plain silly. Can you imagine it?
“I say Darling, will you pop down to Harrods and pick me up some smoked elk”
“Of course sweetie, I’ll just have to iron my Costelloe before I go out”
You’d be dead from starvation and the Elk would be extinct.
HOW THE F4CK do you iron something like that.
Me, I’m not naturally talented in the ironing department but I’ll do it if I have to.
Shirts, jeans, T-shirts – fine, but see some of that women’s stuff?
If I was a woman, and I knew that I was going to have to do the ironing, I’m f4cked if I’d be buying something that shape.
I guess though if you can afford a genuine Costelloe you can afford a maid.
Nonetheless, I can’t see there being many couturier designed dresses in Aberdeen next year.
It does make me think though, that buying clothes can be a bit of pain in the arse.
All of my family are fairly average size. Consequently, all the sizes that fit us, generally sell out first.
I went to buy a shirt the other week for a dinner I was going to.
Nothing fancy. Just something new. Just the usual Rocha John Rocha, stripy job, just like all my other shirts (so I'm told).
I prowled around my chosen High Street store and decided on the style I liked best.
I flicked through the crammed rail looking for some clue as to the size. They all either looked tiny or massive. Eventually, I sussed out the deal with the labels – they were hanging down the inside of the sleeve.
Now, will someone please tell me why in the name of suffering f4ck do they do that? Is it some kind of man hating, bitch game or what?
Eventually, I pull up all the tags looking for something that says large or 40”.
Squat! Sweet diddly f4ck all!
After replacing all the fallen shirts on the rack I managed to get hold of an assistant.
“Do you have this in a large” I asked
“No”
“What about this one”
“No”
“This one”
“No”
“Thi…”
“No”
“Do you have anything in large (apart from your vocabulary)”
“Er, No”
“What about a medium”
“No”
“Anything at all that will fit me”
And so it went...
I mean, it’s not as if I’m build like Arnie Schwartzifuckinegger or have three arms or something, I’m just plain old average.
Surely the major High Street Stores can employ a pimply student to study the demographic so that they can get a better understanding of the percentage of different sizes. At least that way they wouldn’t be stuck with twenty XXXL sumo-sized shirts and half a dozen things that look like they’ve met with the boil wash.
And more importantly maybe, just maybe they might get their arses round to ordering enough garments in MEDIUM AND F4CKING LARGE.
And some music??
Why not?
Leonard Cohen – Live in Toronto
http://www.sendspace.com/file/h7fufs
Saw Doctors - Live in Galway
http://www.sendspace.com/file/z9pv7k
Malcolm Ross – Wrong Time Wrong Place
http://www.sendspace.com/file/m6tacu
Lisa Knapp – Wild and Undaunted
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0xqev2
Jonathan Butler – Jonathan Butler
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6qo54m
Jeff Buckley - Shine
http://www.sendspace.com/file/qk8lys
Mull Historical Society – This Is Hope
http://www.sendspace.com/file/r5vmq7
Bob Dylan – Blood On The Tracks Test Pressing
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ny39ab
Lisa Hannigan – Live in Leeds
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xlkeit
Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
http://www.sendspace.com/file/96rw4c
Bap Kennedy - The Big Picture
http://www.sendspace.com/file/h4vgfg
The Silencers – Edinburgh Castle
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0terk9
Fairground Attraction – Live in Japan
http://www.sendspace.com/file/sdkrfp
Warren Zevon – Wanted Dead Or Alive
http://www.sendspace.com/file/iboyta
Alan Rankine – She Loves Me Not
http://www.sendspace.com/file/u5349a
Iggy Pop – TV Eye
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xhereo
Cheers til next time...
Hooli
Saturday, 19 September 2009
Sunday, 13 September 2009
...think I'll buy me a football team...
Time was, in days of dark mediaeval plagues, where a good man and true, need only reap his harvest to tide his family over the winter months.
With no X-Factor or such frivolity to keep him tickled through the bleak, eternal damp, he put aside some additional stock so that he could barter with his neighbours and maybe even indulge in a bit of sucking up with the feudal lord.
Life was simple. He would have grown wheat; I would have grown oats; you would have grown barley; Egbert the grub would have grown corn while Stigtrol the mank would have contented himself with rummaging through the middens for some scraps.
Back then, only the rich had money.
Back then, only the rich needed money.
If they spent it all, it didn’t matter.
They’d just make some more or invent some taxes.
They didn’t really need it anyway. It’s not as if they had to go down to Tesco every week.
They had an endless supply of serfs to provide them with food and all manner of favours in exchange for a damp, rat infested hovel at the edge of a swamp.
The unlucky ones had their hovel in the swamp and got to slop out the septic pits.
If they refused they’d end up being burnt as a witch or being impaled on a big spike then roasted and placed on a huge silver platter with an apple in their mouth and a bunch of juniper up their arse.
Those were simple times and people were happy.
Politics didn’t touch the life of the common man.
There were no terrorists.
There was none of the old e-coli, swine flu or legionella to keep you off your work.
All you had was the bubonic plague.
And as for the credit crunch?
The Black Death was more than enough for the common man to deal with without having money worries on top of that.
Then, after all those dark years of contentment, things changed. Greed set in and some spoilsport screwed the whole deal.
King John and Robin Hood are generally blamed for this and quite rightly so but they were not alone in their complicity.
The serf wasn’t content with his inhospitable little shithole. He wanted to make something of his life. He got ambitious.
He started to hang out with the out of town crowd.
They came with better offerings than the landed gentry.
They introduced money to the masses.
Funny little button-sized bits of metal stamped with illegible pictures became the currency of the common man. These were soon to be replaced by even funnier bits of paper with equally illegible handwriting on the front. The type of handwriting that looked like it had been made by a four year old in charge of some ink and a hen’s foot; one that still had a living hen on the end of it.
This was eventually replaced by something with even more pictures on it.
Usually this was the head of some regal celebrity who’d had a nasty encounter with an ugly potion, surrounded by the random scribblings of some smart arse who went mad with the Spirograph set they got for Christmas.
Eventually, the governments took control and let the poor believe there wasn’t enough money to go round. They locked great stashes away in vaults making money even more valuable and more sought after. This was a great trick which has been replicated throughout history. Make the masses believe something is in short supply, push the value up because it is rare, then charge even more for it when you sell it.
All in all, this wasn’t too bad an idea. The size of the bit of paper matched the value written on the front but nowadays, there is nothing to distinguish one note from the other.
Even worse, money, coinage or paper, is becoming an anachronism. Everything is paid for with a computer transaction and the reading of an intricately embellished slip of plastic.
Most people don’t really know how much money they actually have.
I recently had the misfortune of finding out how little money I had, having to stump for a couple of grand to cover car and household bills.
In an attempt to reduce my monthly outgoings, I changed my energy supplier. Unfortunately for me I hadn’t noticed the considerable debt I had amassed with my previous supplier. Despite my belief that money was not important to me and it had become synonymous with power, the amount of misery was indeed proportionate to amount of my resulting overdraft.
Now all of that has sorted itself out I’ve come to realise that there never is a ‘right’ amount of money to have and no matter how much money we have, it’s never enough.
Having said that, if someone gave me a blank cheque, what figure would I put on it?
If I had a couple of grand burning a hole in my hipper, would I be able to find something to spend it on and would my choice be a popular one.
The love of money may not exactly be the root of all evil but it certainly is at the root of many a family squabble.
And the point of this, and excuse for another Floyd boot...
Pink Floyd – Cruel But Fair
http://www.sendspace.com/file/s90ibu
Mike Peters – The Alarm History
http://www.sendspace.com/file/7d1usd
The Alarm – Hammersmith Odeon
http://www.sendspace.com/file/fu0b4p
Aimee Mann – Live at St Ann’s Warehouse
http://www.sendspace.com/file/fmq3xr
Pearl Jam – Bridge School Benefit 2006
http://www.sendspace.com/file/sagmo5
Various Artists – Common Ground Concert
http://www.sendspace.com/file/71s5gs
http://www.sendspace.com/file/fkaifs
Karine Polwart – Live in Belfast
http://www.sendspace.com/file/mpyfpk
Led Zeppelin – Earl’s Court 1975
http://www.sendspace.com/file/w1raug
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6h07c2
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xyrv4f
Paul Rodgers - Live in Vancouver
http://www.sendspace.com/file/tvb1gq
Idlewild – 24.04.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xmfc5b
R.E.M – T in the Park
http://www.sendspace.com/file/cq1594
Balaam & the Angel – The Greatest Story Ever Told
http://www.sendspace.com/file/41keay
Counting Crows – Maryhill Winery, 17.07.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/m2nx32
Enjoy,
Hooli
With no X-Factor or such frivolity to keep him tickled through the bleak, eternal damp, he put aside some additional stock so that he could barter with his neighbours and maybe even indulge in a bit of sucking up with the feudal lord.
Life was simple. He would have grown wheat; I would have grown oats; you would have grown barley; Egbert the grub would have grown corn while Stigtrol the mank would have contented himself with rummaging through the middens for some scraps.
Back then, only the rich had money.
Back then, only the rich needed money.
If they spent it all, it didn’t matter.
They’d just make some more or invent some taxes.
They didn’t really need it anyway. It’s not as if they had to go down to Tesco every week.
They had an endless supply of serfs to provide them with food and all manner of favours in exchange for a damp, rat infested hovel at the edge of a swamp.
The unlucky ones had their hovel in the swamp and got to slop out the septic pits.
If they refused they’d end up being burnt as a witch or being impaled on a big spike then roasted and placed on a huge silver platter with an apple in their mouth and a bunch of juniper up their arse.
Those were simple times and people were happy.
Politics didn’t touch the life of the common man.
There were no terrorists.
There was none of the old e-coli, swine flu or legionella to keep you off your work.
All you had was the bubonic plague.
And as for the credit crunch?
The Black Death was more than enough for the common man to deal with without having money worries on top of that.
Then, after all those dark years of contentment, things changed. Greed set in and some spoilsport screwed the whole deal.
King John and Robin Hood are generally blamed for this and quite rightly so but they were not alone in their complicity.
The serf wasn’t content with his inhospitable little shithole. He wanted to make something of his life. He got ambitious.
He started to hang out with the out of town crowd.
They came with better offerings than the landed gentry.
They introduced money to the masses.
Funny little button-sized bits of metal stamped with illegible pictures became the currency of the common man. These were soon to be replaced by even funnier bits of paper with equally illegible handwriting on the front. The type of handwriting that looked like it had been made by a four year old in charge of some ink and a hen’s foot; one that still had a living hen on the end of it.
This was eventually replaced by something with even more pictures on it.
Usually this was the head of some regal celebrity who’d had a nasty encounter with an ugly potion, surrounded by the random scribblings of some smart arse who went mad with the Spirograph set they got for Christmas.
Eventually, the governments took control and let the poor believe there wasn’t enough money to go round. They locked great stashes away in vaults making money even more valuable and more sought after. This was a great trick which has been replicated throughout history. Make the masses believe something is in short supply, push the value up because it is rare, then charge even more for it when you sell it.
All in all, this wasn’t too bad an idea. The size of the bit of paper matched the value written on the front but nowadays, there is nothing to distinguish one note from the other.
Even worse, money, coinage or paper, is becoming an anachronism. Everything is paid for with a computer transaction and the reading of an intricately embellished slip of plastic.
Most people don’t really know how much money they actually have.
I recently had the misfortune of finding out how little money I had, having to stump for a couple of grand to cover car and household bills.
In an attempt to reduce my monthly outgoings, I changed my energy supplier. Unfortunately for me I hadn’t noticed the considerable debt I had amassed with my previous supplier. Despite my belief that money was not important to me and it had become synonymous with power, the amount of misery was indeed proportionate to amount of my resulting overdraft.
Now all of that has sorted itself out I’ve come to realise that there never is a ‘right’ amount of money to have and no matter how much money we have, it’s never enough.
Having said that, if someone gave me a blank cheque, what figure would I put on it?
If I had a couple of grand burning a hole in my hipper, would I be able to find something to spend it on and would my choice be a popular one.
The love of money may not exactly be the root of all evil but it certainly is at the root of many a family squabble.
And the point of this, and excuse for another Floyd boot...
Pink Floyd – Cruel But Fair
http://www.sendspace.com/file/s90ibu
Mike Peters – The Alarm History
http://www.sendspace.com/file/7d1usd
The Alarm – Hammersmith Odeon
http://www.sendspace.com/file/fu0b4p
Aimee Mann – Live at St Ann’s Warehouse
http://www.sendspace.com/file/fmq3xr
Pearl Jam – Bridge School Benefit 2006
http://www.sendspace.com/file/sagmo5
Various Artists – Common Ground Concert
http://www.sendspace.com/file/71s5gs
http://www.sendspace.com/file/fkaifs
Karine Polwart – Live in Belfast
http://www.sendspace.com/file/mpyfpk
Led Zeppelin – Earl’s Court 1975
http://www.sendspace.com/file/w1raug
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6h07c2
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xyrv4f
Paul Rodgers - Live in Vancouver
http://www.sendspace.com/file/tvb1gq
Idlewild – 24.04.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xmfc5b
R.E.M – T in the Park
http://www.sendspace.com/file/cq1594
Balaam & the Angel – The Greatest Story Ever Told
http://www.sendspace.com/file/41keay
Counting Crows – Maryhill Winery, 17.07.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/m2nx32
Enjoy,
Hooli
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