Friday, January 06, 2017

it's big and it's bland, full of tension and fear

bon adjour, mon fellow avec fashionista gendarmes


wowee, look at that. it seems, going on my quite outrageous opening there, that it is true - being fluent French is a doddle.


at the incredible risk of this becoming one of those "new year, new me" sort of things, i thought for some reason you'd all like to see the road which being a slave to fashion had taken me down thus far into 2017. i have, look you see, acquired some new threads and that, and indeed have once again been busy with my hair.

yes, that's right, as this is all me, me, me or if you like moi, moi, moi in respect of fashions and trends, a good many, or indeed an awful lot, of images of i shall appear here. go get out now, then, whilst you can still clutch to a shallow piece of dignity.



the above image is very much me mid-shave, so to speak. well, as the last few images of me / moi over Christmas have somewhat shown, my beard was getting somewhat out of hand. time to trim it down a bit. yes, beard fans, i shall allow it to all grow back again, no doubt even more greyer than what it was.

what perhaps doesn't come through as clearly as would be usual with the magic of Commodore 64 mode is that this image shows me with my moustache and chin shaved, but with absolutely massive sideburns on the go. yes, indeed, this was an effort to make myself look like a true acolyte to The King, Elvis Presley.

did it work? we shall see later but no. for now, though, a shave does not a fashionista make, and so on we go to see what many a splendid set of threads i now have.



the above is indeed a box of Tokyo Laundry, or if you like 東京洗濯 or if you like even more Tōkyō sentaku branded boxer shorts of the underwear variety. they would indeed normally be an item of clothing far too luxurious and expensive for my wardrobe, but they were on offer at a really splendid price.

no. there will not be a picture of me modelling them, or as it were one of me dressed in them and them alone. whilst there is a somewhat select, small and if i may say so quite perverse group that would very much like to see such a sight, i dare say i would do the world a very great favour by not making such a scene public.

i am, however, perfectly happy to share an image of me wearing the smart new shirt that Spiros sent me, despite the fact that the angle and lighting all seems to accentuate if not highlight how grey my hair would seem to be going around the ear side area of my head.



no, surely, it must be the flash or a trick of the light. my hair cannot be going grey.

yes, indeed, that is the Zama jacket off of Jozi taxi rank i am wearing too. but we've seen and discussed that before, with particular emphasis on the fact that, despite what Zama said, it isn't very good at all in deflecting the crisp (hello, Faye) coldness of the English winter. we are here for the shirt.

Spiros, as enthusiasts of my friend or if you like bum chum are aware, is a very important man. he's the greatest legal mind of his generation, as well as an ace fighter of taxi drivers, and so dresses with some style and finesse. and, dare i say, expense. he has decided that i too should dress so, and thus sent me on a shirt which probably has a monetary value higher than the remainder of my wardrobe combined.

i must say it is a really bloody nice shirt. these expensive clothes do tend to deliver what you pay for, which is a superior cut, skilled seam stitching and a great deal of comfort.

back, then, for a while, to my beard shaving exploits. as i wrote above, but you have probably long since forgotten, i did try and style my sideburns to look like The King, Elvis Presley. i solicited the opinion of the boys about this and their opinion differed from mine somewhat.



they reckon that it looked quite smart all trimmed down as it was, and that i should leave it like that. not because they thought it made me look like The King, Elvis Presley though. no. they said it made me look like that Wolverine bloke off of that film and show, X Men or something like that.

i believe that they meant this in a complimentary way. they are, after all, not to know that the bloke who played Wolverine is Hugh Jackman out of Australia and indeed the film Australia. if i were to wish my hair be compared to anyone out of Australia, it would of course be Jason Donovan. or maybe Merv Hughes.

back to boxer shorts of the underwear variety? sure.



yes, i splurged. some shop called Zaxxon or similar had a massive sale on, offering three sets of pairs for £20, when normally one packet would cost about that. so, i stocked up. the other brand what i bought was called Cross Hatch, i think, and no i shall not be modelling them for pictures on here, thank you.

some of the Millennial type of people in my office have asked if, now that i have a fancy and what they call "proper" phone, i am going to get me on that Tinder or Grinder or Twerker thing. when i asked what exactly that was, i pointed out to them that my (considerably) better half assures me i am as point of fact very happily married. when they say i should just do it "for a laugh", i regret my age shines through, as i would not wish to either be an obstacle to those seeking genuine relationships - be they long or short in terms of term - and nor would i wish to horrify the unsuspecting with a gander at me. so no, thank you, no shots of me in my classy new garments.

what exactly is Spiros up to right now? as the greatest legal mind of his generation he must, of course, take time to unwind and relax. this is not always done via the approach of starting fights with taxi drivers or, for that matter, via meeting men for short term yet mutually beneficial friendships in public lavatory facilities. no, every now and then he quite likes to chance his arm down at a casino.



this would be the modest yet splendid winnings which Spiros has recently obtained whilst tossing the dice of fate and chance. sufficient enough, he assures me, to get some ale in, and indeed to summon a taxi so that he may take a short ride and then give the cabbie and absolute braying with his fists of steel.

where is it that Spiros goes and gets all his fancy, la-de-dah, greatest legal mind of his generation clothes from? Savile Row, of course. or somewhere quite close to it. Spiros has an unusual preoccupation with his inner leg measurement, as it happens, and often goes through to his bespoke tailor of choice to have it all checked. Once or twice a week he is off there, and from time to time he lets me know if the tailor "tickled his Winston" with the tassel on the tape measure, as he words it.

a look at the packaging for my smart new undergarment sort of boxer shorts in Commodore 64 mode? sure.



yes, i am indeed rather looking forward to having these beauties on. it is not so often, to be sure, that my skin makes contact with such pleasantries as designer, branded threads. most of the fashion houses, as it happens, would not care for someone of my size to be seen wearing their clothes, and so they simply do not make items for the more generously proportioned gentleman.

back. to sort of semi finish off this post, to the smart blue shirt off of Spiros, then. here is an image of me excitedly wearing it very early in the morning, long before the sun had elected to rise over our pleasant land.



why blue? a trick of the trade. in terms of psychology, blue tends to generate a sense of trust and confidence in people, which is why so many financial institutions try and weave blue into their branding. it is widely known that a natural affinity towards green is supposed to be a sign of intelligence, so some play on this by branding themselves green, happily taking money off of those who think that they are being clever by using a green branded service. whatever works, baby.

if fortune smiles on me i shall, hopefully, expand in some further, erm, expansion of my wardrobe. it would not, i suspect, be much of a surprise to you to find me updating this blog as and when i do such a thing with a gander at the items of clothing.


thanks, as ever, for reading!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



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