' Jobbe of worke' circa 1550.
Jobs have always been an integral part of life whether you get paid in money or kind. Most adults and some kids have jobs. We can't send kids up chimneys anymore because apparently it's illegal but we are still allowed to make them carry a bag, often heavier than themselves, full of newspapers to houses where the internet hasn't been invented yet and old men answer the door wearing a dressing gown. The kids are then paid 2 pence an hour for the privilege. Go figure. I had a paper round once for about 3 weeks. I hated it. It was during that 3 week period i discovered, at age 14, that adults can be absolute bell ends about stupid shit like 'where's my Sunday supplement?' 'why's my newspaper wet?' 'who's done my crossword?' Twats. It was mutually agreed with myself and the newsagent owner that i should probably leave.
My eldest daughter has a job. she's a dog walker. She earns her own money. My youngest does jobs around the house to earn hers. Either way both girls have to earn it. I don't get money given to me and neither do they. You may think this is harsh but it's a life lesson taught to me by my dad who, according to him, was down the pit at 5 years old and joined the circus to be a human cannon ball when he was 8. I suspect he may be telling a little white lie.
I've had a variety of jobs since leaving school because like most folk i didn't know what i wanted to do or be. My eldest wants to be a hairdresser and that hasn't wavered since she was a toddler. Girlchild number two however likes to think outside the box and wanted to be a water feature for a number of years. You may think that's slightly weird but the most interesting people i know are slightly weird. She is now a published poet and motorbike road racing photographer at age 13. See-interesting.
When, as young adults, we enter the job market we have to face the dreaded interview. This process doesn't get any easier no matter how old you get. Interviews are nerve racking because you have to bring the best version of yourself to an unfamiliar place and tell complete strangers how awesome you are without sounding like a self serving cock womble. It's a fine line. You have your c.v scrutinised like your about to enter it into the T.T and you sit there sweating wondering if the embellishments you've added will be noticed. Fibs like your actual exam results might not be as good as you've made them out to be or not to be (a little joke there for anyone who scored above a 'd' in English literature) Hobbies and interests is always a good read. Who knew that skinny little mousey Carol on reception was once a Dutch wrestling champion or big Keith in the warehouse enjoys embroidery or that ugly Mike the delivery driver likes nothing better than to slip on a tight sequinned dress and perform as his alter ego-Michaela-at a drag club and belt out Shirley Bassey's greatest hits. C.v's are very rarely checked for authenticity apart from the references so next time you type yours my advice is go to town on it. Be all you want to be and stand out. Ultimately this will get you an interview and possibly the job.
In my job i occasionally get to sit at the other side of the desk and do panel interviews with my boss. We are good cop/bad cop. I am always bad cop. I like genuine folk and can spot bullshit a mile off. The blokes seem to be the worst offenders at spouting absolute bollocks although we did once interview a 30 stone woman for the position of set runner who claimed to be a trapeze artist. Often a male interviewee will attempt to flirt with me because they think if they flatter me i'll give them the job. Once they start with flirty banter or 'flanter' they may as well leave. Flanter at your peril. Interviews are a boring necessity to find the best candidate for the job not the best candidate for a blow job.
The workplace can be a minefield. Who is a friend? who will stitch you up like a kipper? who is the office perv? who is the office bike? who is the office dickhead? If you don't think your workplace has a dickhead, chances are, it's you.
If your'e lucky enough to have a job and can just about keep your head above water then your'e officially a grown up. If you have a job you hate you probably wish you were still a kid. If your'e in the very small minority and have a job you love your'e a fucking show off. I'm one of those show offs. It's not the best paid job in the world but i get to do something i love-most of the time. Standing around in the rain or cold for hours on end waiting for the lighting to be just right or an actor to remember their dialogue is not my favourite thing and those who work with me under these conditions will freely testify that i am prone to whingeing like someone who has just lost a whingeing competition. The down sides of working mostly from home are i can't ring in sick and i don't get invited to office parties.
Office parties are the sort of events that come under the 'what happens at the party stays at the party' rule. Most people who attend these functions see it as an opportunity to let their hair down and show their work colleagues what they're really like. Some people go that step further and will spend most of the evening getting horribly drunk, call their boss a c**t then attempt to finger Alison from accounts underneath the buffet table-or worse case scenario...Michaela. Happy days.
Worse than the office party by a mile are those awful team building days where some fucktard from H.R will arrange for everyone to go paintballing or bowling or an escape room. It's enforced fun and now your'e having to spend a day off work with the shithouses you spend your working life trying to avoid. Especially Dave whose B.O is so bad you can taste it and cross eyed Kelly who has one eye going to the shops and one coming back with the change, but worst of all is your boss who has the worst halitosis known to mankind. He has the sort of breath that can actually repel mints and could easily kill a small child or a sick pensioner.
Work is a necessity for most people in order to live so either leave the job you hate or do something different. Only you are in charge of the path you take. Embellish your c.v and leave the twatty mundane jobs to the twatty and mundane.
Friday, 31 May 2019
Thursday, 9 May 2019
The observationist: Sex
The observationist: Sex: I can comment on this as i have two children so i've definitely done it twice. Sex used to be a taboo topic but these days everyone'...
Sex
I can comment on this as i have two children so i've definitely done it twice. Sex used to be a taboo topic but these days everyone's talking about it which isn't necessarily a good thing. It doesn't matter how old i get if i hear my parents mention it i do a sick in my mouth and then poke out my mind's eye. It' almost like the human race has only just discovered fornication.
There are so many different sexual orientations that the good old hetrosexual is virtually passe. Back back back in the day we had straight, gay and bisexual but now we have transgender, transsexual, binary, non-binary, gender fluid (which i thought was something found on prostitute's handbag) and pan sexual...wtf is pan sexual? is it someone who masturbates into crockery or gets aroused by Peter Pan?
I'm a hetro female because i fancy men. I'm not at any point going to think 'hey, you know what...i think i'm going to sample drinking from the furry cup'. Other women are not my thing although i do appreciate the female form and all of it's flaws and imperfections because i am one. I like muscles, hairy chests, beards and willys, although some might argue that the first three of my criteria can be found in the lesbian community anyway.
Once you've seen one nob you've pretty much seen them all. The variations are only slight ranging from length to girth. If your'e lucky you'll get the holy grail-both. For those of us ladies that have given birth vaginally to one or more children girth is very important. You can't make dough with a needle as my dear old nan used to say who was also a mum of three.
As a hetro woman i'd like to point out that nobody, straight or otherwise, likes-as i refer to it-a spaghetti cock. These are the longish skinny members that wouldn't touch the insides of a drinking straw. Neither use nor ornament. Don't come at me with one of those because you'll be wasting my time and yours.
If your'e lucky enough to be having sex in the first place then good for you. If your'e lucky enough to be having good sex then your'e living the dream. I have friends who haven't had sex for years. Not because they're unattractive but because they just haven't met anyone. Today's 'sex market' has tools to aid you in your quest such as Tinder, grindr, CFNM parties and loads of others but we as people still prefer to clap eyes on someone at work or in a club and think 'i wouldn't mind a go on that'. Animal instinct is what drives us and ultimately what makes us procreate and keep the world turning.
Sexual positions are a relatively recent invention despite what the karma sutra claims. You have the standard three (or the holy trinity) that most sexually active people will have experienced. The missionary, or mummy and daddy sex, is probably the most common. Lying down, man on top pumping away like a sewing machine in a power surge. This position is ideal for intimacy as it's face to face so lip and eye contact are an inevitable delicious bi-product. If your'e only using this position then you really need to open your mind or run for the hills. It's the one position where you'd most likely hear 'pull my nightie down when your'e finished love'. Not very imaginative but does the job. On top is a favourite of the female as she is in control of the outcome. From behind, or the doggy position, tends to be a favourite of the fellas as he's in control here when the rest of his waking day he's being told to pick up his clothes, take the rubbish out or cut the grass. Although pleasurable for both parties the bloke will tend to 'go off' first much to the annoyance of his partner. This will often result in the silent treatment, which to some men might be blessed relief or sex being removed from the agenda for a month. Us women like this position because it means we don't have to look at the ridiculous faces men pull at the point of no return. I have been known to actually burst out laughing which is a bit off putting. One draw back of the doggy position is when air is pumped into the recipient resulting in a fanny fart or quife which can send the guy's love length flying out at such a rate of knotts he could have his own eye out or get whiplash. If this happens to you my recommendation is simply to style it out.
Obviously there a lots of other positions which i've looked up for research purposes only. Some have really bizarre names like 'the wheelbarrow' (go on then i'll try it but don't take me past my mum's house) 'the rocking horse', 'the catherine wheel', 'the bridge', 'reverse cowgirl' (good for the less well endowed fellas), 'the plough' (similar to the wheelbarrow but in a field-i imagine), 'the toad' and the beautifully named 'ascent to desire'. Look them up. They exist and coming to a sex life near you! I've tried a few on the list but unless i warm up beforehand i'm more likely these days to get cramp than climax.
For some folk sex isn't enough to get their freak on. They need extra stimulus and i'm not talking about sex toys like the rampant rabbit, finger bobs or the bully boy black prince anal intruder. I'm talking about kinks and fetishes. Swinging, dogging, impact play, bondage and voyeurism are listed in the top ten of British favourites.You've probably heard of all of those or maybe practise a few but what about omorashi? This is becoming or being aroused by observing their partner wetting themselves. I imagine omorashi practitioners who happen to be single would do alright hanging around the back of a pub or club at kicking out time. Teratophilia is a sex fetish that involves being attracted to people with physical deformities. I bet the hunch back of notre dame was beating them off with a stick. Coprophilia or scatophilia is a poo fetish, where the person likes nothing better than to observe his or her partner having a shit crouched on a glass coffee table while they lie under it. Legend has it that hitler was a fan of this particular fetish. To be fair if watching someone curl one out over glass seems disgusting he did do a lot worse. It also makes me wonder if this was the real reason my neighbours were barred from DFS. They do have pampas grass in their front garden which incidentally is the international bat signal for 'swingers live here'. The kink that amused me the most is dendrophilia or arbophilia which is when someone is sexually attracted to trees. It brings a whole new meaning to the term 'tree hugger' or 'i've got wood'. A friend of mine at uni used to post her worn knickers to people on line for a fee. It paid her way through her degree. Another friend of mine is a dominatrix and her best client likes her to lock him in her shed while she shouts 'slag!' through the keyhole.
To conclude this weeks blog i'd like to finish with a simple request. Where can i purchase a bully boy black prince anal intruder?
Asking for a friend...
There are so many different sexual orientations that the good old hetrosexual is virtually passe. Back back back in the day we had straight, gay and bisexual but now we have transgender, transsexual, binary, non-binary, gender fluid (which i thought was something found on prostitute's handbag) and pan sexual...wtf is pan sexual? is it someone who masturbates into crockery or gets aroused by Peter Pan?
I'm a hetro female because i fancy men. I'm not at any point going to think 'hey, you know what...i think i'm going to sample drinking from the furry cup'. Other women are not my thing although i do appreciate the female form and all of it's flaws and imperfections because i am one. I like muscles, hairy chests, beards and willys, although some might argue that the first three of my criteria can be found in the lesbian community anyway.
Once you've seen one nob you've pretty much seen them all. The variations are only slight ranging from length to girth. If your'e lucky you'll get the holy grail-both. For those of us ladies that have given birth vaginally to one or more children girth is very important. You can't make dough with a needle as my dear old nan used to say who was also a mum of three.
As a hetro woman i'd like to point out that nobody, straight or otherwise, likes-as i refer to it-a spaghetti cock. These are the longish skinny members that wouldn't touch the insides of a drinking straw. Neither use nor ornament. Don't come at me with one of those because you'll be wasting my time and yours.
If your'e lucky enough to be having sex in the first place then good for you. If your'e lucky enough to be having good sex then your'e living the dream. I have friends who haven't had sex for years. Not because they're unattractive but because they just haven't met anyone. Today's 'sex market' has tools to aid you in your quest such as Tinder, grindr, CFNM parties and loads of others but we as people still prefer to clap eyes on someone at work or in a club and think 'i wouldn't mind a go on that'. Animal instinct is what drives us and ultimately what makes us procreate and keep the world turning.
Sexual positions are a relatively recent invention despite what the karma sutra claims. You have the standard three (or the holy trinity) that most sexually active people will have experienced. The missionary, or mummy and daddy sex, is probably the most common. Lying down, man on top pumping away like a sewing machine in a power surge. This position is ideal for intimacy as it's face to face so lip and eye contact are an inevitable delicious bi-product. If your'e only using this position then you really need to open your mind or run for the hills. It's the one position where you'd most likely hear 'pull my nightie down when your'e finished love'. Not very imaginative but does the job. On top is a favourite of the female as she is in control of the outcome. From behind, or the doggy position, tends to be a favourite of the fellas as he's in control here when the rest of his waking day he's being told to pick up his clothes, take the rubbish out or cut the grass. Although pleasurable for both parties the bloke will tend to 'go off' first much to the annoyance of his partner. This will often result in the silent treatment, which to some men might be blessed relief or sex being removed from the agenda for a month. Us women like this position because it means we don't have to look at the ridiculous faces men pull at the point of no return. I have been known to actually burst out laughing which is a bit off putting. One draw back of the doggy position is when air is pumped into the recipient resulting in a fanny fart or quife which can send the guy's love length flying out at such a rate of knotts he could have his own eye out or get whiplash. If this happens to you my recommendation is simply to style it out.
Obviously there a lots of other positions which i've looked up for research purposes only. Some have really bizarre names like 'the wheelbarrow' (go on then i'll try it but don't take me past my mum's house) 'the rocking horse', 'the catherine wheel', 'the bridge', 'reverse cowgirl' (good for the less well endowed fellas), 'the plough' (similar to the wheelbarrow but in a field-i imagine), 'the toad' and the beautifully named 'ascent to desire'. Look them up. They exist and coming to a sex life near you! I've tried a few on the list but unless i warm up beforehand i'm more likely these days to get cramp than climax.
For some folk sex isn't enough to get their freak on. They need extra stimulus and i'm not talking about sex toys like the rampant rabbit, finger bobs or the bully boy black prince anal intruder. I'm talking about kinks and fetishes. Swinging, dogging, impact play, bondage and voyeurism are listed in the top ten of British favourites.You've probably heard of all of those or maybe practise a few but what about omorashi? This is becoming or being aroused by observing their partner wetting themselves. I imagine omorashi practitioners who happen to be single would do alright hanging around the back of a pub or club at kicking out time. Teratophilia is a sex fetish that involves being attracted to people with physical deformities. I bet the hunch back of notre dame was beating them off with a stick. Coprophilia or scatophilia is a poo fetish, where the person likes nothing better than to observe his or her partner having a shit crouched on a glass coffee table while they lie under it. Legend has it that hitler was a fan of this particular fetish. To be fair if watching someone curl one out over glass seems disgusting he did do a lot worse. It also makes me wonder if this was the real reason my neighbours were barred from DFS. They do have pampas grass in their front garden which incidentally is the international bat signal for 'swingers live here'. The kink that amused me the most is dendrophilia or arbophilia which is when someone is sexually attracted to trees. It brings a whole new meaning to the term 'tree hugger' or 'i've got wood'. A friend of mine at uni used to post her worn knickers to people on line for a fee. It paid her way through her degree. Another friend of mine is a dominatrix and her best client likes her to lock him in her shed while she shouts 'slag!' through the keyhole.
To conclude this weeks blog i'd like to finish with a simple request. Where can i purchase a bully boy black prince anal intruder?
Asking for a friend...
Wednesday, 27 March 2019
The observationist: car boot sales
The observationist: car boot sales: The car boot sale season is almost upon us here in Great Britain. I'm not sure if this is a national or international past time. I can&#...
car boot sales
The car boot sale season is almost upon us here in Great Britain. I'm not sure if this is a national or international past time. I can't imagine there are many car boot sales in the Maldives. For anyone who doesn't know, a car boot sale is a kind of second hand market where people turn up in their cars and sell their unwanted items to the general public out of their car boot.
Spring comes around but once a year closely followed by the spring clean which mostly involves getting rid of all the crap in your home. We drag hundreds of bags of outgrown clothes, board games with bits missing, books we'll never read and toys we hate (the noisy ones) to charity shops but then signs for imminent car boot sales appear and we think-hang on...surely charity starts at home? I can sell this crap! So we start stockpiling our unloved and unwanted shite preparing for a foray into becoming a weekend market trader.
The really organised among us will have a table to display our wares, possibly a clothing rail, a tin or tub to put our takings in and a man sized picnic and flask. The less organised may have a blanket at best, some loose change in the glove compartment and a half eaten pie under the passenger seat.
I am of the organised boot saler variety. I haven't done that many as a seller because they always seem like a good idea but after around two hours of strangers haggling and poking around in my stuff, albeit stuff i don't want, i've had enough. Why do buyers always say 'how much do you want for this?' to which you reply 'two pounds'. Then they will come back with 'I'll give you 50 pence'. I'm probably not the best sales woman at this point because my likely retort would be 'fuck off! We're not in Marrakech dickhead! If i'd wanted 50 pence i'd have said 50 pence not Two quid! Now do me a favour, have a word with yourself and piss off! Now go back to your mummy and tell her it's Two pounds or nothing for that stretchkin unicorn.' Fucking kids! Honestly!
I once went with my dad when i was around 13 years old to sell a load of stuff we had accumulated over the years. We were a bit late turning up and as we rolled up in my dad's Mazda 929 estate (very uncool) the buyers spotted us. They began to swarm the car like wasps at a picnic. It was terrifying, reminiscent of a zombie apocalypse. People desperate to see what we had for sale pressing their faces up against the car windows like that time i accidentally parked in a dogging spot to breast feed my daughter. My dad parked up and opened the car boot. People started reaching in grabbing anything they could reach saying things like 'how much do you want for this mixing bowl?' 'how much is the roll of lino?' How much do you want for the teenager?' Ok, i made the last one up but you get the picture. We finally managed to get our table up and set up shop. After around an hour my dad decided to go for a wander to see if anyone else was selling crap to replace the crap my mum was trying to get rid of. I was left in charge of our mini empire. While he was gone i made two sales. Pleased with myself i couldn't wait to share my entrepreneurial genius with my dad. He returned and keen to impress i showed him the five pounds i had procured. He was suitably impressed right up to the point when i told him what i had sold. Some smelly football boots and a metal thing with a handle on it. It transpired that i had in fact sold his very expensive rugby boots and his car jack. I've heard my dad swear before but never with actual tears in his eyes.
On another occasion many, many years later i had just left the army and moved back to the U.K. I found a job and a flat to rent. The flat was a strange design. It was sort of out on a limb from the other flats with nobody above or below and it had a large attic. I'd decided to do a car boot sale at the local race course as i had once again accumulated a lot of stuff i didn't need anymore. I sorted through what i wanted to get rid of and what i wanted to keep. The stuff i wanted to keep was then divide into what i wanted to keep and use and stuff i wanted to keep but store in the attic. I opened the attic hatch and to my surprise it contained suitcases full of clothes and a few boxes of tat. I rang my landlady to inform her of my find and to ask what i should do with it all. She told me it must have belonged to a previous tenant although the flat had been empty for a year prior to me moving in, so i should throw it out or take it to a charity shop. I told her i was doing a car boot sale with my old stuff and i'd take the attic stuff with me. She agreed this was a good idea.
Car boot sale day came and being the organised boot saler i am i got there early to get a decent pitch. I set up my table and even had a clothes rail and hangars for the clothes i'd found in the attic. I arranged everything beautifully and awaited the punters.It was a lovely sunny day and they came in their droves. I sold a lot of stuff and was feeling particularly smug when a shrill voice shouted out from the crowd surrounding the clothes rail. 'These are my clothes!' Well i haven't seen a crowd disperse that quickly since Shaun Roper at middle school did a fart so rancid our teacher was sick in a bin. Turns out the shrill voiced woman lived in my flat a year previous to me and just happened to be visiting friends in the area on that exact day and then had decided to go to the local car boot sale where i was selling her clothes. How mad is that? It's like the butterfly effect but without the death and destruction, just flares and boob tubes.
I prefer going to a car boot sale as a buyer to have a nosey at what folk are selling. I like the ordinary folk who have raided their attics or garages or sheds, found stuff they'd forgotten about then decided to sell it for next to nothing just for the craic. People that sell at car boot sales as a tax dodge job wind me up. If i wanted to buy wholesale sweets crammed into plastic boxes for a quid or car parts or my own body weight in out of date body creams i'd go to the market.
I want to see the remnants of people's lives laid out on a trestle table. I want to see 1970's lampshades, kerplunk, a rowing machine, betamax video tapes, unicorn stretchkins, a pogo stick, a prosthetic limb and a million mills & boon books. I want to go to a car boot sale and discover things i never knew i needed. A lexicon of life's melange, the flim flam of miscellany, a hodge podge of oddments and perhaps a new grate for my fire. I'm a firm believer in one man's rubbish is another man's treasure which is why i'm clearing my garage out tomorrow and preparing to do battle with the car boot sale fraternity this spring. Has anyone seen my trestle table?
Spring comes around but once a year closely followed by the spring clean which mostly involves getting rid of all the crap in your home. We drag hundreds of bags of outgrown clothes, board games with bits missing, books we'll never read and toys we hate (the noisy ones) to charity shops but then signs for imminent car boot sales appear and we think-hang on...surely charity starts at home? I can sell this crap! So we start stockpiling our unloved and unwanted shite preparing for a foray into becoming a weekend market trader.
The really organised among us will have a table to display our wares, possibly a clothing rail, a tin or tub to put our takings in and a man sized picnic and flask. The less organised may have a blanket at best, some loose change in the glove compartment and a half eaten pie under the passenger seat.
I am of the organised boot saler variety. I haven't done that many as a seller because they always seem like a good idea but after around two hours of strangers haggling and poking around in my stuff, albeit stuff i don't want, i've had enough. Why do buyers always say 'how much do you want for this?' to which you reply 'two pounds'. Then they will come back with 'I'll give you 50 pence'. I'm probably not the best sales woman at this point because my likely retort would be 'fuck off! We're not in Marrakech dickhead! If i'd wanted 50 pence i'd have said 50 pence not Two quid! Now do me a favour, have a word with yourself and piss off! Now go back to your mummy and tell her it's Two pounds or nothing for that stretchkin unicorn.' Fucking kids! Honestly!
I once went with my dad when i was around 13 years old to sell a load of stuff we had accumulated over the years. We were a bit late turning up and as we rolled up in my dad's Mazda 929 estate (very uncool) the buyers spotted us. They began to swarm the car like wasps at a picnic. It was terrifying, reminiscent of a zombie apocalypse. People desperate to see what we had for sale pressing their faces up against the car windows like that time i accidentally parked in a dogging spot to breast feed my daughter. My dad parked up and opened the car boot. People started reaching in grabbing anything they could reach saying things like 'how much do you want for this mixing bowl?' 'how much is the roll of lino?' How much do you want for the teenager?' Ok, i made the last one up but you get the picture. We finally managed to get our table up and set up shop. After around an hour my dad decided to go for a wander to see if anyone else was selling crap to replace the crap my mum was trying to get rid of. I was left in charge of our mini empire. While he was gone i made two sales. Pleased with myself i couldn't wait to share my entrepreneurial genius with my dad. He returned and keen to impress i showed him the five pounds i had procured. He was suitably impressed right up to the point when i told him what i had sold. Some smelly football boots and a metal thing with a handle on it. It transpired that i had in fact sold his very expensive rugby boots and his car jack. I've heard my dad swear before but never with actual tears in his eyes.
On another occasion many, many years later i had just left the army and moved back to the U.K. I found a job and a flat to rent. The flat was a strange design. It was sort of out on a limb from the other flats with nobody above or below and it had a large attic. I'd decided to do a car boot sale at the local race course as i had once again accumulated a lot of stuff i didn't need anymore. I sorted through what i wanted to get rid of and what i wanted to keep. The stuff i wanted to keep was then divide into what i wanted to keep and use and stuff i wanted to keep but store in the attic. I opened the attic hatch and to my surprise it contained suitcases full of clothes and a few boxes of tat. I rang my landlady to inform her of my find and to ask what i should do with it all. She told me it must have belonged to a previous tenant although the flat had been empty for a year prior to me moving in, so i should throw it out or take it to a charity shop. I told her i was doing a car boot sale with my old stuff and i'd take the attic stuff with me. She agreed this was a good idea.
Car boot sale day came and being the organised boot saler i am i got there early to get a decent pitch. I set up my table and even had a clothes rail and hangars for the clothes i'd found in the attic. I arranged everything beautifully and awaited the punters.It was a lovely sunny day and they came in their droves. I sold a lot of stuff and was feeling particularly smug when a shrill voice shouted out from the crowd surrounding the clothes rail. 'These are my clothes!' Well i haven't seen a crowd disperse that quickly since Shaun Roper at middle school did a fart so rancid our teacher was sick in a bin. Turns out the shrill voiced woman lived in my flat a year previous to me and just happened to be visiting friends in the area on that exact day and then had decided to go to the local car boot sale where i was selling her clothes. How mad is that? It's like the butterfly effect but without the death and destruction, just flares and boob tubes.
I prefer going to a car boot sale as a buyer to have a nosey at what folk are selling. I like the ordinary folk who have raided their attics or garages or sheds, found stuff they'd forgotten about then decided to sell it for next to nothing just for the craic. People that sell at car boot sales as a tax dodge job wind me up. If i wanted to buy wholesale sweets crammed into plastic boxes for a quid or car parts or my own body weight in out of date body creams i'd go to the market.
I want to see the remnants of people's lives laid out on a trestle table. I want to see 1970's lampshades, kerplunk, a rowing machine, betamax video tapes, unicorn stretchkins, a pogo stick, a prosthetic limb and a million mills & boon books. I want to go to a car boot sale and discover things i never knew i needed. A lexicon of life's melange, the flim flam of miscellany, a hodge podge of oddments and perhaps a new grate for my fire. I'm a firm believer in one man's rubbish is another man's treasure which is why i'm clearing my garage out tomorrow and preparing to do battle with the car boot sale fraternity this spring. Has anyone seen my trestle table?
Thursday, 14 March 2019
The observationist: Fashion
The observationist: Fashion: I don't make any claims to being a fashionista by any means. Infact, i think i'm the opposite. I don't mean i will go out of my ...
Fashion
I don't make any claims to being a fashionista by any means. Infact, i think i'm the opposite. I don't mean i will go out of my way to dress like i've recently escaped from an institution for the criminally insane or that i'm disrespecting all fashion. I wear what i want to wear and won't be dictated to by the latest trends designed by a failed art student. I like to be comfortable and dress according to the weather. This isn't because i'm in my mid forties, i've always been that way inclined. When i was a teen my friends would go on a night out looking like they'd thrown an outfit on and missed, i preferred my doc martins and a warm coat. I never caught hypothermia and i don't have bunions. I like a top and trouser/jeans/skirt combo or occasionally a dress. Co-ordinated but doesn't scream 'look at my labels' or 'i'm a twat'.
I like a classic designer such as Chanel but i can't get my head around anything designed by Vivienne Westwood.
I'm a child of the 70's-the decade that taste forgot-and i don't recall seeing anyone with gaffa tape across their nipples or their earlobe stretched so wide you could train a small pony to jump through it. Just good old platform shoes, flares and mullets to die for.
I was a teen in the 80's and the closest i got to following a trend was getting my mum to buy me some fluorescent socks. Other than that 80's fashion with it's leg warmers, shoulder pads and huge hair bewildered me and i wanted no part of it. Imagine my horror when it started to make a come back in 2018 and my two teenage girls wanted me to buy jackets with shoulder pads and boyfriend jeans. I had a new romantic flashback and felt the urge to backcomb my hair and don electric blue mascara. Don't worry though readers, i had a word with myself.
Sometimes i think fashion designers are either trying to outdo each other or seeing what they can get away with. A prime example of this was the crotchless jeans that came out last year. Did anyone actually buy those? I doubt it although they're probably really popular in dogging circles. Practical and airy.
I know some folk are particularly dedicated to fashion and will feel compelled to buy whatever the latest trend is. I've got nothing against these folk as i believe each to their own, it's just not for me. I've never been a follower of anything which is why i'm rubbish at twitter and instagram. My attention span is too low for that caper. Even social media falls foul to fashion. Facetube, instatwat and snapwank go in and out of favour like a 1970's disc jockey. I can't keep up so i don't try to. My teens are always telling me how to get more followers but i'm not that bothered about being followed unless someone is actually physically following me wearing a mac and carrying a chloroform cosh and some rope...then i may call the police.
Inexplicably diets also go up and down like a bride's nightie in the fashion stakes. Surely if a diet works how can it become uncool? About a decade ago when the atkins diet was de rigueur people on it would cut out all carbs, lose 9 stone in a week and pay £6.00 for a loaf of carb free bread which had the density of plutonium and would survive a nuclear explosion. They lost weight, sure, but had unbelievable halitosis and shit out actual fire. Not for me chief. These days people love a detox diet where they eat mad bollocks like seaweed, kale, cotton balls, tapeworm eggs and their own toenails. Cabbage soup, macrobiotic, potato, juice cleanse, charcoal, baby food, vision and shangri la are all real names of real faddy diets that are no longer fashionable.
Hairstyles seem to vary from being quite localised to the national hair do of choice. Hair straightners changed a lot of people's lives in recent years by being able to tame even the wildest of barnets. I confess, i do own a pair of these but it's very rare i will use them. My hair is blonde and naturally wavy which i quite like although my great nanna used to say 'do you even own a brush? You have the hair of nazzymova'. I have no idea who nazzymova is but i bet they had fabulous hair. I don't really like unnatural hair colours on people. I always feel like asking them if they're a natural purple or blue.It just looks odd. It's almost like they are saying 'hey look at me with my fun hair because i'm a fun person', which incidentally they generally aren't. I've met a few punks in my time and not one of them told me a joke. I had a perm once in the late 80's in a feeble attempt to follow the fashion and i ended up looking like a Ken Dodd tribute act. Never again.
From all of the different fashions, clothes, hair, shoes, diets etc the one that confuses me most is makeup trends. From the garish brown and green thick eyeshadow and red lippy of the 70's, electric blue mascara and black eyeliner of the 80's to the fresh hell of the 'natural look' in the noughties with teens and adults plastering so much foundation and highlighter on they actually gain a stone in weight. The end product is neither natural or practical. Don't even get me started on the thick eyebrow that makes ladies and gents look like they're constantly angry. My eldest daughter subscribes to this trend and sports the heavier eyebrow much to my annoyance. The eyebrow doesn't irritate me as such it's the fact that she takes so long doing it. She has missed the school bus countless times due to her morning eyebrow regime. It both infuriates and perplexes me that she's late for school but her eyebrows are on time. As i am not a big fan of too much makeup or ever changing fashion i shall continue to bow out of needing to look like everyone else and continue, instead, to march to the beat of my own drum.
I like a classic designer such as Chanel but i can't get my head around anything designed by Vivienne Westwood.
I'm a child of the 70's-the decade that taste forgot-and i don't recall seeing anyone with gaffa tape across their nipples or their earlobe stretched so wide you could train a small pony to jump through it. Just good old platform shoes, flares and mullets to die for.
I was a teen in the 80's and the closest i got to following a trend was getting my mum to buy me some fluorescent socks. Other than that 80's fashion with it's leg warmers, shoulder pads and huge hair bewildered me and i wanted no part of it. Imagine my horror when it started to make a come back in 2018 and my two teenage girls wanted me to buy jackets with shoulder pads and boyfriend jeans. I had a new romantic flashback and felt the urge to backcomb my hair and don electric blue mascara. Don't worry though readers, i had a word with myself.
Sometimes i think fashion designers are either trying to outdo each other or seeing what they can get away with. A prime example of this was the crotchless jeans that came out last year. Did anyone actually buy those? I doubt it although they're probably really popular in dogging circles. Practical and airy.
I know some folk are particularly dedicated to fashion and will feel compelled to buy whatever the latest trend is. I've got nothing against these folk as i believe each to their own, it's just not for me. I've never been a follower of anything which is why i'm rubbish at twitter and instagram. My attention span is too low for that caper. Even social media falls foul to fashion. Facetube, instatwat and snapwank go in and out of favour like a 1970's disc jockey. I can't keep up so i don't try to. My teens are always telling me how to get more followers but i'm not that bothered about being followed unless someone is actually physically following me wearing a mac and carrying a chloroform cosh and some rope...then i may call the police.
Inexplicably diets also go up and down like a bride's nightie in the fashion stakes. Surely if a diet works how can it become uncool? About a decade ago when the atkins diet was de rigueur people on it would cut out all carbs, lose 9 stone in a week and pay £6.00 for a loaf of carb free bread which had the density of plutonium and would survive a nuclear explosion. They lost weight, sure, but had unbelievable halitosis and shit out actual fire. Not for me chief. These days people love a detox diet where they eat mad bollocks like seaweed, kale, cotton balls, tapeworm eggs and their own toenails. Cabbage soup, macrobiotic, potato, juice cleanse, charcoal, baby food, vision and shangri la are all real names of real faddy diets that are no longer fashionable.
Hairstyles seem to vary from being quite localised to the national hair do of choice. Hair straightners changed a lot of people's lives in recent years by being able to tame even the wildest of barnets. I confess, i do own a pair of these but it's very rare i will use them. My hair is blonde and naturally wavy which i quite like although my great nanna used to say 'do you even own a brush? You have the hair of nazzymova'. I have no idea who nazzymova is but i bet they had fabulous hair. I don't really like unnatural hair colours on people. I always feel like asking them if they're a natural purple or blue.It just looks odd. It's almost like they are saying 'hey look at me with my fun hair because i'm a fun person', which incidentally they generally aren't. I've met a few punks in my time and not one of them told me a joke. I had a perm once in the late 80's in a feeble attempt to follow the fashion and i ended up looking like a Ken Dodd tribute act. Never again.
From all of the different fashions, clothes, hair, shoes, diets etc the one that confuses me most is makeup trends. From the garish brown and green thick eyeshadow and red lippy of the 70's, electric blue mascara and black eyeliner of the 80's to the fresh hell of the 'natural look' in the noughties with teens and adults plastering so much foundation and highlighter on they actually gain a stone in weight. The end product is neither natural or practical. Don't even get me started on the thick eyebrow that makes ladies and gents look like they're constantly angry. My eldest daughter subscribes to this trend and sports the heavier eyebrow much to my annoyance. The eyebrow doesn't irritate me as such it's the fact that she takes so long doing it. She has missed the school bus countless times due to her morning eyebrow regime. It both infuriates and perplexes me that she's late for school but her eyebrows are on time. As i am not a big fan of too much makeup or ever changing fashion i shall continue to bow out of needing to look like everyone else and continue, instead, to march to the beat of my own drum.
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